Friday, March 26, 2010

Momo Hut

Monday night, Mr P decided to celebrate his anti birthday. Wait, I'll explain what that means, don't get all 'Wha..? ' on me now. September 22 is his birthday, and March 22 is 6 months after, so he wanted to do this. His idea, not mine. So an anti birthday is one where the anti birthday boy doesn't bring gifts while the invitees foot the bill. VP and I were in early (big surprise coz usually VP is almost always late). So instead of waiting at Barista (the proposed waiting place), VP and I first headed next door to Tunday Kababi as VP was extremely hungry. Sorry, no pictures of what we had there, but the Tunday special was simply amazing (there's a legend that the original one, made from beef, was made for a king who had no teeth, so you can imagin how soft it must have been).

In any case, after eating, the rest of the gang arrived - the rest being the anti-birthday boy P, and Ms WeightConscious. After some iced teas, we had initially planned to go to Rolls united, but then decided to go some place where we could walk to as VP didn't have enough fuel and wanted to fill up first. And that's when we remembered that there's a place called Momo hut opposite Desmond's (in Koramangala itself, on the street parallel to the JNC street).

VP and I were quite full after out little adventure at Tunday's, so a plate of chicken momos (steamed) and a plate of Shaptra with Tingmo is what we ordered respectively, although knowing VP, I knew I'd have to finish off what he leaves for "the poor hungry people on the street". Shaptra is a spicy dish having peppers and onions with chicken, beef, or veggies. It's usually had with the Tingmo, which is a hand made Tibetan bun. If you look closely at the picture below, you'll notice that the top of the bun isn't dark brown like commercially available buns. I later found out that it's steamed.

Shaptra with the Tibetan bun called Tingmo

The Shaptra along with the Tingmo was really nice (I've had this before when I visited a Taste of Tibet in Langford town near St Joseph's college). The gravy wasn't super spicy as I had expected, and the Tingmo was a nice accompaniment to mop up the gravy.

Picture of just the Shaptra

As expected, VP had a couple of pieces of the momos and then said he was full, and mumbled about how the momos looked yellow and not white and what not. Now I know why I never lose weight - I end up eating whatever VP orders as well!

Chicken momos (steamed)

P & WeightConscious had the veg chowmein and both agreed it was good. P also had a bowl of egg soup. One thing to remember is that Tibetan food doesn't make use of MSG or ajinomoto like the Chinese restaurants do, and for heavens sake, don't ask them for Chinese food or make any references to China when you're at a Tibetan restaurant. I know I've used a tag 'Chinese' for this post, but that is purely for convenience, and not meant to be offensive.

Veg Chowmein

Food: Nice
$$$: Cheap
Service: Prompt
Verdict: Can visit if you're in the area and want to avoid Chinese joints serving food with MSG.

Momo Hut, 4th B Cross, opposite Desmond's and Daily Bread, Koromangala 5th Block, Koramangala, Bangalore. Phone: 40927500

Thursday, March 11, 2010

BM Review: Medici

Last week I visited a new restaurant in Indiranagar to review it for Bangalore Mirror. It's called Medici. The moment I heard the name, I thought of my visit to C'est La Vie, where my guest Vrata had mentioned the history about why forks are placed face down on the table. So I knew there was a French and Italian connection here, and this guess was vindicated when I visited the restaurant. The full review can be read here.

Some of the snaps I took of the food are here.

Olive Oil + Balsamic Vinegar Jar


Beef Carpaccio


Roast Duck Salad


Wild Mushroom Soup


French Onion Soup


Chicken Parmigiana


Tortellini


Tournedo


Duo de Poisson


Bouillabaisse


Prawn Risotto


Tiramisu


Crepe Suzette


The crepe with the brandy on fire

Food: Very good
$$$: Around 500 - 700 per head without drinks
Service: Good
Verdict: Must visit
Extra info: The restaurant is located a little after the Hyundai showroom on 100 feet road. If you're coming from Koramangala, as soon as you come down the flyover, go past Barbeque Nation and then keep looking out on your left for Maharaja Furniture.

Medici, #1206, 2nd Floor, Mannan Arcade, Above Maharaja Furniture, 100 Feet Road, Indiranagar, Bangalore. Phone: 42350674/75/76

Monday, March 8, 2010

Chowka

Last week, some of the guys from my floor at work with whom I regularly have lunch decided to go out for lunch. So we'd planned to go to Italia on 100 Feet Road (the old Little Italy). However, on D-Day, we decided to abandon the plan of Italia since some of the guys weren't too keen on Italian i.e. bland food. And so a little exercise of finding out where to go ensued. Finally, we zeroed in on Chowka in Tippasandra, a place that served Rajasthani food.

