Chai Peedika | South Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Birmingham

What a horrible experience at this place. I wish I could give negative stars. After reading all the positive reviews, we thought to try this place. But seriously, it is not worth the money or effort to go to this place. What a shame! I am writing this review to ensure that the management reads this and actually uses this feedback to make some changes in the restaurant. We reached the restaurant at 07.30 pm and we noticed it to be a busy restaurant. We were shown a table which was dirty. They waiter who cleaned the table actually pushed all the food particles and waste on the floor(I missed to click a picture but really was neither hygienic nor great for a clean ambience. And we observed this was being done by all waiters in the restaurant) After a 20 mins wait, we placed our order. The table next to us was just 2 people, and the waitress who took their order did not even bother to advise them correctly as they ordered way too much for 2 people. After we placed our order, we were advised that the food would take 20 mins. We were ready to wait longer as we could see that the restaurant was busy, unorganised, and the staff were running like headless chicken. We overheared the waitress, mentioning to the next table that one of the chefs called in sick. Anyways, our food came more than 1 hour later, and when it finally came, the food served was as uploaded the pictures. Means there was no plate with the food. We asked the waiter for a plat, and he vanished. We had to go to the bar counter/kitchen area to ask/remind for a plate. It took another 15 to 20 minutes to get the plate. Even then, the waiter came with the plate and proceeded to give the plate to the next table. My daughter waved her hand and asked for the plate. By the time the food was cold. And the taste was not even as it was supposed to be. Parata was the only item that was good enough. Also not the entire order was served. Which they didn't realise while serving. Upon asking, they brought the food. What was worse is that they kept taking more and more guests in, even though it was clear that they were not able to even provide basic service. We ordered 2 beef roasts, 1 chicken kerala curry, 8 parata, and 4 idiyappam. We returned 2 idiyappam as it came too late and we finished our food. We were decent enough to pay the bill before leaving. The staff do not seem to understand the concept of basic restaurant service or hospitality, and that too in the UK. We paid a total of £43 pounds, and it's seriously not worth even a penny. I understand it is at times normal for food delay for bad service. But this was extremely horrible and shame to run a restaurant like this. When I gave feedback to the waitress and actually asked why they are accepting so many customers if they can not manage.. and her response was that the management instructions are to take as many customers as possible. I am sorry, whoever the management or owner is, this is not the way to run a restaurant 😬 The customers are paying money and not eating for free. It is important to ensure that your staff can manage the place. Provide quality food, clean ambience, and good service. When I left, the restaurant was full house, and I even saw people going to the counter to get their own plates and cutlery. To be honest, if we had walked out without paying the bill, the staff wouldn't have noticed. We stayed and paid the bill just because we are fair. I am hoping to hear back...

I am giving this 4-star review for what I had on the day. Not the full restaurant review as you cannot review the whole restaurant according to just 3 dishes.

'Paal Porotta - Beef' was my first time experience and I loved it, but my partner has already tasted it back home and tastes the exactly same. Great work to the kitchen team to keeping the authentic taste rather than experimenting new tastes. Presentation in a clay pot felt like real taste of kerala. It is not spicy very mild with the Kerala porotta being soaked in coconut milk. I would recommend anyone can have a go for it.

'Chatti Choru' was not my first experience, presentation wise it was great, looks colourful, but I found the whole meal was missing few elements. This is only my review, I felt the dish was supposed to be a flavour full with each bite to be tasting different as all the sides being served in the chatti which means the rice beneath the side to be soaked with it's own flavour. But the sides served was not having enough moist to make the rice that much flavour full. The sides served on the chatti was precise it was enough to have each mouthful but I felt like if they was in a semi gravy type or the side served had a their own gravy poured before the side where placed would have made the whole experience to another level. For instincts, beef fry served was really tasty, if a house made beef gravy was poured beneath the place where beef was served that portion of the chatti would have had that unique taste of beef, and so on with the other dishes.

'Malabar Mutton Dum Biryani' was not upto the mark as I felt like it was not a dum biriyani as a traditional way. Don't get me wrong it was a really tasty dish, but didn't felt like a proper dum. It felt like rice being cooked separately and all the different types of biriyani masala like chicken, Mutton, beef, fish and prawns being added to order from the customer. Dum biriyani is when it was meant to be cooked and dum sealed to make the whole rice to have that certain taste. I would say the dish to be just Biriyani rather than Dum Biriyani.

'Peedika Special Falooda' was really great, it was really sweet. I felt that it was a bit too sweet. And I like falooda to have semolina on the bottom and the final layer. I know this is your special falooda but I felt to note it. And the overpowering sweetness makes it hard to finish, if there was another scoop of icecream instead of the hard hitting sweetness would be pleasent.

I have had my friends coming to the restaurant saying the service is slow when it gets busy, but when I came in the service was real smooth, server came to us at the right time, gave us the menu and gave us enough time to look at the menu. She was friendly and polite as well. If the service is slow like when the restaurant is busy, the management should be looking at that matter seriously by studying the flow of business and put enough staff when required to make the whole team and customers satisfied.

I found my first visit very pleasent, keep up the good work to both the service team and kitchen team.

The above mentioned details of the three dishes that I had was a genuine review that I would like to give. I will be visiting soon to taste the rest of the dishes and will definitely be giving a genuine review. Really looking...

We visited on a Friday afternoon, and the ambience was quite nice. It wasn’t busy when we arrived, but as it usually happens with us, once we were seated and had placed our order, the restaurant filled up.

We ordered the hot and sour chicken soup to start, followed by chicken porichathu, ilayil oonu, chatti choru, ghee roast. The waitress later informed us that ilayil oonu wasn’t available, so I went with the pothichoru instead.

The hot and sour soup arrived first, but I found it rather underwhelming. It didn’t live up to the name – it lacked the expected depth of ginger, garlic, and spice, and felt more like a sauce than a proper soup.

The ghee roast, on the other hand, was splendid – truly well done. The chicken porichathu was tasty too, though the food colouring was quite noticeable, and it could have used a touch more salt. The chicken itself was fried nicely – juicy and tender.

As for the pothichoru and chatti choru, there was a bit of confusion. My husband’s chatti choru arrived without the full set of curries at first, but once we pointed it out, they did bring the missing items. However, the fish that was supposed to come with the chatti choru wasn’t served at all. What surprised us was that, even though the pothichoru and chatti choru were priced differently on the menu, the actual food served was pretty much the same – the only difference being that mine was in a banana leaf and his was in a chatti. I didn’t receive the chammanthi with my pothichoru, although my husband did with his.

Taste-wise, the meal was fine, but it didn’t feel worth the drive from Coventry to Birmingham. That said, the restaurant seems quite new, so perhaps they’re still finding their footing.

We also ordered a grape lime and a plain lime drink. My grape lime came at the beginning, but my husband only got his lime much later, right at the end when we were settling the bill.

For takeaway, we ordered a chicken biryani and a mutton biryani. The rice in both was cooked well, but the mutton wasn’t particularly tender, and it lacked that distinct mutton biryani flavour – if you closed your eyes, you wouldn’t have guessed it was mutton. The chicken biryani also had a lot of food colouring, but it was alright, not the best I’ve had.

The washroom, though, was really, really, really neat – I must say, that’s something I appreciated.

Overall, the service was friendly, and they did their best to make up for the small mistakes. However, in terms of taste and overall experience, it wasn’t quite what I expected. They definitely need to focus on finding an excellent chef, more staff to manage the orders smoothly, and more menu cards so customers aren’t left waiting.

Would I return? Perhaps, but not anytime soon. And would I recommend it to someone making the trip from Coventry to Birmingham?...