A thousand lights, a garbage truck, people pushing their goods, traffic and the smell of freshly fried goods wafts through the air of Aluthkade as it begins its endeavours for the evening. And amongst it, all lies one of the most unexpected places we could have imagined.
When Vishvi said Star Indian Restaurant, we didn’t think too much of it. It’s just another Indian Restaurant in Aluthkade. And it is just that, but with a few tweaks to make us love it of course.
Ambience
Star Indian takes the form of 2 very different spaces. With the ground floor taking up room as a wadey and Bombay sweet joint, with its bustling customers and servers running around everywhere, the first floor is a world apart from its counterpart.
Circular tables, air conditioning and a maximum of 3 people in the whole restaurant, the ambience at Star Indian restaurant was like that of any other restaurant of its genre. Dimly lit with a slight sheen of dust on some surfaces in the place, it didn’t look promising. In fact, it looks almost downright dodge. But, that is till you get to the other side of the restaurant.
One side of the restaurant separates itself from the outside world with just a very dusty pane of glass. But, it provides one of the nicest views in the area. The magic of Aluthkade at night, a cheese kottu and air conditioning to save you from reality, the ambience at Star Indian Restaurant isn’t very good in many ways, but there’s nothing like this anywhere else, so we’d recommend it if you’re looking for a bit of change.
Food & Drinks
The menu at Star Indian also takes the form of a telephone directory. Spanning from burgers to Sri Lankan food to a myriad of meaty options, there’s a lot to choose from. We started with the chocolate Milkshake.
Coming in at a pretty decent Rs. 220, the Milkshake was the most bizarre thing we’ve tried. For some reason, the milkshake burned the back of your throat when you drink it and we’re not really sure why. We happened to ask the staff what they made it with and they seemed to have stuck with the usuals. We wouldn’t necessarily recommend this, we wouldn’t want you getting sick over a chocolate milkshake even if it did take only 3 minutes to make.
The Chicken Cheese Kottu came at a price of Rs. 400. With chunks of chicken that had bits of it turning red, the chicken was flavourful, but the kottu was not. Featuring an adequate amount of veggies, the kottu lacked any sort of cheese and was all right at best.
What really blew us away was the Butter Naan (Rs. 90 each). We happened to get 2 and wished that we had got more. Soft and utterly buttery, this had got to be one of the best takes on naan we had seen in a while.
The Beef Chettinad (Rs. 480) was one that was recommended to us by the staff. What we weren’t expecting was for it to be green. With a thick layer of fiery red oil encasing the surface, the Beef Chettinad featured maybe 5 pieces of beef and looked like the Beira Lake on a particularly bad day. That being said though, the curry was quite flavourful when you eat it with the naan. And we happened to enjoy it quite a bit.
Service
One of the best parts of our experience had to be with the staff, there was a wonderfully friendly uncle who helped us choose what to get who looked rather taken aback when we left the chocolate milkshake on the table. Super friendly and all together grandfatherly to us, we couldn’t have hoped for it to be better.
Conclusion
The food had its ups and downs but if you prefer a meal with a view in Pettah, this is a good option. We genuinely recommend checking it out at night. It isn’t the cleanest or most elegant of places but when you compare it with the others in the area, it’s pretty damn good.
