Zaitoon, Anna Nagar East

We went here for a quick lunch recently. The experience was just average to be honest.

The Positives:
1. Ambience
2. Taste
3. Quantity
4. VFM

Coming to the menu,
This is what we ordered: Hummus(Medium), Kuboos, Cheese Naan, Paneer Hariyali Tikka, Punjabi Kofta, Zaitoon Favaco and Mini Falooda.

Ignoring the breads which almost taste the same in most places,

Hummus: This was plain hummus without any flavors. I like hummus in any form, so I had no complaints, though my companion felt it was too plain and bland. I would rate this ok.

Paneer Hariyali Tikka: Again this tasted like most other places and no special touch was present.

Punjabi Kofta: Very average. Wouldn’t mind missing it.

Zaitoon Favaco: This was the King of our lunch. I absolutely loved it. I was starting to feel I would never visit Zaitoon Anna Nagar again,(Will be mentioning why shortly), but this made me change my mind. It was brilliant and lovely and yummy. I wish I had treated the place like a desserts-only, instead of trying a full blown out lunch.

Mini Falooda: And this was the Queen of our lunch. My companion loved it and relished it.

The Negative(s):

The poor service topped them all. We typically have a habit of leaving 10% as tip and in cases where the service was exception, we leave around 20% as tip or 10% if SC had already been charged. In the past 1 year, Zaitoon Anna Nagar would be the first place where I didn’t even leave Rs. 1(About 0.001 % of our bill) as tip.

The waiters were only interested in watching the TV and chatting among themselves rather than taking our orders or serving us. I had to keep on calling them multiple times to take our orders or refill water. Recently, I’ve become used to hotels where the waiter always attends to the customer promptly. But here, we had to struggle to get the attention of the waiter. We felt like they were the VIPs whose attention we had to get.

I didn’t mention anything positive about the breads. But I’ve a negative to tell about them. They were cold. And little on the hard side. My first experience with Kuboos was in Zaitoon, Adyar and I must say it was loads better than here.

Overall rating:

Quantity: 4/5

Taste: 3.5/5 (Little high because of the desserts alone)

Cost/VFM: 3.5/5

Service: 1/5

Ambience: 3.5/5

Total: 3.0/5

Would I visit it again? Probably yes, because I’ve fallen for their desserts now.

Originally posted yesterday on Zomato: http://www.zomato.com/review/Xgvkw

Human, Existentialist, Knowledge Hunter, Blogger, Social Media Aficionado, Open Source FanBuoy, Tea Lover

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