Thursday, January 6, 2011

BM Review: Dine With...Panache

On Christmas eve, I visited this restaurant called dine with...Panache in Koramangala. The review for Bangalore Mirror can be read here. There are no photos for this review as I wasn't able to get good snaps with my point and shoot (didn't pull out the SLR for fear that the staff might get a little curious). Panache is a restaurant that served north Indian food and claims to redefine your dining experience.

For starters, we had one veg dish, and three non veg dishes. The veg dish, called kurkure khumb, was a smashin' hit at the table. Initially, when I read the description of mushrooms stuffed with bell peppers, I thought it would be stuffed into the 'cap' of the mushroom; however, the dish was made by halving the mushrooms, arranging 4 pieces one after the other, bell peppers added between them, and the whole thing had a base of bread crumbs, making the end result look like a boat - a mighty colourful boat I might add. The bhatti ki machli was a nicely marinated fish finished off in the tandoor, and was quite nicely done - cooked just right, tasted just right, and the fish flaked away inside the mouth...just right :)

The lagan ki boti were chunks of mutton marinated in onions, coriander, garam masala and yogurt. these were nice, but nothing great. The doodhiya murgh was just a fancy-shmancy name for malai kabab, and this was also OK. The disappointment came with the taimoori ras, supposed to be a mutton soup with hot spices. Granted, we made the mistake of assuming it would be like a paya, but the shorba was loaded with spices and just didn't cut it when it came to letting us get the taste of the mutton.

On to the mains, and here we felt we'd be better off and probably the dining experience would actually go a few notches up. We knew we were going to try the ghosht biryani for certain, and the biryani was quite nice, although I'd have liked it if the meat were a little more tender - not that it wasn't tenser, I just thought it could've been tenderer. Among the main course side dishes, the one that caught our fancy was the murgh shalgam ka mel, a seasonal chicken dish that incorporates turnip in it. This was quite different from anything I've had, and also since I'd never had turnip before, this was a first for me. The dish tasted a bit sweet though, and I kinda assumed that turnip would have given the dish a little 'bite'; this kinda tasted like pumpkin. Bottom line, it was a good dish.

The raseeli boti - mutton cubes cooked in a thing sauce was decent, but the taste wasn't mind blowing or anything. The 'sauce' seemed like an onion-based sauce (given the price of onions, I guess it was a nice touch!). A bread basket helped us mop up the dishes.

Dessert saw us having a litchi kulfi, made in-house, that was quite superb and all of us were leaning over each other to get a spoon of it. The kesar phirni, on the other hand, was quite thick, more like a custard and not the sweet,grainy delight it's supposed to be. Overall, decent place, but it certainly did not redefine my dining experience.

Food: Decent
$$$: Around Rs 500 per head for starter, main course and dessert
Service: Very good
Verdict: Can visit if in the area.

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