North Indian at Delhi Highway, Nungambakkam

The best plans are made impromptu. There have been so many occasions on which I've been wanting to experience the Dilli ka khana but for some or other reason it wasn't materialising. And finally am relieved that Delhi Highway has been finally ticked off the list.

It's located in the ever happening Khadar Nawaz khan road and the place is crowded with a heavy influx of predominantly the northie crowd. It works on the system of first come first serve and thankfully we were allotted a table within a waiting time of 10 minutes.

From the name, you can easily figure that it's a place serving out and out Tandoori fare. They also have some chaats added to the mix. The ambiance is a touch predictable and the creamy and brown shades give that mild mughlish durbar feel and the gloomy dim light's make it quite visible that you're in a North Indian restaurant.

We began our course with a Dahi papdi chaat and a couple of starters. The chaat was pretty standard and that extra I was expecting was surely amiss. And the tandoori front started with the Achari Paneer Tikka. The reddish chunks of cottage cheese were soft and nice but way off from being exceptional. It was certainly nice but that zing of wallowing a succulent piece of my ever favorite panneer wasn't felt. The other one, Tandoori Aloo with grated cheese lavishly coated over the oval pieces of boiled potatoes was quite decent.

On the main course we had 4 versions of Indian bread - Butter Naan, Garlic Naan, Aloo Kulcha and Rogani Roti. And for the curries we went with Paneer Lababdar and Veg Kohlapuri. The Indian bread were quite substandard to be frank. Some of the pieces were so hard and the fluffiness was just not there. The Paneer gravy was quite nice cooked on an onion gravy but the veg Kohlapuri at best could be termed ordinary. We decided not to have any desserts.

Overall the food was just bordering along the average and it was a bit of a disappointment especially because the expectations were set much higher. Though nothing could be termed downright bad, I didn't get the feel of relishing some good ol North Indian khana.

The service was pretty quick with the items being brought and served to our table in quick fashion. The quantity served was quite a let down and the abominable pricing makes it all the more worse. At best, this dine out experience left a lot to be desired.