rhapsody - courtyard by marriott

ambience is good and enjoyed a lot. quick service and the staff is also good. the variety in food anddrinksleave a lot of options. the best think i liked is "samosa tossed in schezwan sauce"

rhapsody is like any other bar in some posh hotel, with almost no crowd. the liquor options are limited. the food was good though. we ordered some japanese chicken skewers which was pretty good. the service is quick. it’s a good option if you want to hang out in some quiet place over a couple ofdrinksand have a conversation.

it was an amazing experience at rhapsody courtyard by marriott. i visited this place to unwind my weekend with somedrinksand good food. inspite of chef being so friendly i just asked the chef to surprise me with his signature serves.

initially i was served with prawn tempura. it was so good with apt level of seasoning and chilly garlic and peanut based dip was served to compliment the dish. i personally like the dish without the dip, i felt wasabi mayo based dip would go well.

chicken vepudu with egg, an interesting fusion dish and it tasted good. initially l though it will be like a chicken roast (regular vepudu) but it was like deep fried chicken sauteed with egg, nothing wrong since it was mentioned fusion.

mutton chukka, one of the best serve of the evening, it was damn juicy with good level spiciness. the mutton perfectly cooked and the meat was well melanged with the masala. this dish should be a must order dish when you want to booze.

fish tikka was again an outstanding serve, a good chunk of fish with drooly indian masala went so well. simple green dip gave sharp awesome taste to fish tikka. i personally love have this dish with some whisky based drink.

as a vegetarian dish, chef served salt and pepper mushroom, which was more like well seasoned info chinese recipe. it almost had manjurian touch to it.for sure it will be good finger food to compliment your drink

chilly panner was not my cup of tea, the panner would have been more better. now day most of restaurants in chennai serve paneer in a malai consistency. but here it was slightly on the rubbery side.

moving on to the drinks, i and my friend sticked with cocktails

flap jack, i ordered this drink because the ingredients used in this was interesting. it's a mix of orange juice with whisky, cinnamon syrup, and maple syrup. it was blend of flavours.

rhapsody sour, a simple version whisky sour with orange, and egg whites gave rich and creamy texture to the drink.

pina colada, it was not on the menu but i request the bartender to formulate the drink with the ingredients in his shelf. he said made simply an interesting drink with a twist in pinacolada, it was like normal pineapple based drink but the addition of cadamom just elevated the drink.

as a last drink we had liit, the to get our buzz levels fixed for the night. it was so perfect with good concentration of liquor in it.

overall it was an amazing experience dining at rhapsody, i loved the food and drinks. food was excellent to pair with yourdrinksand cocktails are slightly on the concentrated zone but other flavours just engulfs it.

was there on a non busy saturday eve! only to be found that rhapsody opens up at 6 pm. so we positioned ourselves in the restaurant to kill time until 6.
we had 2 zomato gold memberships.

  
they were happy to serve thedrinksat the restaurant.t-1 hours we ordered pepper chicken and baby corn mushroom salt and pepper mainly for our sides. 

  
chicken pepper fry was okayish. could have cut the chicken pieces smaller so there would have been a flavour spread. no disappointments with the taste though.
  

baby corn mushroom fry. this was the show stopper. i was never a fan of baby corns, until this moment. the baby corns were perfectly fried it went good with kingfisher. 

  
for thedrinkswe ordered cosmopolitan, kingfisher (2+2) in the restaurant.

  
later after 6 we moved on to rhapsody, they were courteous enough to move us along with our orders inside the bar. 
where we finished off with daiquiri, absolut raspberri (2+2)

  
highly recommended for the cocktails and the food.
  

to the downside the decrease in 1star is because of the service, there were one or no people to take our orders in the bar.

a great place to hang out with your buddies with a fewdrinks.... came to know of this place only through their crazy offer during the ipl season , been a regular ever since. pricing is also reasonable and worth it.

rhapsody is a blazing resto bar located within the star property of courtyard by marriott. it is placed on the ground floor and it's quite sprawling and pretty intimidating in it's appearance. they've divided the place very well and you have various kind of seating arrangements for you to gulp down a glass of your favourite liquor and chill.

they also have a massive screen placed right at the center and if you're the kind who enjoys sporting action, this will work out as a wonderful set up for you. coming to the ambiance it's all dark and dim but spiralled with interesting choice of colours which give it an appealing feel. at the same time, it projects out very well that this is a pub for you to chillax and get down and dirty with an eclectic mix of choices where you can guzzle to your hearts delight.

we were here the other day as a big set of guys and had a shot at various cocktail varieties made from rum, whisky, vodka, brandy and we enjoyed most of them. we got started off with beer to get the instant pep and thedrinksthat followed help cool our systems. they were generously accompanied by chips and peanuts.

on the food side, it was more about just the starters. we had crunchy masala vada as company and for bites a bucket full of nuggets with mayonnaise. also got to try a plate of tandoori vegetables comprising of panneer, potato, pineapple, cauliflower with the melting green chutney.

the service was quick as well as friendly. the rates are more bordering along star based property rates.

if you're looking for an up scale pub with a wonderful feel good vibe and love watching sports on big screen, this is the ideal kind of atmosphere where you could enjoy and pamper yourself to the maximum extent possible.

