BM Review: Plan B

So when I heard about this place from Ruth and Sudhakar, especially the fact that they served beef and pork, I knew I absolutely had to visit it, review or no review. But in fact I did end up reviewing the place, and here's where it is. A couple of mistakes, and so my apologies to my guests, coz the labeling of their names seems to have gone a bit awry in what's ended up in the papers.

So my guests were a former quizzing team-mate of mine from college, Srusti, and a couple of his ex-colleagues from Thought Works (Judy & Tejas), P and VP, and also HPDude. And little did I know that the opinions would be as diverse as they were at the end of the meal. Judy and Tejas thought the chilli fried pork wasn't cooked well enough, while on the other hand, VP and I loved it. There were no complaints about the pandi curry though; all meat eaters dug into it. The wings could have done with some more 'meat' on them, but tasted good otherwise.

Spicy wings

Cheesy fries

Since Srushti wasn't too fond of red meat, he ordered the chicken satay, which turned out to be decent.

Satay

Pandi curry

Chilli fried pork

For the main course, VP immediately pointed out to the black board and said he's having the smoked pork chops. Straight away, let me say that those were the best chops I've had. E.V.E.R. Truly fabulous.

Smoked pork chops

Judy settled for the chicken lasagna, which turned out to be quite nice, with a good amount of cheese mixed in it.

Chicken lasagna

Srushti's jerk chicken steak was good, but not 'jerky' enough if you ask me. The jerk spices weren't very prominent and I thought it could have done with a bit more, but Srushti liked it the way it was.

Jerk chicken steak

P had the stir fried vegetables, which turned out to be just ok. 'Passable', he said, 'but nothing special'.

Stir fried vegetables with herbed rice

The burgers here are truly amazing. Tejas had the Juicy Lucy, a huge beef patty (probably the biggest in Bangalore) while HPDude had the Don't be a chicken burger. Both were great, with the Juicy Lucy living up to its name. I had a pulled pork sandwich, having spicy cured pork, and I couldn't have enough of it. If I hadn't filled myself up with the starters, I'd have had another one for sure.

Don't be a chicken burger

Pulled pork sandwich

Juicy Lucy

The desserts need some work done on them (at the time of writing this, one of the co-owners assured me that the desserts section has had a complete overhaul). The chocolate truffle seemed a little old, and had a 'stale' taste to it, while the oreo cheesecake tasted good, but seemed to a have a little more gelatin added to it, making it a lot stiffer that it should have been. The apple pie though, was quite good, with a liberal dose of cinnamon (who wouldn't like cinnamon I ask!).

Chocolate truffle with ice cream

Oreo cheesecake

Apple pie

Food: Apart from the desserts, the rest of the food was superb.
$$$: I guess this is what I'd call standard Bangalore rates - a bill of close to 3500, with 5% service charge for 7 people, with a couple of alcoholic drinks.
Service: Decent
Verdict: Can give Windsor Pub some serious run for its money. Must visit.

Plan B, #20, Ground Floor, Castle Street, Off Brigade Road, Bangalore. Phone: 41119225.

Coorg

"Thank Goodness it's Friday" is what went through my mind. It'd been a tough week at work and at home, lot's of work at office (which finally got done... hurray!) and some issues regarding some property (which also seems to have been settled for now), and so I needed some way to unwind. And so the chums (P & VP) and I met up, along with BakeACake (who is 5 months preggers) first at Gloria Jean's coffee. Along came Polly...well, not Polly actually, but another classmate of ours from school. He may be making occasional guest appearances here, so let's call him HPDude, for his continual support of HP laptops (he's bought/been gifted 5 laptops successively, all HP, soon after one crashes & burns).

So after assembling, and then haggling like old women over where to go for dinner, I was at the point of collapsing because of no food in my system since lunch (OK, exaggeration about the collapsing, but you get the picture), we finally decided to head to Take 5. We got there and there was quite a bit of cigarette smoke, something we didn't think of initially, and with BakeACake's baby on the way, there was no way we were going to spend time there (the fact that we didn't find seats also helped). And so we went down the building and walked into Cream n Fudge Factory for some ice cream until we decided where to go for dinner.

