If you are on a journey to search for the holy grail of vegetarian food you should make a stop at Holy Grill!! And trust me when I say that locating this restaurant is a unique challenge by itself, especially if you are looking for it on Khadar Nawaz Khan road like the address states. It is a good thing that the restaurant offers valet parking.
Many barbeque restaurants have popped up around Chennai, thanks to Barbeque Nation which seems to have met its match! What makes Holy Grail a very exciting option for folks like myself and the other conservative Chennai brams I found dining with great gusto is the fact that it is vegetarian. So no more worrying about what was on my skewer stick before the paneer and whether it has been sterilised properly 🙂
Once you are settled at the table, the staff setup the coal grill at the table. After a brief review of the menu the food started arriving. Everything accept salads and desserts are served at the table.
The buffet menu started off with Cream of Tomato soup! This is was a big disappointment as the soup was watery and tasted more of the corn flour used to thicken it, rather than tasting of tomatoes! And hold your cream and croutons as you wont find either of these in the soup… But we were able to forgive this sorry soup as the rest of buffet more than made up for it.
On the grill, skewer sticks containing:
- Baby potatoes – Bland but appealing
- Corn on the cob – sweet and spicy. Enjoyable for those that enjoy corn on the cob, especially when it is roasted on fire and coated with spices
- Mushrooms – Salty but juicy!
- Grilled vegetables – Healthy and tasty marinated green and yellow zucchini, green and red bell peppers and broccoli.
- Paneer – Cubes of fresh and super soft paneer marinates in green chutney and perfectly grilled! This was the star of amongst the starters on the grill!
- Pineapple – Chunks of sweet pineapple marinated in spices and grilled. This would definitely be enjoyed by those that love pineapple on their pizzas!
were placed for us to enjoy! These were soon followed by starters from the kitchen to our plates, Thai Basil Crispy Baby Corn which contained some complex flavors and Chatpate Khasta Aloo which was potatoes in their skin deep fried and tossed in sweet tamarind chutney and some other spices! This reminded me of some kind of chaat thanks to its interesting play of flavors.
Once we were done with the starters, (we were half full by now) the main course followed. This consisted of paneer tikka – too much paneer and very little gravy, mixed vegetables, vegetable koftas in palak / spinach gravy which were extremely passable and black daal. The paneer and mixed vegetables were very good with the rotis and the naans and the black daal formed the perfect accompaniment to the flavorful vegetable biryani and steamed rice.
Then there was the chilli butter noodles which was very tasty. Though I fail to understand the role of a single Indo Chinese dish in almost every buffet in town!! Well, at least Holy Grill managed to get this right when it comes to taste and presentation.
We avoided the salad bar which did not look that appealing.
By this stage we had no more room for anything else! But then who leaves without hitting the dessert bar! From a display of chocolate pastry, kheer, gulab jamuns, jalebis and bread pudding I opted for the yummy jalebis! My company was satisfied with the jamuns and the pastry. We just couldn’t try anything else especially when we had a choice between Mango and vanilla ice creams. What decent Chennaite would give up mango ice-cream? Not us for sure! So we indulged in the yummy mango ice-cream and I swear I experienced the mango dancing on the tree…It was that good!!
Last but not the least, I had to say this. They definitely to clean their bathrooms. Now that this is out of my system, I declare that at the end of the day it was a great meal!! Definitely visit Holy Grill for a great vegetarian barbeque experience! Don’t forget to make reservations! As for me, I wish that they would drop their salad bar and reduce the price of the buffet. They definitely need to improve their soup recipes!!
You can find Holy Grill at: No 10, wallace garden 3rd street, Khader Nawaz Khan Rd, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600006
Cost for 2: Rs.1600
From Mochas to Moksha......... 