Southern Spice — Restaurant in Zone 9 Teynampet

I came to the Taj for the Chennai Worlds Universities Debate Championship. First complaint is the cost of Wifi. For the amount of money that this place costs, and in order to be truly considered a five star hotel, internet (even wired) should be complimentary. It was over almost 80 USD for 8 days worth of internet.

Secondarily, there was a disaster on New Years Eve. Because there were so many debaters in the hotel, EVERYONE was buying wifi (as debaters we need to keep up on current events). Of course, like MOST "five star luxury" hotels, we had to keep a credit card on file which we figured the hotel would charge for the wifi. On the evening of December 30th, we received a note in our room asking us to see the front desk about our charges "at your earliest convenience". Since the tournament runs all day, the earliest convenience was checkout. While all the debaters were at the tournament, some EXTREMELY unwise manager at the hotel decided to LOCK EVERY DEBATER OUT OF THEIR ROOMS until they covered the charges on their rooms IMMEDIATELY. That same night, the Taj was to hold a New Years Eve party for the participants of the tournament. What ended up happening was that 300+ people returned at 10:00 PM and found that they could not enter their room to change or shower for the party until they went downstairs and asked one of the two cashiers at the front about their charges.

Or at least, that's what they told us at first. After doing some asking around we find that even those who hadn't charged anything to the room had been locked out and had to go downstairs to re-register their keys. Furthermore, because it is an international competition, many people were rooming with strangers. If you had the unfortunate luck of rooming with someone who charged ANYTHING to the room and that individual was nowhere to be found, you couldn't access your room until you covered all the costs, regardless if they were yours or not.

But wait, there's more! If you didn't happen to carry 3000+ rupees to cover the costs of your roommates, you were additionally screwed because you couldn't get into your room to get your money to pay the hotel to give you access to your room. The hotel assured that they would send a security guard to allow us access to the room just to get our money. After 30 minutes of waiting, no one was present. Calling the front desk uncovered that their plan was to wait until the security guard was available then CALL the individual in their ROOM PHONE to tell them to come down to rendezvous with the security guard. GENIUS.

What had happened was that SO MANY people ordered wifi that the hotel had too large of an outstanding balance and had to force guests to pay their charges so that the hotel could literally stay afloat. India is a developing country, and I understand that the hotel had a large balance they needed to cover. The reason for the one star is that COMPLETE LACK OF COMMUNICATION provided by the hotel concerning the fact they guests were going to locked out of their rooms in the MIDDLE OF THEIR STAY. After my roommate called and complained to the manager, he condescendingly told her "The keys were set to expire at noon. It is a simple solution, go downstairs and re-register your keys" which is obviously hard to do when 300+ people are trying to do the same. Furthermore, he blamed the hotel's lack of communication on the tournament organizers, as if they have the ability to lock us out of our rooms.

So if you want a lack of transparency and sub-standard management that won't take responsibility for unjustly locking you out, stay at the Taj. If you wan't to be treated like a human being, go...

⭐️Location: Easy to identify on the Main road

⭐️Reservation: Call them and reserve a table to avoid disappointments

⭐️Parking: They have valet parking for cars. There is a bike parking available as well

⭐️Floor: It’s located in the ground floor and the end of the floor

⭐️Ambience: TamilNadu rustic karaikudi Chettinad decor transfers you to a new place

⭐️Staff: we were served by Govind, Malick, Ram/Ravi . All the staff are great , courteous, polite and give attention to each and every patron . They go extra mile and accommodate dietary requirements and up existing menu serving based on availability. Kudos to entire team

⭐️Food: we went on weekday lunch and ordered Fish and Meat Thali . We were made comfortable by setting apron. First came the colourful chutneys , chips & crisp & vadagams . We really enjoyed vadagams which were both tasty and has very less oil. I think it’s air fried . We were then given Tomato pepper soup which did justice to the name. It has both tangy profile and pepper taste. Good soup to clear your food pipe and warm up your stomach We were then served Thali which has veg curry, veg poriyal/side , chicken curry , fish curry, mutton curry , Idiyappam , parotta , appam , paayasam. I thoroughly enjoyed fish curry and chicken curry which were so soft like butter and super yummy . They also upped menu and gave us wheat parotta to try and egg appam both were good. They keep refilling the sides and every refill was worth it Then came white rice, sambhar , paruppu podi and ghee . You must try their paruppu podi and ghee it’s out of the world. The sambhar is prepped using their in house spices by the chef themselves . We also enjoyed rasam and curd rice And they gave complimentary elaneer payaasam to us and again it was unlimited . We asked them twice and was served happily . They end it with filter coffee . The server will cool down the filter coffee in style . And finger bowl was served .

And as it’s a birthday occasion, they gave us complimentary birthday cake which was yummy and gave a special wish.

Overall it’s a fantabulous experience from the moment we stepped in and left. They really made our day and created a core memory .

It’s really Wah Taj!

⭐️Enjoy the experience with your loved ones on their special day❤️

Please Mark this review as HELPFUL to encourage such...

Known for the southern delicacies and beautiful ambiance , my childhood favourite restaurant was Southern Spice. It’s been ages since I dined here so went with my friend for lunch . Good service Great ambiance But the quality of the food was very very poor, ordered one non veg thali, parotta and Manglore ghee roast. The moment I had the chicken I knew something was off it had the raw smell, was actually stinking and I told my friend as well and she had a taste too and she felt the same the parottas wer so hard over, crispy like the complimentary applams and it didn’t taste anything like a Malabar Parotta which they told me it is when I specifically enquired. Over the time it became more hard impossible to even eat, well the staff was sweet enough to notice and asked me if I’ll have a fresh hot one I refused because I lost appetite cuz of the nasty chicken smell. For a star category hotel like TAJ I never expected this. As the portion was too much we packed it and gave a taste to our peeps, everyone agreed the chicken was raw , it may also be old and TBH they never believed it was from SS!! The wort part was I got sick and I puked twice in the evening and I had to visit my doctor. We were also charged for the desserts which we thought that’s included in thali as it used to be previously, we weren’t notified about this only while checking the invoice we asked about it and they told us it’s not included. ONLY The ice cream tasted the best. That’s all Spending a bomb on a meal at the most famous spot of the city just to fall sick ! This is the most worst experience I ever had at a star Hotel especially a brand that holds strong reputation, hate to compare but other chettinad / south cuisine restaurants offer some better quality and hygienic food Very disappointed with...