Coal Barbecues — Restaurant in Tamil Nadu

I am not the kind of person who write food reviews. I sit, order, eat and tell myself if the food is worth it or not. Before we came here we went up on Google and saw all the 5 star reviews and thought why not. Not a huge fan of buffet foods but during this particular day me and my wife were bored of eating at our regular spots for weekends and wanted to try something new.

Here I go.

Parking Arrived at around 3 to 4 pm can't remember the exact time. Parking wasn't hard to find. The valet took my car and gave me my ticket.

Front desk. The personal asked if we were walk in or had a reservation. We didnt have reservation. And it wasn't a problem the personal told us to go to the second floor. We went and the Waiter/reservation manager gave us a large table and said they won't disturb us and its okay. ( he explained it would take a very long time to get a table for 2 ).

At this point we were impressed by the staff. Courteous and exceptionally friendly.

The welcome drink- It was a green mango juice not fresh green mango. The kind you get from any store if you asked for a green mango syrup for mocktails. It was warm to touch. Seemed it was never cold. And I kept it aside, after 5 minutes of keeping still one could see the green syrup settle down. Like one of those school experiments, do water and oil mix?

Ambience- Okay this can be forgiven but for some it can be a deal breaker. It was the Saturday afternoon rush. Lot of college/work/school gang lunch meet up so the music was loud.

It was Jamaican theme there was some Jamaican food festival going on till August 10. Which I thought was fun.

Starters- Here is where the trouble started. The waiter was kind. He said he would bring us fieat medium spicy food.

Chicken, fish and prawns. The seasoning was bland. So bland I thought I lost my sense of taste for moment. No spice, no salt and nothing. Absolutely bland. I am allergic to shellfish but my wife said the prawns was okay.

Disappointed already. Okay I realised it's Jamaican festival. Jerk chicken. Always wanted to try jerk chicken. From the meme. The BBC cooking YEAH BYO meme.

Asked the waiter to get me some jerk chicken. The waiter looked hesitant I asked again Do you have it? He said I will get it. Doubting I was looking at everyone table to see if anyone is ordering it. Couldn't find it. Till the very end The JERK CHICKEN NEVER ARRIVED.

The mutton sheik kebab didnt look appatezing they looked pale. Again bland and lacked flavor. The chicken tikka cold and same bland

Me and my wife used the mint chutney from the side to give it some taste. We emptied the bowl of mint chutney.

The starters in summary were a disappointment. Lacked flavor. No spice. No heat. Nothing...

The other main course. Took a lap around and found very little choices.

The containers containing the food looked dirty. The handles were sticky. The plates were sticky.

I took some curd rice, Mongolian fried chicken rice and hakka noodles.

The curd rice one spoon tastes like rice water. There was no tangy or sweetness in it. It was runny in consistency.

The fried rice tasted like fried rice and the hakka noodles okay. Not worth the price. Same thing you would get in any other store.

In summary if a simple dish like curd rice isn't worth it says the state of the food.

Desserts.

The chocolate fountain. It looked very messy. People dipping in it and leaving trails of chocolate near it. Nobody saying a word. No initiative for maintain hygiene. One spot was also very slippery.

There was a lot of options put seeing the state of the chocolate fountain made my stomach ill.

Just took some small pastry.

In summary Unhygienic.

Summary Don't trust the reviews Stay vigilant from the...

UPDATE & RATING REVISED FROM 1 to 5 STARS

Following my review, I was contacted directly by the Customer Relations Manager, Kirubakaran J. He was extremely professional, offered a sincere apology for our experience, and confirmed that my feedback was escalated to senior management.

To make things right, he has invited us back to experience Coal Barbeque as it should be.

I am very impressed with this level of customer service and their commitment to addressing issues. It's clear they take customer feedback seriously. Based on this excellent and proactive response, I have updated my rating to 4 stars and look forward to our next visit.

Actual Review: If I could give zero stars, I would. This was by far the worst barbeque experience we have ever had. Do not be fooled by the discounted rate for the 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm slot – it's a complete scam.

Before booking, I called to confirm if the menu would be the same as the regular dinner service, and I was explicitly promised it would be. This was a flat-out lie. The reality was a drastically reduced menu and non-existent service. It genuinely felt like we were just being served the scraps and leftovers from the lunch service.

Here's a list of what was MISSING:

From the Grill: No Coal's special honey garlic chicken, no cauliflower, no chicken wings. We had to beg for prawns and still didn't get any.

From the Buffet: No Chilli Baby Corn, no Manchow soup, no Vada Pav sliders, no Momos.

Live Stations: The Teppanyaki/Mongolian grill was closed. The Dosa corner didn't have the promised Mutton Keema Dosa. No hot paniyarams or idiyappam were being made.

Desserts: This was a joke. The dessert bar was almost empty. No hot Jalebi, no donuts, no Kulfi rolls. The waffle machine was "broken" and the chocolate fountain was empty. The Rasamalai was just sugar water.

To top it all off, the service was terrible. In a half-empty restaurant, we couldn't even get water glasses until we were about to leave. The food that was available (like the cheesy potatoes) was bland and cold.

My advice: Don't waste your money on the 4:30 pm slot. You are not getting the real Coal Barbeque experience. You are getting neglected. Pay the extra ₹200 for a proper dinner seating or, better yet, take your money to a restaurant that values all its customers, not just those paying full price. This was an incredibly frustrating and disappointing experience. We left...

*READ MY EXPERIENCE

We had a team dinner here on 2nd August 2023 with 13members.

Environment is not good and all the place they have occupied for seating. Once after starters it's like free food for main course, people need to be in queue and get food.

Food is below average - you don't get many straters and we have asked 10times for Mutton but every time they mentioned 2min sir 2min sir and starters they will serve max 30min or less.

Main course we don't get much food and you need go in queue for biryani and no varieties of ice cream. Pizza is waste and for pani puri you need to wait for 30min.

Service is very poor. Atleast you don't get spoon to eat. Don't think that it's only in my case, for everyone it is same problem here .

And we know the fun birthday at BBQ but here it very sad that they will give a bun for cake and 4members will come shout and leave.

Atleast there is no place to take a photo for 10members at once.

I would suggest, there are many others places available in Velachery ,first try other restaurants if you don't get any other. Then the final choice is this one or postpone your plan and go to different restaurant.

.................................................................... After seeing your reply I am adding below lines -

This is not something new happening at your restaurant, what you are gonna check now?

So you are inviting me again to visit your restaurant and spoil my time and mood with your dirty restaurant service and infrastructure.

There are many negative comments before me, what actions you have taken? And now you are replying me stating very sorry and come back n visit again??

People come here to spend some quality time and enjoy with friends and family. with the amount which we are paying here 1000/head, we can nicely enjoy in some good restaurants but your place is not worth of 200/head.

You don't server starters what we need? service is not good? infrastructure is not good, fully occupied with seating? for maincourse we need to stand in queue and don't get plates and spoons? for looking AC was switched on but i think it is just for show, what you are expecting with this bad service to the customers?

I hope in my life time will not visit coal barbeque...