Foodiebay.com is a restaurant listing website which I would recommend foodaholics (and non-foodaholics too!) to bookmark, for its an excellent resource to the answer the question “Where shall we have lunch?” (The first two important questions being “How can we eat?” and “Why do we eat?”)

Started by IIT Delhi graduates who loved food and got fed up of having to run around too much to figure out a good place to eat, Foodiebay was initially launched as Foodlet.in before they changed to its current name because of ‘numerological concerns’. Initially, the service covered eating joints in only Delhi/NCR but the service has recently been expanded to Mumbai and Kolkata too. I can’t comment how good the coverage is for the last two cities; at least for Delhi their database is quite comprehensive.

Once you visit the site you can search either by location from the dropdown menus, or search for a particular restaurant name using the searchbox below. My experience suggests that searching for locality doesn’t work that well because it tries to match with both restaurant names and place names. Moreover, the search function is quite terrible anyway – instead of searching for whole words it tries matching within restaurant / place names too. This often ends up giving irrelvant results. My advice is – if you know the name of a restaurant, you should use the search feature to look up its details; otherwise, if you’re looking for eating joints around a particular locality then choose the dropdown option. The dropdown has quite a bit of granularity, so you can select quite specific areas.

Search results are ordered alphabetically according to restaurant name, with cuisine and address mentioned alongside. Watch out for the ‘printable discounts available’ tag available on certain restaurant listings. Icons show depict what kind of facilities are available – dine-in, delivery, bar, pure vegetarian only, cards accepted or not etc. In case you want to refine search results further, based on estimated cost for two, cuisine, facilities available et al you can do so by selecting the refinement options listed above the search results. Quick sorting according to rating (taken from HT / Times of India food guides) or estimated cost can be done by clicking on the column title.

Clicking through on a restaurant title takes you to its details page. For certain restaurants a short (around 50 word) review by a Foodiebay editor is also available. You can browse through the restaurant’s menu too, which is posted in the form of images. Most of the time these are images of the takeaway leaflet menu, so don’t judge a restaurant by its menu! I don’t know how they got the menus for restaurants which don’t do delivery orders. Maybe they sneaked them out or asked permission from management.

If the menu is long in length page-wise (menus are posted pagewise), you can have a bit of trouble reading it. Say you scroll to the end of a menu and want to flip to the next page – so you click on the next page link at tge bottom. The image changes but you’re still at the same place where you were, so you need to scroll again to the top before having to scroll down again. For menus which are a few pages long this can be quite irritating. Maybe they could place an anchor at the start of the menu which the browser would jump to when clicking on page link.

Despite those few niggles (search, menu browsing) I would say that this is an excellent website. A startup has accomplished what other bigwigs in local search such as Google, AskLaila, Justdial and others couldn’t – make a no-nonsense website which helps you reach decisions quickly.

Tags: Youthpad

Originally posted at Youthpad.

My rating of Nirula’s Potpourri: 7.9 / 10
Address: N-64, Outer Circle, Connaught Place, New Delhi (other locations)
Phone number: 011-41517070
Open from: 11am to 11pm

Potpourri is restaurant chain operated by the Nirula’s group, offering a fine finer dining experience than you get at the ol’ regular Nirula’s establishments. Potpourri, true to its name, offers a smorgasbord of offerings – Indian cuisine, Italian cuisine, Thai cuisine, Continental cuisine, and a miscellaneous International cuisine. Naturally, prices are higher – compared to normal Nirula’s restaurants but it’s worth it.

The CP branch of Potpourri is situated on the first floor of outer circle Connaught Place. When you’re going by that road it’s hard to miss its sign (and the floor which its occupying). Entrance is tucked away in corner leading to a narrow flight of stairs.

You generally wouldn’t need to make a reservation. On entering you’ll find the bar straight ahead with the seating area to the right. Interior is a curious mix of old school CP building and new school funky designs on the walls. Don’t let those ceiling fans in the picture fool you; won’t have to sweat it out, the joint is air-conditioned (obviously). But those old-school fans are a nice touch.

I didn’t really pay much attention to the paintings / pictures on the walls. Nothing really called much attention. Seating is primarily designed to accommodate groups of 4-6 people so in case this a family / team dinner it’s a great place. Hardly noisy at all, you won’t be disturbed by a constant din.

This photo added simply because it's nice shot

Menu at Potpourri is extensive. You can browse through the complete Nirula’s Potpourri menu online. Fans of Italian food might want to try out the ‘create your own pasta’ option at the live pasta station. Waiting staff is quite helpful in making choices. When our group ordered too much food than what we would need, the waiter pointed it out and helped us eliminate items we wouldn’t need. Food arrived within 10-15 minutes and they took care to see items were brought in more or less at the same time so that nobody felt left behind.

Ratatouille with pasta

Ratatouille (with pasta) was a bit cold. That spoiled the taste. Even if the vegetable bit was good I couldn’t make it out because the pasta bit was bad. Verdict – avoid.

Chana masala

Chana masala was not spicy at all. I often have problem eating Indian food at restaurants because I can’t handle the tiniest bit of spiciness. For me this was great but most people would find it…weak I guess as it isn’t spicy. This bias towards milder spiciness is probably brought on by the fact that Potpourri is frequented by foreign tourists, so the food has been altered to suite and international palate. Verdict – up to you, depending on which side of the ’spicy’ debate you’re on.

Navratan korma

Navratan korma was heavenly! It’s a dish with nine vegetable mixed with lots of cashewnuts in a thick, sweet gravy. Best taken with chapati. Verdict – don’t miss this at any cost!

Gourmet burger with mushrooms

I ate a gourmet vegetable burger with mushrooms added as an extra. Coleslaw was provided separately on raw cabbage peels but that meant all the dressing fell away, making the buns soggy. Still, the burger was good. Mushrooms add quite a unique taste to the mix. Accompanying French fries were twisty and very crunchy – not the limp variety you find at McDonald’s. (No point comparing the two of course. They’re worlds apart.) Verdict – Buy, but I’m assuming most others would opt for chicken / lamb burger. Can’t comment on that, I’m a vegetarian. I also had peach iced tea.

The point of uploading ALL these pictures is to make you feel hungry. Like, right now.

Portions served are more than enough for one person – for all the dishes. Indeed, we were quite full and had no room left for dessert. Assuming that the same Nirula’s ice-cream served in their normal restaurants is given here, the premium you pay is for the ambience. Total bill for a group of three came out to be around Rs 1000. Then, you will get served.

Obviously, Nirula's doesn't learn pop-culture lessons from South Park

Overall, I would recommend Potpourri for its good food, helpful waiting staff, quick service times, and prices which aren’t overly exorbitant.

Tags: Youthpad