The Piano restaurant is celebrating  this season with a SummerFest with specialized Food and beverage counters and irresistible offers. It is a buffet and as usual, we reviewed the vegetarian section and the food covers South Indian, North Indian, Continental, Oriental and American dishes and there are more than 15 items for vegetarian alone. The offer is

Come as 3 and pay for 2 and Come as 5 and Pay for 3 only, irresistible indeed. Details of price at the end of the post.

The menu comprises of Soup, starters, main course, salads and desserts. Additionally, do not miss out the special counters set out for chaats, dimsums, mocktails, pizza, lassi,  and falooda. There are also live counters for kebabs and other dishes. It will be more appropriate to talk about the food offered in general terms since the menu changes daily.

A must mention fact is the Service. Normally in the buffet service, we hardly get any service but here hot food from live counters and specifically starters come to the table. A big plus is water getting filled in as and when it gets exhausted and when we asked for HOT water, we got it served HOT.

Few items we simply loved –

Baked Spinach Corn Mushroom Augratin

Grilled achari paneer

Veg Pasta

Mixed Veg Quesadilla

Blueberry Mousse

Fruit tart

Murungakkai Kathrikkai masala ( the entire south indian food is comfort food)

Dal Bukhara

Profiterole

Soup – It was Thai Coconut Soup, very light and a great start to a culinary journey.

Salads –

Starters – Cauliflower Manchurian,  corn sheek kebab, Grilled achari paneer, mixed veg quesadilla, veg pasta, veg pizza

In the north Indian food section, the dal Bukhara, bhindi masala, paneer jalfriezi and the subzi rice was amazing. It is just that our stomach has its limitations else it is a festival of amazing dishes and dancing palates.

Another must try section is the Oriental food – Indian style chowmein, fried rice and oriental mixed vegetable in black bean sauce was a huge hit.

Another interesting aspect revealed by the Executive chef, Jesu Santiagu Lambert, during a casual chat was that the South Indian kitchen is fully vegetarian respecting the preference of vegetarians. True to the word, the South Indian dishes comprising of Murungai Kathrikai masala, Avaraikai poriyal, Kai Gassi were amazing homestyle food. We are mentioning this specifically because it has become remote to get authentic good tasty south Indian food in star restaurants in Chennai today. Surprise addition was the Puli rice with vadams, appalams, mor milagai, ofcourse with yummy curd rice.

It was a desserts gallery with Indian sweets and pastries –

The chef, Aneesh in the falood counter showed us how the falooda of Persian origin is prepared and surprisingly, came to know that ice-cream is not a part of  the basic dish. The base is the rose milk, rose essence, dry fruits, semiya, sabja seeds, and different fruit jellies. Try it without the influence of ice-cream and it tastes amazing.

Do also try out the kala katta ice gola available in the same counter. There are many other flavors too. Try out your choicest one.

DO try out the real fruit lassi and mocktails at the respective counters. Choice of  stalls is perfect for the hot sweltering summer days here.