Perusing the papers, my dad decided we should try the French Buffet at Chennai's Alliance Francaise. It had been advertised in Madras Plus. The Chef was not Pierre, his name was Madan and he was a surprise. I had imagined a small-made, finicky looking person who was high-spirited and waved his hands about and wore chef-type clothes. Chef Madan (his visiting card reads that) is a hulking guy, about six feet plus in height and easily tipping the scales at about 100 kilos. And he was wearing a denim shirt and trousers and no cap. I think chefy clothes and a cap would have helped the ambience. We went there without reservations. He first politely told us that he was full up but then after some sweet talking by my dad he was very happy to have us eat his food.

Chef Madan is from Chennai, studied hotel Management from Manipal, and had studied French at the Alliance. I think that's as far as his French connection goes. Chef Madan's reading skills propelled his culinary experiments. He pronounced the names of the food with authority.

The buffet was expensive for the seven dishes that it served and the lack of wine to ease the food down. There was some watermelon juice which could have been helped with a twist of lime. There was soup. Now the serving of the soup was a thriller. There was a profusely-sweating, chubby man serving it. I watched anxiously as the sweat trickled down his nose. It was a Mission Impossible type moment. Just when the sweat was about to drop into the soup he stuck out his tongue and caught it. Whew! That was close.

The soup was excellent and I do not want to let my imagination run wild with the ingredients. The tartlettes and the broccoli au gratin was pretty good. Not so the salad and the vegetable voulet-vent. The salad was an insipid mix of sticky rice and pineapple pieces. And the voulet-vent posed a challenge. After we managed to bite into it we couldn't speak or swallow. It kind of stuck to the upper palette and speaking made us choke and puff out voulent-vent flakes. Dessert also was very uninspired. The Chocolat (kindly appreciate my French spelling) cake tasted oily and the lemon tart was eggy.

Anyways, one must appreciate Chef Madan’s efforts. It was a novel idea and hey, Sundays are for experimenting.