Attill, Ahmedabad

I was really keen to visit Attill when it opened in AlphaOne because the Attill in Mangalore (later learnt, this is not part of the same chain) is awesome and Attill in Bombay (part of this Shetty Sons chain) has received great reviews from my friends.

The good part is that Attill serves varieties of fish that aren't normally seen on menus in Ahmedabad - bangdas (mackerels), pomfrets, bombil (bombay duck) and seer fish (which is found on other menus too)

However, the day we visited, they said that bombay duck wasn't available, so we settled for fish cutlets.

The restaurant has 30+ covers, but they took over 20 minutes to get our fish cutlets and 30 minutes from time of order to get our seer fish fry. Given that all the other eateries at Alpha Mall pride themselves on quick service, this delay was even more glaring than normal.

The cutlets were ok, but you couldn't really taste the fish above the crispy onions. It was served with thousand island ready made dressing, that had formed a light crust on the top of the bowl, from exposure to air. The sear fish wasn't bad and my husband said that the prawns (hari mirch tikka) were good. The quality of fish was good, but the time taken for service was terrible. Having just returned from a 2 week trip to Mangalore, the taste left a lot to be desired, perhaps I will enjoy the food more when I am truly craving Manglorean food and been starved of it for awhile.

The egg biryani was very good. Lots of chunks of masala in typical Bambaiyya style. The mutton in xacuti was excellent, but the gravy itself was salty and flat. The rich complex flavours were nowhere to be tasted.

The rotis were really soft and the laccha paratha was one of the best I have eaten in a really long time. So perhaps this is an ok place to go if you want kebabs and rotis, but I would rather go to kebab factory at the Radisson or Awadhpuri for that.

There weren't any types of poli/dosas - neer dosa, appams, sannas, idiyappams etc on the menu which is sad as these are the best accompaniments for Manglorean and coastal dishes.

Attill calls itself  a Fine Dining restaurant, but we were served food in plastic (not even melamine) plates.

Service is extremely slow and the staff don't seem to have become comfortable with the menu yet.

If you have never tasted Coastal cuisine before, then don't let this be your first place to try it, as it does not do justice to the myriad complex flavours of food from the West Coast. If you are craving Konkani food and just need a fix, then you can try this place. But its an expensive place too.

3 rotis, fish cutlets (4 tiny ones), 1 slice of sear fish fried, 1 mutton xacuti, 1 egg biryani, 2 tandoori rotis, 1 laccha paratha costed around 1800/-

I think I'm better off cooking this cuisine at home and requesting parcels from people who visit us from the Coastal regions.

Rating : 3 / 5