Chap Chay — Restaurant in Tamil Nadu

Chap Chay has been my family’s favorite Asian Restaurant for quite some time and the new menu has put Chap Chay on my favorites list as well. A few foodies and I were invited to taste a few items from the menu and this happens quite rarely that we had no complaints by the end of the meal and even more rarely that our Non Vegetarian counter parts liked the Vegetarian dishes more. From the Soups to Starters to the Mains and Dessert, our taste buds were in for a treat.

The ambiance of Chap Chay is quite elegant with soothing oriental music playing in the background, some Chinese lettering on the wall and for some reason I feel the Chinese Language has the most beautiful fonts compared to any other foreign languages, one of the walls had the Dimsums baskets as decor and the ceiling was covered with brightly lit lights in lanterns which I felt was quite quirky.

For conversation starters, we were given some Jasmine tea, which is a seed that blooms open into a flower when poured over with some hot water and also has some tiny jasmine flowers inside. I love Jasmine tea and ended up having more than four glasses of it. It served as a palette cleanser as well in between the courses giving me a fresh taste perspective of the varied dishes.

A special mention for the wide range of Dimsums available at Chap Chay, we were given with three varieties of Veg Dimsums, the Wotif which is Edamame Cheese Dumpling was my personal favorite, the cheese just melts in your mouth and this is the first time I tasted Edamame which has a similar texture like green peas and it gave a salty balance to the creamy cheese. The Szechuan Vegetables Dimsums had quite a kick in terms of the spiciness of the Szechuan sauce and had a nice after taste. The Crystal Dimsum has Shiitake mushrooms, Enoki and bean sprout, though I don’t like Mushrooms, I gave this Dimsum a try and the flavor of the Shiitake mushroom was delectable. These mushrooms also have medicinal properties so it’s good to have them.

For soup, we had the Cantonese Vegetables Wanton Soup. The clear soup was spiced well, especially with the integration of burnt garlic and the wanton was cooked to perfection which enhanced the taste of the soup. By cooked to perfection I mean, the wanton was neither hard nor rubbery because the heat of the soup sometimes tends to overcook the wanton shell.

For appetizers, we had the Crispy Thai Lotus Roots mixed with sweet chilli and scallion. Sweet Chilli goes quite well with the scallions which has a mild onion taste and the lotus roots which has similar texture as tapioca. The next dish we had was the Chew Shi which is a cheese ball with pungent flavors of pepper, garlic, ginger and scallion.

For mains, we had the Vegetarian Thai Green Curry also known as Gaeng Kiew Wan Je where Je stands for vegetables. The mild coconuty flavors of this famous curry were on point and went well with Jasmine Rice.

We also had the Koi Toy Phad Kee Mao, which is sticky flat noodles, glassy in texture and tossed in spicy basil flavors.

For desserts, we had two amazing desserts that brought out the Chinese and Thai flavors in terms of the ingredients used to make them.

Choco lava cake with Matcha Green Tea sorbet was an absolute delight. The green tea sorbet was just perfff! And the Choco lava cake was light and blended well with green tea. Water Chestnuts is one of my favorite elements of the Thai cuisine and I absolutely loved the Jellied Water Chestnuts in Coconut milk and...

Me and my family went for dinner to Chap Chay. This the worst hotel and is not worth the hype. This restaurant should change their name from Chap Chay to Chap CHI.

Buffet:

1. I chose the buffet and I was told that dimsums are in the buffet menu because I specifically asked for that. But it's not and they provide false information. They didn't bother to take any responsibility for their mistake.

2. we have to choose the ingredients and provide them with a choice of our sauces. There was a variety of vegetables and were fresh except the bell peppers. Coming to the meat, poultry and sea food, it was disgusting. The beef were soaked in blood and some were gray in colour. When asked, they say it's fresh so we can understand their culinary knowledge. The prawns were stinking and not cleaned. The chicken sausage were rancid and literally tasted like vomit. I didn't even touch the chicken pieces and fish as they were frozen solid. The squid was slimy and not fresh. The non veg section was so minimal that you have to take a couple of cups to be satisfied.

