Brick Kitchen - Ahmedabad

The first thing that you’ll notice when you reach Five Petals are the amazing series of lights that cover the entire front façade of the building. It’s hard to miss them. There is ample parking space here so that’s not an issue, really. The gate keeper would help you with that if you ask for assistance.

The restaurant is on the 2^nd floor of the hotel and has a huge waiting area along with an enormously large dining area. Now I have been here several years ago so I felt the need to update my old review. I distinctly remember having tandoori momos during my last visit and I thought of giving them a try again. And as expected they were still brilliant. I got a takeaway that day because it was the Diwali weekend and I did not want to wait the long hours or go through the commotion of it all, just to get my food. I told the staff my order, got the things and was on my way when all the people started rushing in for their dinners. It is quite a popular place, or so I gather from the number of people that came to dine in while I was waiting for my order to be ready. The staff is courteous and polite and very efficient with their work. I was really impressed.

So this is an all vegetarian restaurant, not a very uncommon notion when it comes to Ahmedabad, but it most definitely is one of the good ones. I placed an order for tandoori momos, a paneer main course and some steamed rice along with butter naan. The food was packed in shiny black boxes with a transparent lid along with some salad and sliced onions. The momos were accompanied by the green chutney. We particularly liked the momos and the rice. It was super long and super fluffy. I don’t know how they managed that but it was a delight! The paneer subzi too was moderately spiced and was quite nice except for the fact that the gravy was too scanty. The portion sizes of all except the subzi were decent to feed two people. I say that because the restaurant has its menu priced a little on the higher side when you compare it with the quantity. So keep that in mind. The salad that was given to us, wasn’t the usual chopped veggies but nicely dressed up in some sort of vinaigrette and curd. It tasted really good and went well with the momos. So all in all, it is a great restaurant with a nice view, good staff and ample space that could accommodate even a large party of 20 with ease!

Bon Appetite!

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Muncheestan - Ahmedabad

Yet another late-night-just-delivery outlet. Well that introduction would have been true until recently. Why you ask? Because they have started day time deliveries as well! Yup, your favourite night time savior is now delivering between 11 to 4 PM as well. So that’s news. Now this place has been around for quite some time and I had heard a lot from people who had ordered from them. It was almost 2:30 in the night and my gang was super hungry after our little party, so we go online to zomato and place an order with them for about 4 dishes including pastas and fried raviolis and garlic bread and the sort. It says they’d take about 75 minutes to deliver which makes the estimated delivery time post 3:45 and we were fine with that. Anything rather than cooking for 6 people at that ungodly hour!

Post the 60 minute mark, we were anxious as to what was going on in the restaurant, so we open the app to track the status and it still reads “order accepted”.  The payment was done in advance via net banking and we still did not see any progress with the order. It hadn’t even reached the stage of “In the kitchen” so naturally we called them and lo! No one would answer. After calling them for a million times during the next hour to no avail, someone from zomato gave us a call that there is some technical glitch and the order should reach us in next 15 minutes. 20 minutes go by and not a single update and the order status too is unchanged on the app. This time we call the zomato guy who had given us a call earlier and we weren’t surprised when even he did not pick up! It was 4:30 and we were furious. More so, we did not want to get into the hassle of getting the payments reverted.

4:45 AM, we go into the kitchen to make ourselves some maggi and the phone rings. They finally reached around 5:10 AM with the food and we were kind of disappointed.

But things aren’t so bad now. I get a call from the lady who owns the place after two days of this incident. She apologizes for the goof up and tells me the real reason behind all of it. Reliance communications had gone down for a few hours that night and as it so happens, these guys are their subscribers. They did not get any calls from us that night on their direct number due to this unforeseen shut down. The people at the zomato who took the order did not inform these guys until late that we have placed an order. And by the time these guys were informed, they were about to close. Still they prepped the food and got the delivery done which obviously had to be late. The people at zomato also called and confirmed this version however they did not apologize. The lady had also asked zomato people to add her direct line for customers to contact her instead of the zomato call center as the call center isn’t functional the entire night and she has a business that essentially functions during those hours. She offered to revert our money back and also send us the same order again, free of charge this time because of all the inconvenience that was caused the other night but we declined that because the thing was already done and what would I alone be doing with so much food! After all, it was a small party the other night. So after all the discussions with the guys at zomato and the lady who also has a mail from zomato accepting the same, I can say that it was a really bad night for the both of us, and only the guys at zomato’s call center were to blame who shrugged their responsibilities. Issues resolved! We have since ordered again from them and have received timely deliveries of good food, which is relieving because after all we don’t have many options for good delivery outlets let alone the ones that can pull an all-nighter!   

The recent additions like the Chipotle bowl, Chinese combo and the Chhole puri have been a special delight. The crunchy nachos served along with the rice and delicious sauces makes the bowl a must try for any chipotle lover! And the Chinese combo has everything. From the very obvious Manchurian and noodles to rice and gravy. A full meal for anyone who is craving for something Chinese. Also, they call it chhole puri but infact I found it to be more like a chhole bhature. Well, when it exceeds a certain diameter, it isn’t a puri for me anymore. Nonetheless, it had pickle and curd and gulab jamun accompanying it so even that felt like a meal in itself. Basically the new and improved menu covers all the various demographics of their customers. Be it people with late night food pangs or ones wanting a particular cuisine say American or Indian or Chinese or be it the regulars who just want a good and hearty meal. They have something for everyone which is great! If you haven’t tried their new menu yet, I don’t know what you’re waiting for.

And yes, Bon Apetit!

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