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

Samarkhand

Firstly, the delay in the posts coming up was because I have shifted to my new house, and there's no net connectivity for a while. And also, the fact that the USB drives at work have been disabled, which means the methods of uploading pics and posts needs to get a little craftier. Sometime back, VP said he got a decent hike and so he took P and me out to dinner. After watching a movie (One of those Narnia movies) at Garuda Mall (where they've put up miniature models of famous landmarks like Statue of Liberty, The Kremlin, Eiffel Tower, etc), we were wondering whether to have dinner at Kobe's, or to go else where, when finally VP said he wanted to go to Samarkhand.

A miniature model of the Kremlin

Hey, he was paying, so who were we to say no :) and so Samarkhand it was. Saturday night, no reservations, the trio enter and are told to be seated in Hypnos (same management, and they also told us same food would be served here as well). It was nice. A mixture of rustic and crude, old school au natural. The air inside was cool, bordering on damp/dank, depending on where you're coming from.

The complimentary bread sticks with the dip is usually a big hit, and there was no exception to the rule here. and what's more, apart from whetting your appetite, they photograph pretty well too! We also decided to have something to drink, and since we were driving, you guessed it, no -OH group compounds would be entering our bodies that night. All I remember now is that I had a passion fruit based rink, P had a pineapple based drink, while VP settled for some raspberry based one. My drink turned out to be the winner for the night :)

For the food, we started off with shorbas - tomato, chicken, and mutton. All turned out to be really good.

Bread sticks

Shorbas

My mutton shorba

For starters, we had the Peshawari paneer tikka (something I'd had 5 years ago when I first visited Samarkhand) - 3 large chunks of creamy, juicy paneer blocks that just crumble into divine oblivion inside your mouth. And I didn't ask whether they make their own paneer or source from elsewhere, but this thing was rich - like to the point where you eat one and you'll go "oof, that's filling!". Apart from that, we also ordered a plate of cheese balls or something like that from the Hypnos menu. These were OK, and P stated that he was quite full already and may not be able to eat too much. I think he's getting old - I mean this is the guy who once ate two main course dishes at Miller's 46 (so what if they were vegetarian, it was after a full round of soup and starters).

Peshawari paneer

Cheese balls (middle), with our drinks

For the non veg option that VP so badly wanted, we ordered a dish (whose name now eludes my fragile memory) that comprised of chicken breasts stuffed with minced chicken. This looked awesome when it was served, with steam coming out of the sliced breast pieces, and it tasted just as good. P was a little flabbergasted at the prospect of food being stuffed into food, but we didn't bother humouring him with explanations.

Chicken stuffed with minced chicken...awesomeness!

Another shot of the above

P said he couldn't eat another morsel after the cheese overdose, and so VP and I ordered a mutton biryani. This biryani was not as flavourful as it was fragrant, but even I was a bit stuffed, and since VP doesn't eat the meat pieces in biryani (he usually tosses them into my plate), I had to contend with some extra protein and at the end of the meal, I wished we could carry extra storage space for our stomachs - some kind of a compressible unit that can be attached to our bodies like a USB...those of you rolling your eyes back, hell, I'm an engineer and I know my breed (engineers) can do it, but we just choose not to at the moment (unless someone's already done it and I don't know about it).

Mutton biryani

Food: Wonderful
$$$: Slightly pricey...with non-alcoholic drinks, a full meal could cost you about Rs. 1000 per head.
Service: Good
Verdict: Go, go, go already if you haven't. They have valet parking, and go early on weekends...like at 7:30 itself if you don't have reservations...or just make a reservation, but still go early.