Chennai Burps

A short foreword before the actual post: This post may not have happened if I had not happened to pass by Eatalica yesterday and the place looked as desolate as it was before.

Before the days of the big Mac and other burgers there was this little place where you would least expect it to be that came about because two hotel management grads from Trichy thought that they had a great idea of dishing out pastas and burgers to a starved city and it clicked.

From Kenzos to Eatalica the growth has been steady and Pupil in Besant Nagar is yet another off shoot of this group. The opening of the Nungambakkam joint spared a longer drive fro me and was a regular eat out when ever the burger urge came. Backed by some fabulous hoardings and good food they built up a big fan base with 259 members in their Orkut community. They USED to make decent stuff at decent prices.

With the operative term USED lets head to the post. On the day Mcdonald’s opened we got turned off by the huge crowd and decided to hit the old faithful for a burger and it was a big let down.

The place was empty on a Saturday which was quite surprising (maybe I haven’t been there in the recent past) and the place looked worn out and generally uninviting. The only things new in the menu cards are the prices that have been going up, up and away. I was shocked to find that many of the items were not available on the men u and the person who took our order was totally confused I suspected he was the delivery boy doing over time. Surprisingly they did not have beef, which I was told was exhausted and they did not get fresh supplies. We settled for two single burgers, mine without the cheese and D with the extra cheese and garlic bread with the only available vegetable toppings. Water took its own sewwt time to land on our table and we could not spot the salt / pepper cellars, paper napkins and the mandatory sauce bottles anywhere.

The food arrived and the garlic bread seemed devoid of any traces of garlic, they looked suspiciously like scraps drowned in cheese and little else. The burgers were passable, I remember way back then when they used to be juicy and eating them was gloriously messy. D felt that the chicken tasted a little funny but I was disappointed with the total effect to notice. The fries I must add were fried and fried hard and looked sad. The meal cost us around Rs.270.

I asked the person at the counter the reason for these dramatic changes, his answer was that they were going in for a renovation in a few days and so they were not taking in fresh supplies. So the supposition on leftovers got validated. When I wondered on the deadline for shutdown, they said in a few days, I passed by a week hence and it is status quo.

What ails you Eatalica? Have you succumbed already to McDonalds?

PS I saw a family who came in and after finding none of their choices available leave... I base my rating on that.

Rating:▼▼