good ambience with more variety , the best amongst thedrinkswere jagermeister with redbull. top-notch.. enjoyed every second of the experience . would visit again definitely

great place to hang out with. staff were extremely helpful in choosing exotic drinksespecially mr rajaram. would definitely recommend it to my friends. vfm

good place to hang out with friends ..best part is can talk peacefully after a couple ofdrinksand satish the best host there will pamper us and make the team intoxicated with the hospitality...keep it up and looking forward for more..cheers to the whole team at rhapsody ✌✌✌

like the bar. the food anddrinksare really good.
the price is set right as we get excellent quality of food and drinks.
music is not "loud", we can speak to each other without screaming our lungs out.
definitely a place to visit and spend time with friends and family.

review based on dining experiences many years ago ( before my zomato reviews started)

rhapsody in 2009 and 2010 then suffered from a simple problem.. what exactly was its identify in a good four star hotel located bang centre in anna salai. i never saw it crowded or packed dancing crowds or cheeky flirting on weekend evenings. a few djs and festivals were occasionally held here to promote the bar but i don't think it worked. the paprika coffee shop ( refer my review posted) was far more popular for chennai residents. in fact even i as a in-house resident of the courtyard (for little over four months), may have visited it no more that five six times that too largely at the insistence and pampering by then executive chef suresh thampy. lighting was dark zombie blue, tables and chairs for fine dining but music more a bar type.drinksand snacks were vfm here for a quick nibble and swig. but not the place for a wild party and dance.

the menu highlight or rather off the menu item used to be the vodka penne with beetroot & goat cheese that suresh cooked personally for me. sublime, creamy with the saltiness of the cheese & the sweetness of the beer and crunch of a few tossed walnuts. and of course the headiness of that vodka .. so as in russian toasts ... za milyh dam (to lovely women) or "vashe zdorovie (to your health) !!!!

so first thing first...
what is rhapsody??? is it a bar or is it an italian restaurant?
the answer is that it is a bar which servesdrinksand finger food.
it also serves food from courtyard's in room dining menu, which honestly is quite pathetic excuse to serve food. 
atleast have a different menu printed for the bar, even if you want to serve the same things.
so we were there few nights ago and they had a wine tasting deal of rs 600++ for 30 ml x 6 wines.. on the face of it, this is good deal. but when you have to drink from bottles which were opened few days ago, its probably not. its actually a disaster in making. red wine is fine, if stored properly. white becomes pure vinegar. 
ordered for some bar food. waited for 40 minutes, no response. had to create a ruckus and finally after another 15 minutes, our food arrived. we politely turned it down because one cannot wait for bar snacks for more than 45 minutes. one may think that maybe the far was very busy but no, that wasn't the case. there were probably 15 people in the entire bar which cane easily seat 75 people.
anyways, then we ordered some food from the in room dining menu which was pretty ok in taste.
the bartender by now was pretty embarrassed about this whole experience and ended up ordering a cheese platter for us on the house. that was very cordial of him.
overall, terrible experience except the behaviour of bartender who is probably the only thing good about this place. 
food service is pathetic. simply put... avoidable.

after the usual friend's birthday rituals it was time to decide a place where we could all catchup over a couple of drinks. at first we decided on a different place but then one of my friend told us about rhapsody in the courtyard marriot hotel. the most buying factor was its happy hours which happens to be from 6pm-8pm.

located on anna salai, we reached the place with some difficulty, thanks to the new road blocks which pop ever now and then. the place was deserted we reached (6.45pm) and the crowd started coming in around 8.30pm. the place was pretty big with a dim lighting and a very classy ambiance. the couches were all dark red with a couple of violet cushions here and there. the tables were all a dull golden brown and the all these together formed the rich and elegant rhapsody.

we ordered a couple of pitchers and a few rounds of whiskey. their liquor menu wasn't that great but none the less had a pretty decent collection. the place also has a smoking mini-lounge like setup inside and even that had all the fancy couches and chair.

thedrinksstarted flowing and so did the conversation. everything went smoothy until a moot point. when i was returning from the restroom, i noticed my friends talking to the manager. on going over, i realised that he refused to serve moredrinksand on further inquiry he said 2 of my friends were drunk. i don't want it make it seem like i'm supporting them or anything but they really weren't drunk and i told him it doesn't matter since only i was gonna drive. the manager didn't pay heed and the b'day boy got pissed and demanded another round. this is when things got funny, the manager suddenly asked for his id proof and he provided him with not one but three such proof. he was 22 and thats when the manager said a blatant statement. he said we all had to be 24 to enter. i bursted out in laughter and asked him whether he is from delhi or something. he then asked us to see the board outside which clearly says 21 and above.

i can understand the part were he said he couldnt serve us anymore but after that it was very stupid. he could have handled the situation much better rather than coming up with absurd hoaxes. we decided to leave and obviously never to return to such an anti-customer place.

verdict -
price - 2.5/5
food - 3/5
ambiance - 4/5
service - 3.5/5
manager - 1/5 ( i didn't wana generalize the staff since their service staff were really friendly).