This is where we got directed when we inquired a local about good places near Ashok Nagar. Spot on,
64/77, Sriji Apartments, 12th Avenue, Ashok Nagar, Chennai
Val's Patisserie is located on the ground floor Sriji Apartments. It doesn't have a catchy display board nor there's any signage on the road to direct you, but once on 12th avenue it should be quite easy to find spot on.
Being located in an apartment, there is ample parking space and there's not much traffic so on street parking shouldn't be a problem as well.
The ambiance wasn't bad, decently lit and natural light is made use optimally. AC was turned on only after we entered. The place was empty owing to the time we chose to walk in at 4pm. The place seems quite like an old 80's house renovated frequently and has the jigs of a restaurant. The table room looks like it was expanded recently with a few extra new set of tables that clearly was a spoiler to the appearance. The arrangement of the tables was however pretty good, staggered and plain, not much of the over-decorative type. There's a mat kinda thingy on which the plates are laid on the table, it looks pretty well, but not sure on how often they get to meet with cleaning.
Food, the ones we got to lay up our hands on were very average, and apparently the place is famous for their pastas! But our bad we didn't try it then. - Sandwich was made a little too dry without toasting or anything that took a while to find its way through the food pipe. The fillings inside were decent but didn't go very well with the bread and the flavors were very mild, very average.
- The fries that came along was the best thing. The flavors were excellent and seasoned and well distributed over all.- Potato wedges were a bit over fried. They were too crisp till the core.
- Pizza, was decent enough. Tasted authentic topped with olive oil on a bread base though. The toppings were very sparse and the cheese layer was thin as butter, was fresh but over baked. The toppings composed of a few other discrete unidentified particles.
- Irish Frappe! The thing to try here. It was over sweet though, but the consistency was great. They might have run an ice-cream through the blender, not sure.The dishes were sided with just ketchup and not many other things.
As the name goes, they make a few varieties of cakes as well, but didn't find any on the menu.
Cost, it was around 350 for three people, and I guess it explains for what was served. However, running a place like this can't come anymore cheaper. So it's value for money.
Serving time was around 15 minutes and service was prompt.
I would personally suggest to add more color and light to the table room and concentrate on smaller aspects like the focus lamps and ceiling lights. The place on a whole looked very dull, and was running low on everything which could be the reason it hasn't gone wild with the outer world. People from the local areas still flock around for they've got a great reputation behind which is promising and worth reinventing.