And so while BakeACake decided to mooch a spoon from our orders (apparently, she's not in a state to eat too much sweet), we went ahead with our orders. So P had an Apple Crumble (double scoop), VP had a Mocha Fudge (single scoop), HPDude got a single scoop of a Cookie Dream, while I had a double scoop of a What's up Berry. Apart from HPDude's Cookie Dream (which he says was actually a nightmare), the remaining were fine and so didn't elicit any extreme reactions from any of us. BakeACake found mine toooo sweet, but loved VP's Mocha thingy.

Cookie Dream

Mocha Fudge

Apple Crumble

What's Up Berry

And so after ice cream, we said our byes to HPDude, who had to go home and wouldn't be joining us for dinner. VP said he felt like eating pork, and the closest place was Wanley, and so we started a march towards Wanley. While entering the street where Wanley is, I suddenly remembered that there's a restaurant nearby that served Kodava food, and it was called Coorg, and this place is open for dinner only on Fridays, Saturdays, & Sundays. And so that's where we went.

The restaurant is located on the terrace of a house opposite Hotel Imperial (or Empire, one of those kabab-famous places) on Shree Krishna Temple street, besides the Karnataka Bank ATM. The place is decorated with pictures from around the Coorg district and a few farming implements used by the Kodavas in farming and other activities. They only have a buffet, and apart from that, there are a few fruit drinks that are offered. A bowl of potato wafers with a dip was placed on the table, and we also ordered a few drinks - passion fruit for P and me, while VP had is standard sweet lime soda.

A picture of Kodava men worshiping their guns

Potato wafers and dip

Passion Fruit juice

Akki Rotis

Along with the buffet, they also served hot akki rotis (these were made fresh and hot and were served on the table and weren't present along with the spread).

The meal consisted of nooputtu, which is something like iddiappams, or rice noodles that are pressed from a special contraption and them steamed. This was to be eaten with a chicken curry (like a stew), and for vegetarians there was a veg stew.

Nooputtu

Chicken curry

Veg stew

Apart from these, there was also the famous pandi curry, or pork curry, and it was simply yummylicious. VP's first question when we walked in was "Do you have pork?", and boy, did they have it or what! Succulent, tangy, and flavourful, it was awesome, and went well with the noodley, nooputtu (the iddiappam-like dish), as well as with the herbed rice that was there.

Pork, or pandi curry

Two other vegetarian dishes present were a mushroom curry and a dry dish made from jack fruit (something very similar to what's done in Mangalore and places in South Canara). Both were fantastic (well, I"m a sucker for mushrooms, but I'll have to rate the jack fruit dish slightly above for the simple reason that it was very well balanced, and since this was the only dry dish, I guess it stood out).

Mushroom curry

Jack fruit dish

To have the rice, there was a pot with some mango raita as well, and this nice and sweet. I hadn't noticed, but BakeACake and P told me that there were ants on the pot, and so were a little apprehensive about serving. Ants, sweet, kinda just made my point, didn't it?

Mango raita

A vegetable salad was also there, something that was essential given the amount of pork fat bobbing around in the pot :)

Veg salad

For dessert, there was some coconut souffle and caramel custard. BakeACake loved the caramel custard (I found this sweet, and wondered what she was ranting about 'sweet' things while we were having ice creams earlier). The coconut souffle was also very good, although I thought maybe a little less gelatin would have been better. The owner told me that make it like a mousse, which I agreed.

Caramel custard

Coconut Souffle

At Rs. 275/-, this was an amazing meal, and since this was a place that was for long on my 'must visit' list, I'm glad it finally materialised.

Food: Fantastic
$$$: Rs 275 + tax for the buffet
Service: What? Buffet, and akki rotis are served promptly. Go figure.
Verdict: Must visit, especially since Kodava food is not freely available in all parts of the city.
Extra Info: Open only for dinner on 3 nights of the week: Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

Coorg, Krishna Temple Street, Opp. Hotel Imperial, Indiranagar, Bangalore