DOU — Restaurant in Tamil Nadu

Today my family and I came to DOU with high hopes of good food and I regret to say this but I have never been more disappointed in my life. As we entered the restaurant we had to wait for around 15 minutes and then we were guided to our table. All was fine till this point, next when we tried to place our order but nobody seemed to be bothered that we were trying to reach out to them. Generally when a customer visits a restaurant, the utmost care is supposed to be shown to them. We were very displeased with the way the service was absolutely sloth slow!!!! Finally we were able to get hold of somebody to take our order but at this point we were absolutely starved. We had placed our order and they informed us that the food would reach us within 15 minutes. We were calmly waiting for a very very looonggg time, we were approximately waiting for 45 minutes!! Even after this much time given only one dish had arrived, the dish we ordered was prawns in garlic and butter but what we received was a bare 3 prawns in the middle of a garlic load! And the price for this dish was a shocking ₹600, it’s understandable if the dish’s quantity was good but it truly didn’t add up to the price value. At least for the horrendous service and enormous time taken for the food to be served, the portions could have been bigger… Next the rest of the food arrived, the salmon and cream cheese bagel 🥯 was absolutely covered in greens. As we didn’t prefer the greens we had taken it out, due to this we were only able to eat half of the whole portion!!! The Anglo Indian chicken dish was literally bland, the description displayed it as a very flavourful dish but the final dish said otherwise!!! Next came the egg and bacon croissant, the appearance was very appealing but the bacon was a mere one slice in an outrageous amount of egg. This overthrew the taste of the bacon and lost the point of the dish. We were immensely disheartened with the amount of satisfaction provided and still waiting for the salad order. It had now been 1 hour since we had placed the order!! The salad was an Asian nutty chicken salad, comprised majorly of radish and cucumber. The ingredients were absolutely clashing with each other and did not complement each other, it ruined the overall taste of the dish and was honestly a waste of money. The total price was around ₹6000 rupees which is completely overpriced for just 5 people dining, and four of us are just kids!!Overall the atmosphere was nice and the mixed berry smoothies were delicious but, the service desperately needs to be faster and the taste must be enhanced. Hoping for a better experience next time.....

TLDR; Absolutely do not get anything other than the Almond croissant and the Bacon Buddy sandwich. Everything else is just okay and overpriced. Tried multiple croissants, smoothie, bowls, and sandwiches.-

I appreciate that fact that there is such a high quality croissant shop in Chennai. The service here is however atrocious and could be greatly improved.

Almond croissant: If you are really lucky you'll get a hot freshly baked almond croissant. It has almond paste in between two soft and flakey croissant buns and when it's warm, it's magical. It has the right amount of sweetness.

Chocolate croissant: Meh it is okay. They use their Mason and Co chocolate but the filling to dough ratio is always off here. There needs to be more filling in every croissant. I've tried many other flavors like the cream and cookie?? one and the baklava flavored croissant.

Most of the time the croissants are dry and hard due to the temperature here. I don't know why they've not invested in a temperature control container. It would do wonders for keeping the product quality at a high level for extended periods of time.

They experiment a lot on the flavors, but they miss the mark on execution. A large part of this has to do with their dough to stuffing ratio and the temperature.

Bacon buddy: Absolutely must get this. Delicious hot bread with whole grain mustard. Do not skip the mustard. It is the star of the show and the glue to the entire sandwich. Without it, it is way to plain. The bacon is high quality and crispy. Its not a sorry limp bacon. I love the fresh sliced avocado. It surpasses the quality of avocado and bacon sandwiches in California.

Chicken Mexican Bowl - Skip. Way too expensive for an okay bowl of bland chicken and quinoa. I am obsessed with bowls, but there is nothing wow about the flavoring or ingredients.

Chocolate protein and banana smoothie - Meh. It is what it is. You can make one very easily at home. Save money for another treat.

Chicken and pepper sandwich - Don't get this. The chicken is cooked but it is bland sandwich that just seems a tad...

Let's get one thing clear: the food is Excellent with a capital E. The stars are for the overall experience rather than the food.

Since it's a new branch they haven't figured out optimal serving times and techniques. So ideally if you want to try them out, you get there in person choose the best stuff available and grab a couple of bites while you're at it.

Here's my review of what I ordered and for fairness's sake I've reviewed the taste and the issues seperately.

I ordered a sourdough loaf, a chocolate babka and a focaccia sandwich via Dunzo. It reached me within 20 mins.

Taste: The loaf was tangy with big crumb and a chewy crust and was still warm from the oven. Best bread I've put in my mouth. I'd probably buy a loaf a week forever.

Issue: It should have been left to cool completely. But the loaf was cut into and put into a paper bag. So the insides were quite gummy still. I understand that they are new and are figuring out how to operate. But a little tip, if you are touted to be the best sourdough loaf in india, you really shouldn't be offering it to your customers until it's cooled through.

Taste: One portion of chocolate babka is a tiny cute loaf that we absolutely inhaled in 10 seconds. The chocolate is the best I've ever tasted. I understand that they exclusively use Mason and Co chocolate and it's absolutely worth it.

Issue: None. They've figured it out. Must try.

Taste: the Focaccia sandwich with a rich ricotta and tangy tomato filling tasted excellent. Oddly I loved the focaccia even more. It was basically crusty airy fried bread. Amazing!

Issue: However the bread was cold and so I ended up having to reheat and the crust ended up giving me a jaw workout instead of pleasantly crisp and chewy. You'd be better off if you order the sandwich in-house and ask for fresh focaccia.

Bottomline: must try. But I'd leave it for a month or two until they've worked out their operational and...