Never done this before but I just HAD to give my feedback on this one. I rarely dislike any place which offers food but this experience was just plain unbearable.
This happened a couple of weeks before when Granny fell sick and was hospitalized for a couple of days. After listening to her fussing, fretting and cribbing about what happened to her at the hospital and how ruthless they were with an old lady in pain ( I sympathize with the hospital staff though, who had to deal with ‘this’ old lady in pain, granny sure is a handful), uncle graciously announced that he and wifey had successfully tolerated each for 16yrs and wanted to treat us before they commence their 17th year. Everyone dressed and out in half hour we headed towards Haali Maane in Malleswaram. Couple of years back I had read about this restaurant in the newspaper wherein it was given 8 out of 10 and my taste buds got all excited with the thought of yummy south Indian food – the spicy besebelle baath, yummy raagi balls with drumstick sambhar …yum yum yummm. Once we reached the place though I was pretty disappointed. Firstly it looked like a regular darshini, secondly we had to wait SOO long outside and finally when I thought we were lucky enough to get a place to sit , they made us wait in like a 2 feet by 2 feet area which happened to face the tables. It looked like I was waiting a table rather than waiting for a table ! Then came another disappointment, they did not serve all the above mentioned stuff, just plain old thali. By now I was loosing my patience- they made us wait , then made us stand right in the middle of the dinner area and then there is no proper food ! Neways anticipating that the thali will taste great we finally started eating. The service was bad, the waiter just threw the food on our plates, all the gravies and dals tasted the same- I could taste only cinnamon, pepper, methi powder- , the only good thing that came was the curd rice which by the way is great for people with no teeth (!) as it was watery & pasty with a few pomegranate seeds added to make the dish look bearable. The worst was we had another set of people waiting to get a table who just stood on our heads to get us to vacate the table. I couldn't move my hand without touching them. Absolutely ill-mannered bunch (!) who kept glaring at us making it clear that “ Eat fast, we need to sit”. I don’t know about the others but I just couldn't take it anymore and got up to clean my hands & move out. ( Which the family standing right under our nose was pretty glad about). My taste buds had a stroke that day and had to be treated the whole of next week to good food and my poor tummy suffered for the next two days thanks to the common masalas.
In all, not at all a grate place to go if you looking for good South Indian food. I would give it a 2 out of 10 for taste. Value for money – 3/10 ( since the thali’s were pretty cheap), Ambiance- 3/10. If any goes there next time and has a better experience please do let me know.
