Le Dupleix, Puducherry.

Forgive me for spamming this blog with so many posts of restaurants outside Chennai, but I have been traveling a lot and courtesy Ramzan fasting, I have been eating outside of Chennai for quite a bit! But, hey, if you are traveling to these places, that's a heads up! OK, enough of defending my non-Chennai- writing!

While in Pondy, the heritage hotel, Le Dupleix, is located in a quiet street and looks much more 'heritagic' than most heritage hotels in Pondy. I called in at about 4 PM to a table reserved for two at 730 and walked in at about 7 to find that we were the only ones there. Rains were looming and the waiter suggested that we sit inside, but we insisted on sitting in the open courtyard and said that we will move in if it rains; reluctantly, he agreed. The courtyard, though small, looks very nice and we wanted to eat there!

They were having a Mango Festival going on with a special menu and we picked a couple of dishes from that! We started off with a prawn bisque soup and a grilled chicken with apple starter! The soup was very very bad and we moved straight to the starter, which was excellent. The waiter came back after 1 million years and noticed that our soups were almost untouched. After telling him that we did not like it at all, he changed it and gave us the French Onion soup which was alright! But except the soup, the rest of the dishes were excellent.

For main course, we had a grilled fish and prawns with creamy fettuccini, which was very very good. The fettuccini was nice and creamy and the flavour of parmesan was distinct and just right. The fish was grilled to perfection with lemon butter and the prawns had herbs, garlic and lime and were grilled just right! The roast chicken with herbed rice and grilled vegetables were quite good too! We had a nice mango inspired apple pie for dessert and it was excellent with a tinge of mango and chocolate on the classic apple pie.

The damage on the pocket was Rs 1250, including all taxes, which I thought was quite reasonable. Service was very slow as we were the only ones in the restaurant the whole time and the waiter came in only to serve the dishes and came back when the next course was ready. Needless to say, the bill took quite some time to come, but though slow, service was very courteous.

4/5 for this quaint little courtyard restaurant at le Dupleix. The hotel is at the junction of Rue Suffren and rue Cassern at the French Quarters at Pudducherry!