At Namma Samayal, we went to a hotel, in fact a restaurant in Adyar called Crescent. I had mutton Briyani there and this is my review.

To say it in short, avoid eating mutton briyani in this hotel, as this was our experience. The hotel was fairly neat, just like any Chennai restaurant the seating was tight, the tables were bit small. This hotel is in basement, the cooling was suboptimal, the air-conditioner was not working properly or possibly was not adequate, it was assisted by a wall mounted fan. So if you want a good ambiance this is not a great restaurant for you.

I ordered a mutton briyani, the supervisor asked weather I want ordinary or Kerala style, I asked for ordinary one. It costs Rs 175/- actually pretty expensive. When I got the briyani, I was disappointed, the briyani looked white like Kerala style. When I ate it, I was more disappointed as there was no flavor in it.

It was really bland. With briyani they serve onion raitha, and a kurma. The kurma had no meaty flavor, the briyani was so so bland that it had to go along with the kurma, else it was just meat in rice.

I must talk about the meat, the meat was cooked well, and it was perfect, every bone that had edible marrow was cracked properly so that I can open it and eat it. The meat was tender. But the briyani was horrible. No meat flavor in rice, the rice was not basmathi, I wonder weather they cooked the rice with mutton?

The quantity of the briyani too was low, but the ratio of meat to rice was high compared to many hotels and was acceptable. Possibly is this is another briyani variety and I am mistaken? I don’t know.

The hotel is named Crescent and seems to be run by Muslims (in Muslim run hotels I expect really good quality briyani). In Chennai, one thinks pulao is briyani. Briyani is a dish where rice and meat are cooked in half independent of each other, finally they are mixed and cooked full. Briyani will be far less spicy than pulao. I don’t know if I am wrong in judging this hotel, as my mind thinks pulao is briyani, but the experience was not good.

I also wish the service could be improved, I asked for extra kurma and raitha to some how complete the ordered, but it came pretty late even when the hotel was almost empty.