Haven Sampoorna — Restaurant in Tamil Nadu

I can't belive my Haven Sampoorna experience stayed the same as the last time I visited years back. Looking at the lately positive reviews, gave a try with my family for lunch on a weekend. We arrived at 2 15, 8 of us. Ordered soups and some starters that included Paneer Tikka. The soups were barely warm, I've had better soups in a road side stall, that set the tone right away, but still I gently informed the same to the waiter, hoping that the other dishes will make up for it. Then came Paneer Tikka, it looked as if it was precooked and heated in an oven and served to us, and this dish too was barely warm, and didn't taste fresh at all. It was definitely something that was cooked way earlier. Next we moved on to some tandoori food, which included rotis and the popular Malai Kofta. Haven has disappointed me numerous times in the past, but their Malai Kofta and Pastas always stood out, but the Kofta curry we received was so bland, that 8 people could not combine to even finish half the serving of Kofta. So the nightmare is about to end, I've already spent thousands, so we thought let's atleast finish with a decent dessert to end it on a sweet note, and the waiter comes by and says the kitchen will close at 3, so we'll not take any other orders except desserts and that too not all of them will be available. I was shaking my head physically as the experience kept getting worse, still it's alright, they are hardworking people and it's understandable that they are restricting the orders as the kitchen will be closed, so we asked the bearer what desserts are available then? But he keeps on repeating the same thing, "Not all the desserts are available, only some will be served", so I repeated my question twice and received the same response that made me mentally scratch my head. So I just asked him for the bill, and was not shocked by the 5k bill, because I knew it would be expensive, but my heart wept at paying that amount for such a piss poor experience. I'm never going back never, even if these guys grab a friggin Michelin star...

Been here for the 2nd time after so many years and didn't get disappointed with.

We are in velachery for some other work & thought of having our lunch here and I know this place is for better food.

When we enter the restaurant was quite full but we got seat and we are just 2.

Tables doesn't got any setup except for tablemats and a water bottle. Probably for Covid?

Normally every decent restaurant has 2 or more handwash sinks but here they got just 1. They must work on this when planning for any renovation.

On the table there was a small QR code scanning to check the menu online. Quite interesting. However the waiter gave us a physical menu also. They use mobile app to take order which is quite common these days. Menu is quite elaborate with suggestions.

We shared all the items ordered starting with soup, starter & main course. All we tried is of continental cuisine.

Coming to the food quality. Except for soup, the starter & main course was too cheesy & saucey. Soup was suppose to be that way and so it was good.

The waiter informed us about the starter would be saucey but it was actually like gravy. However the taste was good.

We ordered pesto pasta and to my knowldege the pesto should be dark green and kinda semi solid consistency. But here what they made is light green & too cheesy.

Accompaniments for pasta was given.

With all pastas a complimentary mocktail based on blue curacao is served.

All our food we tried was from no to mild spicy.

Side plates & cutleries are provided in a paper cover.

Waiter was very polite and knowledgeable. Water bottle on the table is definitely chargeable and as usual you always have the option to go for tap water.

Parking is available only on the road for cars and for bikes they do have a ramp to park in front of the bicycle shop at ground floor. It's free.

Overall a decent restaurant and the 4 star is for QR code & clean plates, cutleries inside...

Review based on my experience on 16 Jul 2022. Number of people : 4 adults and 2 kids Meal : Dinner

Good: Menu (unlike the usual roti paneer butter masala etc, this restaurant's menu was different and unique that includes continental items also = Italian, Mexican) Taste (food taste was so good and I felt like its freshly cooked. Some of the recent times in other restaurants, I experienced some spoilt / already cooked food. But this restaurant's food was so fresh from the kitchen) Serving time (though it was a full house, soup and starters were served within 10 mins fresh and hot)

Moderate: Food quantity - for the price on the menu, I would say the quantity is less. For foodies like me, we may have order more or repeat orders Ambience - can be better as there were lots of mosquitoes and flies in the waiting area

Bad: Car parking. We ultimately have to park the car on the road. One guy was there with tokens for valet parking. But its not really a valet parking. He gets the keys and move our cars as needed on the road for the other cars to move out. And when we approached him, he asked us to make sure we have a table so that he can give us a token. Table allotment : we were told that there's going to be a waiting time of 45 mins, though we saw 2 tables of 4 seating capacity empty when we entered the restaurant. They say table reservation is not available and tables will be allocated on first come first serve basis. So we weren't sure why they didn't allow us to be seated in either of the already vacant tables. Taking order: though food was served within a short time, we had to keep calling someone for atleast 15 mins to take the order.

I would recommend and will surely visit this restaurant someother time. Hope they work on the points to be improved and have the quality of...