Tatami Chandigarh — Restaurant in Chandigarh

Tatami are types of straw mats used as flooring material in traditional Japanese houses. Although there are no tatami floors in this Tatami restaurant, the food is decent. First of all I want to clarify that I have no previous Japanese food experience so I don't have anything to compare it with. My views are solely based on the taste and the experience. Food we ordered-

1. Burnt Garlic Fried rice (veg) Rice was delicious in itself. I mean you don't even need a curry to make it taste good. All of us loved it.
2. Dan Dan noodles- Let's start with a back story. DanDan refers to a carrying pole that Japanese street vendors used to use to sell this dish. The name translates to "noodles carried on a pole". Here comes the interesting part. According to my research Dandan is supposed to be a spicy dish but the one that was served to us was kinda sweet. Yes, it worked with our curry. Yes, it was suggested by the staff only but why wasn't it spicy? But I also read somewhere that sometimes spicy sauces are replaced with seaseme paste or peanut butter to make it American Chinese style. So what was Japense in this, we need to figure it out.
3. Japanese curry- This was the highlight for me.The basic vegetables in this curry are potatoes, carrot and onions. Curry was introduced in Japan in late 1800s and it became popular in early 1900s. Did you know that curry was brought to Japan from India by the Britishers? Anyway, coming back to the dish, it was flavourful and different. I mean, there was something new in the taste. It definitely didn't taste like soy sauce so that was interesting.. This would be my recommendation for you to try when and if you visit this restaurant.
4. Tori Katsu It's a chicken dish which I have no opinion about. But my chicken eating friend really liked it. It was bread crumbled chicken which was deep fried. It was served with a fruit based brown sauce which my friend says "imli ka sauce" and Mayo. We also tried spinach and cheese dimsums which I didn't like. They tasted bland to me.

Do I recommend this place? -Ummm, yeah, may be. If you want to try something different (not extremely different) , give it a shot. It's definitely not authentic but the vibe is good and you can definitely embarrass or make yourself proud while trying to lift things...

I was in Chandigarh for a few days and one weekend me & my family planned to go somewhere for dinner. Tatami was recommended to me as one of the best places in Chandigarh for Japanese food.

While I do have some familiarity with Japanese cuisine, I don’t call myself an expert of sorts 😅 Anyways, I was excited to have some good food here.

Tatami is easy to spot as it is situated along the road, where you even have ample parking space. We reached this place in the evening and lucky for us, it wasn’t crowded at the moment.

The overall ambience is pretty nice. The whole bamboo & wooden look gives the place a different vibe 🏮

FOOD Tiger Prawn Tempura & Tori Katsu The fried prawns were good. Crispy and light. And the same for Tori Katsu! You can never go wrong with properly deep-fried chicken or prawns!

Asparagus Tempura Roll & Non-veg Sushi Platter Tempura Roll was okay for me. Even though it was a bit different from what I’ve had in the past, it wasn’t bad but not great either. Non-veg sushi platter didn’t feel that it had 3 varieties of sushi as all of them had the same mayonnaise topping on them, which eventually had a similar taste. Not recommended.

Miso Ramen (Chicken) This one was a disaster. I like Ramen. I’ve had Miso Ramen at so many places, the recent one being in Bangkok at a Japanese ramen speciality restro. The one served here tasted too salty and I could even taste excessive soy sauce in this! It ruined my overall palette. While I appreciate the quantity of this ramen served here, I think the taste could’ve been improved. Definitely not recommended.

I don’t think I would suggest this place to anyone for typical Japanese food. Tatami has a great rating everywhere and people had an amazing experience here; it wasn’t a...

Loved EVERYTHING we ordered- Japanese fried chicken, basil prawns for appetizers, and the sushi platter !!!! Nothing disappointed. Every dish was outstanding and honestly exceeded expectations.

I really hope this place maintains its standards in service, staff, and quality because so many places start off strong and then gradually go downhill. I’d really hate to see that happen here.

One small letdown was the mocktail menu. They had around 9 listed, but only 2 were actually available because they didn’t have the fruits. That was a bit disappointing since it’s such a basic thing to stock, and I was looking forward to trying at least one.

Also, while the menu looked a bit worn out from the front, I didn’t care. ✨BONUS points for the animated pictures inside!✨ I genuinely wish every restaurant did that. I always want to see what I’m ordering, and having visuals makes such a big difference when choosing.

Overall, everything was so good, and I honestly can’t wait to come back and try the rest...