A2, Aqua, The Park; The Perfect Sports Bar?

The one thing that defines a sports bar is missing at A2 - a TV. No, the hotel is not positioning it as one, just that I thought it fits the bill perfectly. A perfectly selected menu - world cuisine tapas, a cosy ambiance, a pool view from certain seats and a live kitchen with bar stools. If I was invited to for an early look into the summer menu when IPL was on, I would have loved to watch CSK lift the trophy from this place!

Things started off with some gimmicks. A butterfly something from some part of Thailand is used to give a colour changing cocktail, my mocktail version of it was way off mark from being interesting. The camembert cheese with avacodo on the crostini was the first dish to arrive. The camembert didn't have the slight pungency that I'm used to and I even thought if this could be brie, but this is Danish camembert and not French, so maybe that is the difference. But every other characteristic of camembert was there, soft and creamy and with the little avacado, was like a pan European tapas! A little Italian and Danish together. 

We moved to bits of Mid Eastern and Indian with the A2 Sampler. Served in cute tea tumblers, there was a nice and crisp home made sumac lavash with red paprika hummus for company along with olives. Thalassery lamb chops with meaty and reasonably well frenched chops with loads of South Indian flavours was the Indian tapas on offer. The garlic stuffed chicken, almost like slices of roulade and a nice crispy rock prawn tempura made up the sampler. 

Things moved to China with the dim sums coming up next. The bok choy wrap with stuffed burnt garlic chicken was my favourite. While not very dim sum looking, the wrap served on a base of gravy burst in the mouth to hit you more with the burnt garlic flavour, a total surprise. The chicken dim sums were nice too, but the edamame truffle dim sum didn't give me any truffle flavour. 

Finally Japan, with New Age sushi. Now this could be a love or hate thing for you. Suckers for good sushi are not going to accept one that is torched on top and served with toppings. But I must say that the smokiness in Nigiri was intriguing. 

To offer something more than just tapas, there is a small selection of main courses, but if you order right, you'll be full with just them. We were served a beautiful plate of rice with loads of edamame on top, but since I'm not a big fan of grilled salmon (I only prefer it as a sushi), I wasn't mighty impressed. That's a personal thing though. 

Desserts were both absolutely smashing. One with various textures of chocolate and another with a nice cake and macaron, were both visually pleasing and a fitting finish to the meal.

A meal for two will cost about Rs. 2000 and they also have a nice dimsum lunch for about Rs. 850 nett. 

A2 is on the top floor at The Park, Chennai.