Vinaya Cafe

Food was really good and the price was reasonable but they can improve their packaging as it was not really well packed. I would recommend this restraunt.

A good affordable hotel for one and all. I work closer to this joint and have been a regular visitor here. The food is good and so is the coffee. The coffee taste has improved to a larger extent from the time they started grinding their own coffee (since they opened Vinaya Coffee moments). Overall, good for a regular food, be it with breakfast, lunch, brunch, snacks or dinner.
Just a couple of points to improve:
1. The service hall ACs are always turned off unless there is a customer. So you feel suffocated as soon as you visit, till the ACs start running in full swing.
2. Needs improvement with respect to cleanliness.

Here goes my 2nd visit review to cover what was in the offer under plantainleaf south Indian meals which I am a big fan of.

Unlike what is displayed on the billboard outside which shows a traditional laid meal on a banana leaf the thali was actually served on a steel plate with a round cut plantain leaf. This is in first floor. The decor was fine, clean and quite spacious indeed, only down side some flies trying their luck to taste, but not many.

Coming to the food it was a typical darshini type south meals, limited and decent tasting. Pooris were hot and crisp, sagu was good tasting, sambar, rasam, chutney, curd and palya were also ok, nothing special though. Cup of pulao tasted good, Payasa was of semiya and gasagase (poppy seeds) good tasting, all items were just warm instead of hot, negative marks for that. Over all satisfaction level 3/5

Since the meal was light for me as usual, thought why not taste their north meals as well, that’s also a limited one.

The tomato soup was bad, sweet tasting must be some typical instant type, the croutons were not tasting good either, left it after 2 spoons.

The thali itself was okay, the rotis were fresh, hot and tasted good with an ok paneer subzi, chole gravy and daal, the pulao was good and so was the curd rice, buttermilk was very cold for a rainy day and average tasting. The gulab jamun was stale. Overall rating 3/5

Service was impeccable, all the waiters were friendly and efficient, the captain did his job well in explaining what to expect. Satisfaction 5/5, this made up for the other weak areas. For a price of 89 and 100 for south and north meals it’s a fair deal.

You can definitely give it a try if you were passing by but I think the same thalis will be available at their ground floor self service, you can at least get them hot, without the junk soup and at a lesser price too.

Shubha Bhojana

First Visit:

Well I would have given half mark extra had I not noticed the poor quality spoon where it was corroded leaching arsenic and heavy metals to food (take a look at the extra spoon in kharabath shot).

Another issue was the abysmal chutney served during the later course of my gluttony where they had replenished the first batch of chutney as it must have got over.  So I could taste a good chutney in the beginning and later in the end worst ever, so looks like consistency is a big issue at this place.

Now to the good part.
The combo breakfast was good, though they are not providing kharabath in it and we can only choose between kharabath and kesari bath. The cashier was not courteous and had an attitude issue, however I made him understand that I wanted to pay for karabath and buy it in addition to the combo.
The mini masala dosa was crisp and tasty, idly vada and sambar were tasting right, chutney was also tasty at this point, kesari bath was good as well. This combo is far better than A2B in terms of Taste, Quantity, Quality and value for money so 5/5 given.

The kharabath - 5/5 Tasted well with chutney, lots of grated coconut made it tasty.

Tomato uttapam - 4/5 Tasted nice, tangy went well along with ok type sagu(better than the cheap aloo and daal type which SLV gives) and chutney. When I was almost done took another serving of chutney which was horrible.

The coffee was okay, nothing great, I would like smooth filtering and no residues which was not the case. (This came with the combo)

The kitchen area and the whole place was not appearing very clean but not worst either to swear not comeback again.

Now one interesting part is they have put a board of plantain leaf meal, tempted by this called them one day during lunch time for the availability, they said it will be served on a steel plate with leaf over it, that's a good idea still. For some reasons I didn't make it, need to try it sometime.

So definitely recommended if you are nearby, but you need to factor in for the inconsistency in the food taste.