I was all excited as I'd never had Rajasthani food before. So we got there and ordered the thalis. I'm not sure, but one of my friends said that you get only thalis here, so no point asking for a menu (and it seemed like everyone was having a thali). When in Rome, be a Roman. Thalis it was then.

They started off with dal baati, a kind of vada served a kind of dal. Once that was done, they came and served a multitude of vegetable side dishes that were great. Rajma, bhindi, masala aaloo, aaloo chaat, kadi and a sweet.

Dal baati


The entire thali...well, almost entire


Not real people

I didn't have dinner that night. I was happy, and full.

Chowka, #64, Muniyappa Complex, HAL 3rd Stage, New Tippasandra, Tippasandra Main Road, Bangalore. Phone: 40971000

Kinara

On Feb 17, I finished 5 years at the place where I work (GXS). Well, unofficially I finished 5 years - I say unofficially because on Feb 17, 2005, I had joined as an intern, along with 19 others from various colleges, all of us in our final semester of engineering. Now that only 7 of us remain from the original 20, we went out to celebrate, and since we're in different teams, getting a suitable date when everyone are free and could come was getting a bit tiresome and so finally since Kinara was right next door, we decided to go there.

The restaurant looks nice - it's got a nice ambiance and the interiors are cool. They've also got a couple of coconut trees within the premises as you're not allowed to cut them for construction.

Onto the food. Instead of going a la carte (which is what I'd have preferred), I was outvoted 6-1 that we go for the buffet. The buffet is Rs. 199/- + taxes, and is served at the table itself - no need to get your butt off the chair (for the food at least). And so the buffet it was. They started off with a shorba for the non-vegetarians and a pea or spinach soup (don't remember) for the vegetarians. Oh, the menu changes everyday for the buffet, so don't go there hoping you'll get the same stuff we had. There was way too much pepper in the shorba - not a very pleasant start.

Chicken shorba

Some of the veg starters: Aaloo something and veg cutlets

Aaloo and veg cutlets

The achari paneer tikka was OK - the spices were good, the paneer by itself wasn't the best I've had.

Achari paneer tikka

I don't have any other pictures worth putting here - as you can imagine, I wasn't very thrilled with the food. The non-veg starters were also OK, but nothing special, and I don't even remember what they were.

For the main course, there were two chicken dishes - one a keema and the other a chicken tikka masala. Now CTM may be something that was given birth to in the UK with Campbell's tomato soup and what not, but this was not a CTM. Don't get me wrong - it's not that it tasted bad, but just that it wasn't tasting like a CTM.

The vegetarians had some palak dish and something else, and the rice item was a veg pulav, which was actually nice. For dessert, they gave us butter scotch ice cream with a gulab jamun. Ugh! Butterscotch and ... forget it. The food served for the buffet was average, nice, but there was nothing special, and although we didn't try the good stuff (a la carte), I'm not going back there in a hurry.

Food: Average to nice
Service: Decent
$$$: Sufficient quantity for what they charged, but expected better quality.
Verdict: Avoid buffet if possible and try the a la carte (and then let me know).
Extra Info: This place is located at one end of 100 Feet Road, after KFC and Domino's Pizza, adjacent to one of my office buildings (GXS).

Kinara, #305, 100 Feet Road, after Domino's Pizza and next to GXS, Bangalore. Phone: 43494349, 9900002118.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

BM Review: Veekes & Thomas

This past week I'd been to Veekes & Thomas to review for Bangalore Mirror. The review can be read here. This a totally new concept in Bangalore, where the philosophy is "We aspire to do to continental cuisine what the Chinese from Calcutta did to Chinese food decades ago - highly Indianised, very affordable and easily available". Great!

They also have a little cart diagonally opposite Maiya's in Jayanagar 4th Block, while the main kitchen is in J P Nagar. However, let me say at the beginning itself - don't dine in at the JP Nagar kitchen - not coz it's not nice, but getting seating may be an issue, so order in, that would be better. The JPN premises have a seating only for about 8 people or so, so unless you've got loads of time on your hand, order and ask for home delivery if you live close by, or go around shopping and come back to pick up your food.

Chicken Nuggets


Minced Meat Crostini


Grilled chicken open sandwich


Chicken salami open sandwich


Shepherd's Pie (chicken)


Chicken breast stuffed with mushroom and spinach


Risotto, with olives and chicken


Basil-Parsley pesto pasta


Cilantro chicken in white sauce pasta


Chocolate Mousse


Chocolate Brownie


Veekes & Thomas, #22, 5th Cross, 24th Main, JP Nagar 2nd Phase, Bangalore. Phone: 65329999, 9686178000
 

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