Restaurant review - My Experience at Chilis, Bangalore

Hi guys, its been some time since my last post. Last month on the old Airport road, Bangalore, next to Total mall and above Papa Johns pizza, I happened to see a well lit up chilli. Yes, literally. It was a restaurant named Chilis and hence the symbol I believe. I thought I should visit this place some time. I had no clue what kind of restaurant that was. I was searching in the internet about that restaurant. I came to know that it is a rather long chain of restaurants (more than 200 restaurants world wide) serving Mexican and Italian cuisines. It is quite popular in the US and all that.

Last week my wife asked me to take her out for dinner and I thought I would try Chilis. So we started at around 8 pm to avoid excessive crowds and waiting (I hate waiting for food). I was actually put off by the parking space. It was in the basement of the building, lit up but not maintained well enough. It had all the electrical mains all aound and I had to park right in front of them. I would have been happier to have parked my vechicle outside :).

When we entered the restaurant, we were greeted by smiling young lady. She told us that they serve Mexican and Italian food. She asked us to wait for a couple of minutes so that the table is ready and handed over a menu card just to have a peek in the mean time. After seeing the menu card, I said to myself, This place is expensive! We were told our table was ready and we went upstairs. The overall ambience was not great, just about average I would say for such an expensive place. Red is one colour that dominates in the interior. Tables were closely spaced so that we can listen to the conversations of neighboring tables. Not a place to enjoy a cosy dinner with your loved ones.

Now, coming to the food. The menu is quite elaborate having starters, main course, desserts and beverages. The menu comprises of platters, quesidillas, fajitas, pastas, burgers etc... We, being veggies ordered some paneer bites for starters. It tasted like our own "bajji" I would say with paneer inside. Not very great. We then ordered a Pasta and and Lentil Fajita. The pasta as the waiter told before, was not very spicy. Actually it was very bland even after adding pepper to it :(. It was not what our tastebuds were used to. The fajita was good. The bread (chappati like, but cold), cheese, sauces, and the stuffings were all served separately. We had to roll the fajitas ourselves and then eat it. It was a nice experience though. The menu is quite elaborate and there are enough vegetarian dishes to try out. The servings are quite generous and I would suggest people to share the dishes. We could not complete our meal fully as the servings were large. We could not try the desserts as we were already done by then.

Overall, the quality of food does not justify the price. The food is not very spicy (wonder why they named it chilis) and those expecting some spicy bites at chilis beware! The food was above average and the ambience was just about ok. It was not a very satisfying visit, and I am not sure whether I will be going there again.