BM Review: Sofraah

A few weeks back, after visiting Tangra, I visited Sofraah, also part of the same hotel (Eden Park) that Tangra belonged to. Sofraah, or dastarkhan, is a floor spread of meals in Central Asia. We were a group of 5, and there weren't anyone from the elitist minority, so we could peacefully eat our meats.


Sofraah is tastefully decorated and thankfully there aren't any souvenirs from battle-scarred Afghanistan that may bring back memories of khuda gawah. We dove straight away into the food. The Peshawari tandoori murgh and the buranche kabab were the options in chicken that we had, while the galouti kabab carried the flag for lamb.Straight away I'll tell you that what was served as a galouti kabab was NOT a galouti kabab. Or maybe the galouti was hiding under the thick coating of batter that was protecting the tenderised lamb meat inside. It tasted OK, but was certainly not a galouti kabab. The tandoori murgh was decent, like any other tandoori chicken dish, but the buranche kabab was something - chicken marinated with beetroot, I kid you not! And it tasted good too. Tender chicken, with the natural sweetness of the beetroot and a few other delicate spices made this a winner for us.

Peshawari tandoori murgh

Buranche kabab

Another angle

Galouti kabab

The Amritsari machchi was nice and although made in a tandoor, it was still quite soft. And for someone like me who isn't a big fan of cooking fish in a tandoor, I must say that this was quite nice. Or we got lucky. The jalpari jhinga (large prawns cooked on bamboo skewers) was also quite a nice dish, and the prawns served were nice and big and thankfully Sofraah did not go cheap on the prawns.

Amritsari machch tikka

Jalpari jhinga

Jalpari jhinga again

On to the main course, and while having a mutton biryani has now become a formality (turned out to be a nice biryani), we also decided to have some of the breads with a chicken and a mutton dish. A very colourful chicken dish called Sofraah murgh masala, colourful because of the multitude of bell peppers used in it. The dish tasted quite good, and there were no complaints. The anchali gosht too was a well made dish, with the mutton being soft and tender, and the flavours coming out to the fore.

Gosht biryani

Sofraah murgh masala

Anchali gosht

Finally, for dessert, we ordered a qubani ka meetha (a Hyderabadi dish in a Mughlai restaurant? Strange indeed!), and although this dish was nice and sweet, and the apricots used were good and weren't spoiled, I have to say that a true compote-like texture was missing. Don't get me wrong though - if you've never had it before, you might even like it, for taste wise it was quite good, but texture wise, it came up a bit short.

Qubani ka meetha

Food: Nice
$$$: Moderately expensive. The above meal cost us around Rs 3700 for 5 people (including 4 mocktails).
Service: Decent
Verdict: Can visit if in South Bangalore.

Sofraah, Eden Park Restaurants, 722/2, 36^th Cross, 10^th ‘A’ Main, Jayanagar 4^th Block, Bangalore. Phone: 42777333