Elements Heritage

Deepavali night 1, mom out of town, bro out with his friends, so me out with mine - it's only fair right. There's this place called Elements Heritage on Mosque road I've been wanting to visit in a while, ever since VP told me about it. So on Friday night, after visiting P's house (his mom invited us), we bolted off to Elements for dinner.

Apart from the wonderful ambiance this place has, another unique aspect about Elements in Frazer Town is that the starters all come with a bread or a rice-based thingy to eat with. So the shorba we ordered came with iddiappam, while the paneer tikka and the mushroom dishes came with a naan-type bread.

Shorba

Paneer tikka

Mushroom

For the mains, VP suggested I have the nalli nihari (something he'd tried the last time he was here) as it was really tender and tasty great. I had to take his word on this because normally he doesn't eat lamb/mutton because his gums swell up, and so he eats it only when it's really tender. Every main course dish comes with a piece of Indian bread, a portion of white rice and a portion of some kind of flavoured rice, along with a customary salad.

Nalli nihari

Another angle of the nalli nihari

P had the dal makhani, which turned out to be very good, while VP tried the Lucknowi khandvi, which turned out to be some kind of besan dish, where the gravy was amazing, but the actual 'khandvi' didn't work all that well for us.

Dal makhani

Lucknowi khandvi

For desserts, we had a shahi tukda and a zaffrani phirni, both of which turned out to be quite nice. The phirni gets special mention, since it didn't fell to heavy on our stomachs.

Shahi tukda (l), zaffrani phirni

Elements special chai (aka dancing tea)

Note to readers: do not have any milk based drink after a heavy dinner. You are liable to throw up ;)

Elements also has a buffet with a very large spread, but they don't seem to have enough options for vegetarians in it (3 items if I remember correctly), and since both VP and P were vegetarian on that day, I guess the buffet wasn't an option. But purely by the size of the spread, I think it's worth a shot. The menu and the cuisine seem to have been constructed and designed after not just Mughlai cuisine, but the cuisine of all Muslim rulers throughout India. That's the only explanation I could think of without asking the owners - how else would you explain iddiappams in a restaurant serving Mughlai food?

Food: Very good

$$$: Moderately expensive ~ Rs. 500 per head if you eat non vegetarian food

Service: Good

Verdict: Must visit if in the area

Elements Heritage, Mosque Road, Frazer Town, Bangalore.