The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Table mats enliven the dining experience

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Monday, Nov 17, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Table mats enliven the dining experience

Kannal Achuthan

Restaurants load them with puzzles for patrons to solve

— Photo: Kannal Achuthan

FUN MEAL: Children tackle puzzles on paper table mats at a restaurant in Nungambakkam.

CHENNAI: Many restaurants in the city are now offering food for thought as their customers wait to be served their meal. The idea of paper table mats with puzzles to solve has become very popular.

Some restaurants even change the puzzles every three months so that their regular customers have something new to chew on. The paper mats are a great favourite with children.

A. Suresh, general manager of Bombay Blue, an outlet in Nungambakkam, said, “Customers love to spend time on these puzzles. We provide pencils or pens on request.”

The puzzle mats have ‘spot-the-differences’ between two pictures that children enjoy. Adults have the option of word or number puzzles.

D. Punitha, a customer, said the puzzles are good fun when done as a group activity. “The first time we came, my friends and I tried to find out who got the most answers first,” she said.

The New Yorker restaurant near Gemini flyover has pink paper mats with number puzzles such as Suduko. Restaurant manager S. Basha said that the puzzles and riddles are changed frequently to add a dash of variety.

For busy mothers like Lakshmi Prabha, the activity mats provide a breather as her two children get engrossed in the puzzles.

“I can have a conversation on my mobile phone without getting disturbed by the kids,” she said.

Cream Centre, a two-year-old restaurant in R.A. Puram, has also found that the puzzle mats are a big hit.

The outlet shifts to new puzzles on mats whenever it hosts a festival. Restaurant manager B. William said, “When we had an Italian food festival, the puzzle mats quizzed customers on cities in Italy and provided a missing letters game on varieties of pasta.”

He said a team was now working on ideas for ‘Best of 2008,’ a festival to be organised next month.

Pizza Corner had the puzzle mats several years ago but now has moved to Zzapi comics. The comics are stocked in pizza outlets for children who want to know the latest adventures of Zzapi Nercor, a superhero from the distant planet Dinia, where everyone eats only pizza.

However, there have been no new releases for some time so the comic is not available now. A new edition is expected next year, said a manager at the Abhirampuram outlet.

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