Eden Besant Nagar is Excellent, But

We’ve eaten at Eden Besant Nagar twice and Eden Chetpet once. The food has been uniformly delectable all the 3 times. We loved the Kele Ke Parsinde – an unique dish made of raw bananas and the Multi Grain Roti (Indian Flat Bread). Don’t miss them. But Eden suffers from poor service. If you are meeting a long-lost friend, this is the best place to go. It typically takes 45 minutes for them to serve the appetizers. Don’t even ask about the main course. Eden Besantnagar also suffers from a serious mosquito infestation problem. Why couldn’t they put one of them mosquito repellents? We pointed it out to the attendants and they didn’t seem to care. They were also actively promoting their newest Annanagar branch. Overall, if you can tolerate the service you can enjoy some good food.

Comments

  1. Anonymous said January 14, 2007, 6:33 am:

    I am at Chennai for about a month now and enjoy the city life. The Besantnagar beach is one of my favourite hangout and many a times I land up at nearby restaurants.
    I have been to Karaikudi, the Chettinad restaurant thrice. Unfortunately, every time I faced a peculiar problem. While I am eating, suddenly the waiter comes and starts picking up the bowls and dishes. While some of them are empty, some are NOT. Everytime I request him not to do this, another waiter comes back within a minute and repeat the same act.
    I am wondering why the waiters at the restaurant are so unkind to me, do you think I am committing some cultural faux paus here?
    I know I can just stop visiting that restaurant, but a posisble reason for such weird kind of behaviour from some Chennaiite will be very much welcome.
    Regards,
    Ayan
    ayan@rocketmail.com

  2. Anonymous said January 14, 2007, 9:26 am:

    Ayan,

    Thanks for dropping by. It appears that you are referring to the Karaikudi at Besant Nagar. We haven’t visited that one, but we have visited their branch location at Radhakrishnan Salai. Over there, we didn’t notice the problem you have encountered.

    Myself and Priya Raju discussed this and we came up with a few relevant things:

    1. Could be the case of a bunch of overzealous waiters at this restaurant. We have come across a few in our outings.

    2. You may want to make a small scene by complaining to the manager, the next time it happens so that they may learn.

    3. One possibility is your body language. While you are eating, if you still haven’t finished eating, don’t lean back on the chair in a relaxing pose with your eyes focused outward. Sometime we do tend to do this when we are eating slowly or when we are just having a relaxed meal. This may be seen as a sign of having finished, by the waiters. If you are indeed doing this, you may want to change to a different body language.

    Hope that helps.

  3. Anonymous said January 29, 2007, 1:14 am:

    Dear Sukumar,

    Thanks for the reply.

    I had actually talked with the guy in the cash counter beside the entrance about this. He apologized. But again it happened next time. One thing I forgot to tell you that such things do piss me off a lot. So every time I gave a tips of Re1/- only, just to express my discomfort with the behavious of the waiter.

    I will keep in mind the body language part. But still, once I request them not to pick up the things, they shouldn’t send the waiter again.

    Thank you for the comments,

    Ayan

  4. Anonymous said January 29, 2007, 11:48 am:

    Ayan,

    Too bad. Even after complaining if they keep doing it, that is very irritating. I would be pissed off as well. As a side note, i find that unlike in the USA, waiters don’t work mainly for tips. So tipping less doesn’t send the message you are looking to send. I guess you should stop patronizing this restaurant.