Sparky's has always been a great place to eat American, Mexican, Carribean, Hawaii and the likes, with a good dose of authenticity. So if you are looking for chicken tikka masala tasting pasta, then do not even attempt this place. But if you want a taste of what the west eats, then yeah! Sparky's is located in a spacious setting in Egmore in what was earlier a go-down I was told. The setting is fantastic with red interiors and collectibles from all over the US with a great number of US car number plates and a lot of curios.
After a few unsuccessful attempts at ordering the right dish here, followed by a few successful ones, I dragged 3 more of my friend to attempt the Sparky's Buffet, a weekly affair here, with a friendly price! What we saw shocked most of us. Never have we seen so many different non veg dishes for that price (or even higher prices) anywhere in the city (or outside). So we set off to discover each of them and found that quite a few were of great quality and taste!
To start of, I placed some salad on my plate, with some ranch and honey mustard dressings on top! I helped myself to a mini burger bun and stuffed it with some celantra dressing,a lettuce and a chicken patty! The burger was yum and I repeated it with the beef patty which was equally yummy! My first helping also included minced beef which I ate with some dinner rolls and which was heavenly to say the least and some BBQ chicken wings, which were pretty bad! We were served some tortilla soup on the table, but the soup was very average and is best avoided to save space for some good food!
My second helping included some beef mousaka, baked mexican chicken, a chicken hot dog, which i had with mayo and honey mustard dressing, some pasta (which is a live counter) and plain Grilled Chicken which I had with the veg bourbon sauce (which is one of my favorites at Sparky's,)! The bourbon sauce was not, how it used to be in the Al-a-carte, but it wasn't bad either. The beef mousaka was alright and so was the Mexican Chicken Bake. The hot dog was almost perfect, almost because that slight crunch when you bite through in a perfect hot dog was absent! I helped myself to some more minced beef, this time i had it in lettuce and some burger buns!!!!!!
My third helping was to satisfy myself with whatever I liked in the first two, that being the burger, the minced beef and a hot dog! On my return trips, they now have chicken strips, some Korean bbq beef which was very very good and some very average foods like a veg rice bake, a Mexican veg bake and stir fried vegetables. I would stay away from those.
Their iced teas and lemonades used to be very good, but somehow recently they are just alright. But you get bottomless drinks for just Rs 40 and you can switch between tea and lemonade and is a honest fare! I would not mind paying a few more bucks for a better iced tea though! The last time I visited the place, the pasta sauces were horrible and I left the full plate of pasta behind!
The desserts were very limited, just brownies, chocolate/vanilla ice creams and a fruit bake. Something was wrong with the ice cream, there was a funny taste to it, but the fruit bake and the brownies were decent!
Overall a great buffet dinner! The place was packed by the time we were half way through our dinner. I did not try much of the vegetarian dishes, so I really cannot comment on those!
Service was a little slow, but you usually do not expect much in a buffet. At Rs 295 a person, this is a great deal. If you can have a burger, a hot dog, some good Sloppy joe and some veg bourbon sauce with grilled chicken, you would have gotten your money's worth, so don't bother about the rest of the dishes.
A-la-carte, I would recommend their burgers, the nachos with grilled chicken, the Bourbon street pasta and their Korean Bbq chicken. A number of times you could end up ordering the wrong stuff and never come back to this place, but if you do order the right stuff, you will keep coming back here for it! Consistency is good and predictable!
Food-7/10
Service- 6/10
Price- 9/10
Ambiance-7/10
Sparky's is located opp to Palimar Restaurant in Egmore, near Spurtank Road, a few meters beyond the Egmore Subway.
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