CHOP @ SANDY / GYFT LOVE

"Wishing you a very happy birthday. Check you email, Wasim," said the birthday wish on Facebook. And simultaneously my email had a similar birthday wish and a gyft! Yeah, gyft! I was gifted a 5 course meal for two at CHOP by Sandy! Gift experiences, not stuff says the tagline. So, I opened up the website to look at what all restaurants they have tied up with and was surprised to find that eating out is the least of their focus. I mean, there was a 'Personalised cooking experience with a Le Cordon Bleu trained chef for Rs 2500, a spice trail hunt for Rs 1500, a Bazaar trail at Mylapore and stuff like that. Lots to do with food but not all were restaurant oriented and that is a nice thing! By the time I noticed the gift, we had made other plans for my birthday, so we scheduled this dinner for a another day and all of it was handled by GYFTLOVE.

Back to the food at CHOP that I was gifted - a 5 course meal. We were served a minestrone soup with garlic bread and compressed watermelon salad as the first and second course. The minestrone soup was superb and I am a fan of minestrone soup, so it was a double whammy, while the compressed watermelon salad was outstanding! It had watermelon, green, a superb cheese (I think it was feta) and nuts (I am not sure if it was pecan or pine nuts).

We were offered a choice for the starters and we chose a grilled wasabi prawns and a potato dumpling - the dumplings were superb, the prawns were very nice but there was no trace of wasabi on the prawns, so though I liked it, I think it is wrongly named or wrongly made on that day. The taste won, so no comparisons. The main course was quite mixed - the brick chicken was not flavourful at all and we left more than half of it - the other choices were baby rack (I don't eat pork, so out of the question), the steak which I had and I don't remember the other choice. My main course - the steak (done medium with mushroom sauce) was excellent with the mash and beetroot salad.

The desserts were just what you would expect from Sandy's - outstanding. The Nutella Tiramisu was nice and creamy and yummy, while the brownie with ice cream was a crumbled brownie. Except for the brick chicken, the meal was excellent! The meal is worth Rs 2500 and I am not sure if Sandy's offers this for walk ins, I believe this is only for gifting and contest winners, but I could be wrong. If you decided to gift yourself or somebody, you could use GYFTLOVE for the same.

4/5 for this

CHOP by SANDY's is tiny steakhouse on TTK Road diagonally opp Liberty Scans on the same road as Benjarong.