Karaikudi Chettinad Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

First visit and will be the only visit. Location and parking were good. Service disaster as one lady with a pad taking whole restaurant orders. Then we waited 16 minutes to give our order. Ask them to serve all food together as very clean and clear simple English as a request. First dish arrive after another 20 minutes. Second dish came followed by another 7 minutes. Third two dishes came followed by another 6 minutes from the second dish served time. Most importantly my kids dishes came total of 36 minutes after first dish. I would say simply lack of management and organizing skills. Staff running like headless chicken as they don’t have one particular area or tables being assigned. It’s very clear. Management skills and expertise matters. They really need to train their staff. At least basics of service skills. After messing up our food order they even did many mistakes. To ask for tissues I’ve physically had to walk to the lady who was taking orders. That’s after requesting from three different staff. Then after stormy experience ordered a simple dessert as my son wants to have it. One staff bring the dessert in hand and spoon already inside the dessert with missing scoop of ice cream. Once I’ve ask where’s ice cream without a hesitation he picked up the dessert from the table bare hand again. No tray as the way he brought it earlier. Saying sorry ran to kitchen dropped a scoop and brought it again. ( these kind of service we can experienced in any roadside restaurants in India or sub continent countries) Ordered two tea and guy came with two teas and served them and about to ran away as he was overloaded with another task probably without giving us sugar bowl which he already brought with the tea. I had to stop him and take the sugar. Finally the lady with pad came and says sorry many times tried to explain me about their vacation plan and some other issues which is I’m not there to listen as a customer. I was there to enjoy food and service not a short story how they run the business. Simple. My apologies but that’s the naked truth we were there to eat and enjoy not for restaurants business tragedy. It was busy with lots of people. All I’ve experienced is very unorganized premises. Now I’m not the owner neither looking forward to teach them how to run business. But with my experience and price they offer it’s a very unprofessional restaurant. Regarding food. My rating is 3 out of 10. Not value for money and our time as well as taste buds. One of the overpriced and unorganized restaurant in Kennedy road. Choice is yours. I’ve stated my experience and certainly not...

Next Culinary Stop: (Almost) Chettinad

Food sounds exotic when you have masala like tamarind, fennel seed, cinnamon, peppercorn, fenugreek, clove, bay leaf and star aniseed in your dish. And that exotic food is Chettinad cuisine when it's freshly ground and aromatic.

Karaikudi restaurant offers Chettinad cuisine which is historically famous for sun-dried meats, salted vegetables and rice-based dishes. Traditionally vegetarians, the Chettinad people of South India had non-vegetarian influences from Malabar coast and savoury recipes from as far as the Kingdom of Burma.

The fine dining setting mimics the royal mansions of Chettinad with their heritage rosewood pillars and bamboo lattices. The aura settles in when you browse through their Kothu Roti and Biryani dishes.

However the restaurant doesn't really offer authentic Chettinad cuisine. Chicken Kothu Roti was less on cumin and curry powder. Masala Tea wasn't brewed well so did not give the punch you need while digging into the spices of India. The saving grace was Egg Biryani that had flavours of minced chilli and ginger garlic.

You can find traces of Northern India and China as their menu offers Chilli Gobi Dry (cauliflower florets fried with Indian Chinese spices), Channa Masala (Chickpeas' gravy) and Noodles. Marketing-wise they are smart as they have Mutton Vindaloo amongst others for attracting those alien to Indian cuisine. Rice pudding, an influence from Burma in Chettinad cuisine could not be found on the menu.

The serving took so much time that we had it packed to-go. Overall the spices don't make you bloated and good if you are craving for an...

Dined in here after a few years. We made reservations for 7 and our table was ready when we got there. I was happy that it wasn't too crowded on a Friday evening since we went with a 2 year old and a baby.

We ordered a bottle of Merlot, mango milkshake, falooda, fries, chicken 65, chilli gobi dry, chilli fish dry, chettinad chicken curry, mutton chukka masala, fish curry, kadai paneer, garlic naan, butter naan, veg biryani, plain dosa, ghee masala dosa, onion tomato chili uttapam and madras coffee.

The mango milkshake and falooda weren't that great. The milk had a funny taste and falooda wasn't that sweet. We've definitely had better. The chicken 65 of course tasted really good and so did the chilli gobi dry. They had good flavour. The chilli fish was ok, not as expected. The fish in the fish curry didn't have much flavour and tasted watery however the gravy tasted good. The chettinad chicken curry tasted good and was flavoured well. The kadai paneer and mutton sukka was okay but We definitely had better.

The veg biryani and naan tasted good. Ghee masala dosa, plain dosa, and onion tomato chilli uttapam tasted really good. Better than expected. The tomato chutney went well with the dosa/uttappam. We really liked it. We ordered the fries for my son but it tasted so good that we ordered more. We left the restaurant talking more about the fries than anything else loll. And of course nothing comes close to the madras coffee which was amazing.

I do have to mention though that their portions got ALOT smaller than they were before. They already had small portions and we felt that it's even...