There is nothing new when it comes to the concept of barbeque. It has been a tried & tested model and been in existence for almost 2 decades in the food circle of Chennai. Even to this day, the restaurants serving those grilled stuff over those charcoal boxes have found favour especially for office lunches/dinners or even family gatherings.
However what strikes out in The Greenhouse Barbeque is that they have catered it into an all vegetarian enclosure and it looks like they've been pretty successful going by the looks of things. Must say they have pulled it off really well. Traditionally these kind of barbeque restaurants are more associated with non vegetarian grills making the hardcore vegetarian population a little apprehensive especially the older generation sit in because of the over powering smell of meat hovering over despite plenty of options available on the green side of things as well. So there have always been reluctant starters to this brand of food by a certain section. This has now been addressed with an exclusive herbivorous spread.
Seeing the crowds throng in, it's pretty clear that they have been successful with this foray. It's always difficult to get a table here and they operate in different hourly shifts during both lunch and dinner. Apart from the plethora of starter options which is brought to the table, they have host of other items as part of the buffet spread including few live counters as well. They keep changing the menu also on a weekly basis by exploring with various variety.
For the vegetarian lovers, this is a welcome change from the renowned South Indian names and the exclusive multicuisine options as it options grilled food in addition to a buffet like setting with plenty to gorge over. The food as such is nothing to complain about. Choices in panneer, potato, mushroom, gobi, corn etc almost always hits the mark and even the fruity grills like pineapple, watermelon add a divergent flavour.
Other than all the barbecue bonanza, our last visit had live counters for dosa, pasta, chaat and even one for sushi and it was delectable to gorge over them. The sushi was not the run off the mill stuff - they had options of cream cheese, avacado and shitake mushrooms. The chaat had all the usual names with bombay sandwich added to the mix. Pasta varieties were plenty in number and so too was the case with dosas. The salad & dessert options were also quite a lot in number and you also get to have those roll based stone creations of ice cream. Even on the soup front we had 2 choices in the form of a Pineapple shorba and a potato leek variant.
The service is relatively quick and one good thing is they don't take off the grilled sticks till we finish our entire meal as opposed to removing them off before going for the main course. The pricing seems to be a little bit on the higher side setting you back by a well over 1000 bucks per individual. It tends to be a tad extra expensive during the weekends.
All in all, they've really attracted crowds in a big way in their short stint and been successful in creating an alternative choice exclusively for the vegetarian food loving afficianado. If you like to have a really elaborate lunch or dinner traversing through multiple options in the mix, definitely one can say that The Greenhouse Barbeque will not only satisfy but also satiate to your tummy and hearts content.
