Dinners over Week ends -- Crowds , the wait and the inability to ...

For the past the six to eight weeks , I have been noticing a difficulty and it showed lack of abundant good eateries in Chennai and also the fact that many people prefer eating out over week ends. I am not referring to high end luxury restaurants ( they may be crowded as well ) but those that are Vegetarian and do not harm the wallet very much. May be this situation has been in existence for a much longer time than i found out but I noticed it because we were trying to go out over the last six weeks to eight week end with friends for dinner and had a struggle to book tables and eat peacefully and connect well amongst us.

One good veggie restaurant which is expanding and runs its restaurant as part of a Hotel does not open till 7 PM and they take calls only after 6:45 Pm. And even if they pick up , they do not take any booking ." Come along , let us see " is the response. "Come at Sharp 7 PM " and you may get a table is the answer. So , you kind of rush , tension filled , call your dining partners for the day ( Friends , families ) and tell them to be on time as well and you land at 7:10 PM , the restaurant is full and wait time is at least 45 minutes. You are stunned , disappointed at hanging around . And the odd thing that you do is to stare at each table and see what stage of the meal course they are in … and keep staring till the people at the table become conscious of you.!

And when you get the table , it is like you achieved something big in life . Service is fast and you are chased out as quickly as you could be. If you think you can chat around , get the families to relax, no chance . Restaurants want to turn around each table as fast as they can and want to make as much as they can . Nothing wrong , I suppose.

The situation is the same with other places that I tried out . You have to run in , hope to get a table and finish quick dinner and it is no more fun to go out over the week ends .

End of the day , I was wondering , why were we doing these Dinners together if we cannot spend the time that we want to spend eating the food we like and socialising ?

Any thoughts ?

Comments

Aravind said…
Sri,

It all started with people standing near those who are sitting and eating, in T.Nagar Saravana Bhavan. They even used to do "sir-ku more konduvappa" et al.

The best thing to do is to hunt for a chaat shop (like OSB in W.Mambalam), hang out there by eating chaat items. Alt 2 would be to make a list of things to buy in advance, buy it from a take-away in SB, switch on AC in full swing and have them at home :) It works out well and you save the tips!
11:10 PM
RVRajan-Celebrating Life said…
I went to the Saravana`s(Mylapore)at about 9.45pm recently and found the place packed with people. I had to wait for 10 minutes. I think more and more women are lazy to cook at home and hence the overcrowding of restaurants. If you want to relax with friends over dinner star restaurants are the only options. They squeeze every penny out of your purse but wont chase you away. R.V.Rajan
4:35 PM
shobha arvind said…
Srikanth
9:14 PM
shobha arvind said…
Ya even i have experienced people holding my chair when i was eating @ saravan bhavan t.nagar few years back. Recently when i visited and had a family get together at sravana bhavan (near woodlands i think) it was a buffet dinner.we had to rush at 6.45( is this the dinner time) and eat so fast so fast. i barely remeber seeing the entire menu also. we were neither able to talk with each other nor eat properly.instead pay more and go to luxurious restaurants thats better i feel.i loved annalakshmi's hospitality.
9:18 PM
Anonymous said…
Sri-best way to socilalise is to make chapati, tomato thooku, curd rice and take friends to beach, spend some time eat an lick the ice creams and back home :-) try it out-- subram lol
11:30 AM
Hariharan said…
Sri,

Best place to hang out with family during the weekends is on the restaurants in ECR. Even I have faced the situation you have mentioned several times in the city, either we have to wait for a table or somebody will be waiting for our table. There are some good restaurents in ECR which are pretty reasonable on our wallet and offers a quite dining place. But...finding a pure vegetarian hotel will be a challenge in ECR.
10:51 AM
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