Author’s Page

This is Muralidhar Shreedhaaran, an IT Consultant by profession and a blogger by passion. 
About seven years ago, when I happened to read a couple of food blogs and reviews about restaurants, I liked it so much that I wanted to do it too.

I am not a cook or a chef, I am not a qualified food critic either, don’t ask me the difference between Hollandaise and Mayonnaise, that’s definitely not the intention of this blog.  🙂
I like to let people know about my overall experience at a restaurant, more like a heads-up before they actually visit the place.  

What should you expect from my blogs?
I write about the place in general, the ease of access, the ambience, the food, the service, my overall dining experience, and whether it was value for money or not from a ‘normal’ customer’s point of view.  I know VFM can be very relative, but if you read a couple of blogs, you’ll understand.  Most of my reviews are accompanied by clicks of food, so a person reading my blog can have a decent expectation set before visiting a place.

Do I go for invited events – Food festivals, a new menu launch, blogger’s table invite and so on?
Initially when I started to blog, I used to.  However,  in due course, that scene got very cramped.  A dish on the table and so many to click a pic of it, it didn’t feel very satisfying.  At one time, there were quite a few calls from PR agencies for some promotion or the other.  That’s when I decided I’ll skip these generic invited events, and its already been a few years now.  There have been a few times when I have received an invite directly from a Chef.  I have gladly accepted those, albeit, a very few! 

Do I pay for my food?
This is a question that I have been asked by quite a few 🙂
Yes, I do! I pay for my food and dine like any other customer, every single time.  If it is one of those occasional invites, I’d mention it upfront on the blog post.  The intention of mentioning it here is not to belittle those who accept such invites and write about their experience.  More often than not, the experience at an invited event and normal dining are poles apart, so I try to keep it as close to what anyone else would experience.

Do I write only about restaurants in Chennai?
No, I write about outstation restaurants also.  Since I am based in Chennai, predominantly all my experiences are from eating out in Chennai.  In case I am travelling, I write about restaurants outside Chennai too.  You can find these posts under the category ‘Outstation restaurant reviews’.

How long does a restaurant review hold good?
There’s no fixed rule.  Generally restaurant reviews hold good for 3-6 months because a lot of things can change during this time -The menu, the chef, the management, anything !  Always, the more recent the review is, the better it is!

Sometimes the frequency of posts on my blog is less, why?
As I have mentioned earlier, I am a full-time IT professional and I only blog out of passion.  Writing a post needs dedicated time and effort.  On days when that is not possible, I quickly put up a post either on my Facebook Page or directly on Zomato.

Enjoy your stay here ! You can subscribe to my blog if it interests you, share it on social media if you want to let others know about an interesting post !

In case you want to get in touch with me, please write to s_muralidhar@yahoo.com or PM me on Facebook.