Expensive street food - Spoonbill

Spoonbill, nestled in a corner of the bustling TTK Road, Alwarpet, opened today. The whole concept of street food interested me as I always love eating from the street vendors, especially in Mumbai and Pune. Spoonbill's website boasted of street food from Germany, France, Turkey and India. A very interesting write up in the website makes anyone want to visit the place.

The interiors were neatly done, an abstract painting on one wall, some nice framed pictures similar to the ones on the website and a live counter in the middle. It works on a self service model - you order - pay - collect your trays - sit - eat - have fun !

OK, now let's get down to the food. A quick look at the menu card told me my options were limited - there were 2 vegetarian dishes in Indian and 3 in French. The rest all were non-veg. Of course, there were veg burritos. Obviously I had to choose from this list. Not a big decision maker when it comes to food, I asked them to suggest and a corn spinach cheese crepe it was, from the French menu.

I'd dragged along a friend who had come down from Delhi, and he'd ordered a lamb bratwurst from the German menu. Priced at INR 280, it had about 12 1-inch pieces of sausage, and a bun and some onions. He loved the dish but not the price.

The French crepe was nicely wrapped and I settled comfortably in a chair, overlooking the busy road. The first bite was a little too sweet and as I munched along, I could taste the corn and cheese, but my taste buds couldn't catch the spinach. It was also a little too salty for my liking.

There were loads of sweet crepes, with various options including double strawberry, mangoes, nutella, chocolate et al. I decided to skip that and have a chocolate muffin. Two things about the muffin - a. was a tad dry and b. was over priced. INR 150 for a muffin is just too much.

While totally innovative and creative, it's ironical that street food should be quite pricey. We spent over INR 600 for 3 dishes, on the standard category. Had this been a meal or jumbo, the price would have touched INR 800+. The meal / jumbo includes fries and a drink.

I'd like to try the sweet crepes sometime. And I wish there were more options in the vegetarian category.

I understand that opening a restaurant / food joint is a highly difficult task; there's so much hard work and there's the effort of so many people right from setting up, management, sourcing the ingredients, facing bureaucracy; this review is only meant to improve the service and certainly not as a dampener.