3. the egg stir fry was nice with a lot of cashews and they use basmati rice for fried rice. Which Thai dish uses basmati? Btw the basmati rice was not cooked properly.

4. The "chefs" take their own time to cook their orders. Btw just because they're Asian and wear a white hat and coat doesn't make them authentic.

For the buffet, it was way below average and I don't recommend as it's a waste of money.

A la Carte:

1. Dimsums were nice and soft whereas the filling was tender.

2. Satay was undercooked and cold. If we order of the menu, we expect a decent plating with sides because that's why you're charging exorbitantly. Instead they just bring it on a dirty plate and serve it. We couldn't take another bite after the first one.

3. Pad thai was flavourless, literally. No sweet, spice, tangy, nothing. Just a plate of flavourless flat rice noodles. The fried rice was decent.

4. Soup wasn't up to the mark.

5. Sticky rice pudding was enjoyed by my family.

6. we ordered alcohol as well and no comment. Just a scam.

7. The sauces they gave were flavourless.

Service:

1. Pathetic service and they have the nerve to add service charges.

2. When called they said everything was booked but when in reality the restaurant had several empty seats. So why the unnecessary hype that we had to wait till 9pm to get a callback for a confirmation?

Ambiance:

1. We had a nice seating in the beginning but was joined by a group of adults who were extremely loud. The staff didn't have the concern to ask them to tone their voice down as they were a large crowd and wealthy.

2. We were asked to be shifted as we also made a request because we couldn't bear the noise.

Overall it's a pathetic knock off restaurant that doesn't deserve to be under Raintree. Kindly remove this blasphemy from your hotel.

The Thai festival was not authentic and was just a scam to impose exorbitant prices.

Btw loved the service of the Raintree staff who offered a free hotel cab for my family due to some technical issues...

I have dined at a handful of restaurants across the world (feel free to explore my profile), from all price points, and this has to be my worst experience I have had to date.

I arrived at around 7:30pm for dinner with 6 others. We sat down and placed orders for some drinks and appetizers. They came out in about 20min, reasonable time. The portion for the vegetable spring rolls were extremely small. I’d say the entire plate contained about 2 regular size rolls cut into 6 small pieces. The red chili chicken dish was alright.

Following the appetizers, our waiter then proceeded to take our menus which I found very strange, almost as if they thought we were done eating and ready for the bill. It then took another 45 minutes for another waiter to give us a menu, and when we asked she looked grumpy and unhappy to help us. All this time no waiter has came anywhere close to our table to refill our water cups (we ordered hot water).

We finally placed the order for our main dishes with a completely new waiter, and the food took about 30 more minutes to arrive. We ordered a vegetable curry, chicken noodle dish, and a pepper chicken fry. Additionally, we were forced to order a bowl of fried rice as our waiter informed us the curry won’t come with any rice, which is something I have never heard before at any Thai/Chinese restaurant I’ve been to.

Additionally, me and another person in my party went to their self service noodle station, and made 2 bowls. 1 of the bowls was successfully delivered to our table, however the second bowl I never saw again. I have no clue what happened to it, but the last time I saw it was when I turned it in to the chef to cook and it never got delivered to my table upon completion. Just another example of poor management and operations.

All of the food was extremely disappointing for the price point. This restaurant was casually charging inr 600+ for a lot of the meals, and the portion compared to quality is not good. This, on top of an extremely slow and unprofessional service is unacceptable. There was also a very large group of customers who were constantly yelling and talking loud, which was extremely disruptive and inappropriate for a fine dining restaurant like this. Security did absolutely nothing to mitigate the behavior of these customers as well.

My group sat down at around 7:30pm, and we walked out at close to 10:15pm. Being at a restaurant for almost 3 hours for dinner is not something that should be considered normal, and I am highly disappointed with my entire experience.

If there is anyone from the Chap Chay or Raintree hotel public relations team reading this, I’d appreciate if you could contact me privately for a more in depth discussion regarding my...