Entree hotel -Express Avenue

 

Last Friday was my birthday and I wanted to do something as clichéd as having dinner with my husband. I was very clear that I didn't want to go to a place where we had been before. I wanted to try something new. After much squabbles and throat parching arguments, we settled on the Entrée hotel at Express Avenue, Royapettah.

 

I just had to walk to EA from my office and my husband drove all the way from OMR. The most delightful thing about this restaurant is that they offer free parking for the patrons...at the EA parking lot. For those who have burnt holes paying for parking at EA, I strongly recommend you people to have a bite at Entrée and grab the free parking coupon that they offer. It is so worth it.

 

And, you have other reasons apart from free parking to eat here. Number one -Budget friendly. My husband and I, being the gluttons that we are, ordered a starter, a soup that we split between us, a pizza, a nan, an aloo paratha and palak paneer and we just had to shell out Rs 1650 for all this. Quite a steal I say. And that brings us to number two -the food was sooooo yummy and delicious.

 

We had mushroom stuffed with cheese for the starter and it literally melted in our mouths. The soup was a roasted red bell pepper with paprika, which had just the right amount of salt and spice that we didn't have to add any extra salt or pepper. A rare occurrence indeed! The pizza was crisp and thin crusted and topped with roasted bell peppers, jalapeños and of course, cheese. One of the lightest and tastiest pizza I have ever had. It was not overloaded with cheese, and thus, we could enjoy the flavours of the veggies in it. Usually, I can't have more than 2 slices of pizza, but this one...man, I literally had to fight with my husband for my half share that we ended up gobbling and stuffing it in our face, lest we end up with one slice less. I know...very romantic of us.

 

Coming to the nan, I had garlic nan. Very flavourful and very easy to chew. Nan usually turns to rubber at the slightest reduction in temperature. Here, I ended up finishing the nan when it was still warm. My husband had aloo paratha and the generous amount of aloo stuffed in the paratha made it delicious. Palak paneer was good and the paneer was pretty soft (but not as soft as the ones you get in some dhabbas). We sadly didn't get to eat any dessert because we already had to loosen our pants with all that food cramming for space in our bellies.

 

We waddled out contently with the free parking coupon grinning like idiots. Definitely worth a visit.

And Oh, this is a pure veg restaurant. The menu has continental and Indian fare with a little bit of Chinese thrown in. Overall, not too many dishes to choose from. But that I think, makes our job easier as we can quickly make up our minds. They also have a decent buffet spread at Rs 650 per plate. Ambience is a little ok (Not the place to go if you want something cosy and romantic) as it is literally in the mall and all that outside noise filters in. Overall, we had a satisfactory dinner without burning any holes in our pocket.