SALT - INDIAN RESTAURANT — Restaurant in Tamil Nadu

Sharing My experience here:

I made a reservation on Swiggy Dineout for 8:30 PM on 26/10/2024 at SALT Nexus, Vijaya Forum Mall, Chennai, for myself and my fiancée. We were guided to our table, chatted for a while, and then placed our orders. We ordered the following: Masala Papad, Bombay Fried Chicken, Paneer Butter Masala (we asked the staff to replace Soya Chaap with Paneer), and two Tandoori rotis.

When the Masala Papad arrived, we found a hair in the separately served masala. We politely informed the staff, who promptly replaced it. I didn’t make a big issue of it, as I’m also in the food business and understand that mistakes happen. I let it pass.

Next, the Bombay Fried Chicken was served, and this is where the main issue began. The chicken was extremely oily—much more than would be expected in a fried dish. In fact, "drenched" would be an understatement. It was so oily that pressing my spoon against it caused oil to ooze out visibly. I explained this to the waiter, who took it back. Shortly after, the restaurant manager approached us, bringing the dish back with him, and asked what was wrong. I politely pointed out how excessively oily the chicken was, but he insisted that fried foods are inherently oily. I understand this, but the amount of oil in the dish was excessive to an unacceptable degree. After some back and forth, he eventually agreed to replace it with Charcoal Chicken Tikka, which I accepted. However, the entire exchange was unpleasant, as he seemed more interested in making us accept the poorly prepared dish than understanding our concern. We spent a good 5–10 minutes trying to explain this issue, which affected our dining experience.

At that point, I asked to have our orders packed for takeaway, along with the bill, as we just wanted to leave. Yet, the manager seemed unwilling to accommodate our request, insisting we continue dining there. Despite explaining that we simply wanted to take the food home, he continued to make us feel uncomfortable, escalating the situation further. My fiancée became visibly annoyed, and it was only then that he agreed to let us pay and leave with our food.

This incident truly ruined our evening. Though I tried to keep the issue minimal, the manager’s handling of the situation left us feeling frustrated. We just wanted a good meal. As regular patrons, we trusted this establishment, and it was disappointing to be treated this way.

As someone in the food industry, I understand that hospitality can make or break a business. While I hadn’t intended to make an issue of this, I believe the management should consider training the staff in handling customer concerns more professionally. Trying to convince us that fried food should appear soaked in oil was inappropriate, especially when all we wanted was a peaceful night. At no point did we demand free food; we simply wanted to pay, take our order, and go.

I couldn’t take any photos, as we just wanted to leave quickly. However, since we paid through Dineout, I have the Payment ID, and I’ve attached the reference image for your review.

I hope you’ll look into this matter and get back to me. As a loyal customer I hope I can get some information knowing that some action was taken.

Edit: I already emailed you guys and got an apology email that had no effort or regret. Never coming here. Never suggesting this...

Hi Peeps, the restaurant has a great ambience, and is moderately spacious. However, I'm still flagging my dining experience with a 1 Star rating, and that's the least I could do to beware the prospects, who plan to dine here. I'd never expect a fine-dine restaurant, situated in a prime location like Forum Mall, to be pocket friendly ~ given they have their own challenges of paying exorbitant rent for the infrastructure, and managing a huge crowd. But what if I say that the overall experience @SALT felt more like a rip off ?

We ordered a Veg sizzler, which was mentioned as 2 serves in the menu card, and we assumed that it would suffice for two people. Considering the price, we believed that the quantity would be generous - Alas! I was taken by surprise to see 2 square-Pieces of grilled Paneer, with a couple of small chunks/pieces of grilled Gopi and Broccoli, with 2 Roti's. The best part is yet to come, we started having the Rotis with the grilled veggies, thinking there isn't anything more that we could expect from this Sizzler combo (thanks to the not-so-comprehensive menu card), and after having the food for almost 20 minutes, there comes a bowl of Dal Makhni - while we were done gulping one Roti each (well that's all we got for a price of 750+ INR). I agree, the Paneer/Gopi/Broccoli was properly grilled, that was the only portion that we relished.

While we were starving to have something more, we ordered a Dum Biryani, which turned out to be a below-average dish, with a quantity which is barely enough for an adult. I'm not sure if that was a hectic day, and it felt like -there was a resource crunch and the Chefs internally decided to reduce all the quantities to half, to serve everyone. Maybe, a poorly handled supply - demand situation, for which the customers had to tiringly wait, and pay the price.

While we were half frustrated, and confused on why we came here, we politely asked the waiter for another bowl for Dal Makhni, and we waited for 30 minutes. I do empathize with the waiters there, they were aimlessly running back-and-forth to serve the never-ending-crowd, and what we ordered never reached the table. We raised our hands again, hopelessly, and reminded about the same dish again to another gentleman who was handling the crowd, and that's when our request was duly noted, and we got the dish served after another 20 minutes.

Normally, I never vent-off about dining experiences, but I was kind of pushed to do this~ what more can a starving customer expect on a busy day? We just wish to have something, and the least the restaurant(s) could do is to work on improving the customer experience, and later start thinking about customer delight (which definitely looks like a far fledged dream for this(SALT) restaurant).

Again, I greatly respect the waiters there, they are doing their best, please share my regards to them. The truth is, the experience was compromised by the not-so-tasty food, insufficient quantity, and delayed...

We visited restaurant today and we requested for table of 6 of us. So we took the table that had already 6 chairs and coz one of our family member undergone surgery.. we had gone ordering food , timely food was delivered but was unexpected was our family of 3 was not able to reach on time coz of lot road diversions , so we already told the stewards that our expected guest has not yet arrived you please proceed with our order and order was given shortly , food was good but what was disappointing each and every time food was served for me husband child we were asked for how many of you table is there... We clearly told we are of 6 members remaining 3 of them are still on way , but it's getting late so we proceeded with dinner as we have a child and visiting restaurant post surgery... Again every time food served 3 times we were questioned same , and last we requested them to pack up balance food and get us the bill .. person by name Vivek came again again asked you said 6 and you are winding up the bill. . That's when we asked vivek our expected family are not able to reach on tym but vivek was sure to nag us going on talkin' about saying table of 6 and you winded up bill. First a restaurant courtesy to ask how's the food but I have not experienced like this by nagging a customer... Another person came said peak business hours so that's why Vivek would have asked. This is not the way they talk to a customer by nagging them. And Vivek kept talkin' about this till we paid bill and exited out the restaurant saying table for 6 and only 3 and bill was settled ... The way he questioned was like u are 3 and asked for larger table , basically there was not much rush in the restaurant for vivek to put such a drama. I appreciate the owner for letting his staffs to treat...