Café Thulp

My guest at Dakhani Degh shall henceforth be referred to as WickedWitch - no, I"m not turning into a bad boy and neither are my senses leaving the small confines of my head, but that's precisely the name she used to describe herself - wicked witch of the feast, although it couldn't be any more diametrically opposite in description. Well, whatever.

So during lunch at DD, I tell her about my quest to find the city's best burgers, and she tells me that there is this new place about to open near her house in Koramangala called Café Thulp, and it's run by Gautham Krishnankutty of Tai Tai and Asia in a Box fame. And the bait she tossed at me was "You can't finish the burger that he serves". Me, not going to be able to finish a burger? Are you kidding me lady? Well, according to her, her healthy appetite prevented her from eating anything else.

So we make plans to visit the place as soon as it opens, and she calls me and we head to the place, me all geared up to tackle this beast of a burger, this upstart that claims it can beat me down. Once we got there, I immediately liked the aura exuded by the place - in a way, I'm a sucker for nice, bright colours, so I guess it helped in a way that the restaurant was brightly coloured, but that apart, it seemed nice.

A look at the menu actually didn't do me any good 'coz my eyes automatically homed in on the burger section as soon as the menu was placed before my eyes, and all I saw was 'Moos'. If you wondering what's that, well, that's the way the burgers are named... and I saw the biggest of them all, Moos your daddy, a beast containing a 12 ounce beef patty, and Gautham asked me "Would you like some bacon with that?". Do ants like sugar? Do women marry for money? I thought of a gazillion questions that had a one word answer, which matched mine in this case. I specifically asked not to be served the French fries along with the burger but asked them to retain the slaw served with the burger. I know now that I'll be able to finish the fries as well.

Moos your daddy

Another angle of moos your daddy

Ms WickedWitch had a sub, it's name I don't know. You can read a detailed post about Thulp here. We also ordered a Chef's special salad, which had a very nice dressing. To make up for the missing fries, I 'thulped' quite a bit of the salad, which is what gave me the confidence that the fries wouldn't prove to be an obstacle now.

We finished with dessert. I had a Picasso, and no points for guessing why the name. WickedWitch had a rum tart or something like that. And as I mentioned to her, I liked my Picasso better...which isn't saying that the dessert she had was bad - no, it was good, but mine was better!

Picasso

The burger I had here at Thulp will definetly make it to the best burgers list I'm compiling. The reasons I liked it were simple:

• Bun large enough to enclose the meat and 'stuff'
  
• Nicely toasted bun
• Bottom half of bun not too thin making it crumble
  
• Lettuce wasn't a large leaf making me feel like a cow (esp. while eating cow!)
• Onions in it weren't raw - they were caramelised
• Burger patty placed on the lower half of the bun without anything between it and the lower half of the bun

What's so special of the last point you may wonder? Well, a good burger has all the other stuff on top of the patty, and the patty shouldn't have anything between it and the lower half of the bun because if the burger had been made right, the juices from the meat need to be absorbed by the lower half of the bun. So full points for construction!

I guess a detailed review is in order, so I won't go into giving the usual gyaan about a place. Stay tuned!

Café Thulp, #998, 1^st Main, 1^st Block, Koramangala, Bangalore. Phone: 25487788

Richies

Mr VP and I decided to head towards Frazer Town, specifically to Richies to try their biryani, which is supposed to be fabulous. And it being Ramazan, we expected them to get it right at least on this special day. And we weren't disappointed. We also ordered a half plate of mutton chops, which sadly were a little chewy, and nowhere near the melt-in-your-mouth tenderness of the mutton in the biryani.

Mutton Biryani

Mutton Chops

The biryani lived up to its reputation, and both VP and I left extremely content.

Richies, #82 MM Road, After Alibaba Cafe, Opposite Bata Showroom, Bangalore. Phone: 25486696

BM Review: Dakhani Degh

This past week I'd been to a small restaurant called Dakhani Degh, situated well into south Bangalore (Jayanagar T block). This was part of a review for Bangalore Mirror, and the review can be read here. My guests were Suman Bolar, and her two sons Amol and Gaurav. Suman runs a popular blog called Food Travel Bangalore, also known as FTB. I've already learnt a lot from this foodie, and for one, I've actually met a food writer, and a brilliant one at that, so totally worth it.

The food was fabulous - especially the mutton main course dish and the dessert. The rest of the food was very good. Below are the pictures of what we ate.

Salarjung Kabab

Dakhani Sheekh Kabab

Mutton Bharra Kabab

Chicken Biryani

Shahi Dum Murgh

Mutton Mamoos

Khubani Ka Meetha

Food: Very good; although there was a butter chicken dish, stick to the Hyderabadi fare
$$$:Can't get better than this - the bill, for all this, including lemon sodas and lassi came to 1100 only!!!
Service: They take your order promptly, clear the plates promptly. If you expect more at these prices, you're crazy!
Verdict: Must visit, at least for the Khubani Ka Meetha and the mutton dishes
Extra Info: Take a right at Sagar hospital from Bannerghatta road (while coming from Dairy circle). It's after Sagar hospital, on the same road, just before the next traffic signal junction. Take a left at this signal and drive up ahead to find a place to park.

Dakhani Degh, 29/1, 30^th Cross, Tilak Nagar Main Road, Jayanagar T block, Bangalore. Phone: 32913033

Pizzeria Romano

P, VP and I had some time to kill last weekend. P and VP were at P's place 'packaging' a few chocolates that P wanted to 'gift' to a select few employees (read to a select few girls). I'd heard of this new pizza place that'd opened up in Koramangala, claiming to serve wood oven pizzas. Sounded good, so off we went for dinner.

We started off with mushroom soups, and mushroom in a garlic sauce, along with a plate of chimichanga rolls. The chimichanga, while being slightly different from what I'd eaten at Zoe's, weren't too bad themselves, while the mushroom in the garlic sauce was good, especially if you're the kind who likes garlic - for whatever reasons, including keeping Dracula away!

This place is all veggie for the time being. They plan to start the non-veg section shortly, and also a cafe below, and since this is a unit of Sprocket, the cafe will be called... that's right, Cafe Sprocket.

Chimichanga rolls

Mushroom in garlic sauce

For pizzas, although I was in a mood to devour as many as possible, my fellow partners in crime had filled their stomachs with biscuits ar Mr P's place before coming, and so we settled for two - a 12" wood fire pizza, called Veggie Supreme (recommended by the waiter) with Thousand Island dressing, and we later had a smaller, 7" or 10" (don't remember) Hawaiian (the pineapple in it drawing our attention toward it).

Undoubtedly, the Veggie Supreme came out top...the thin crust baked to perfection, the dressings, the toppings, the cheese... all in just the right amounts and

Veggie Supreme with Thousand Island dressing

Hawaiian

Food: Very good; they do serve a few pastas as well, but come on, stick to the pizzas - they're divine
$$$: Not expensive - way cheaper than a Dominos, or a Pizza Hut, or Papa Johns, or Little Italy. In my view, the best Pizzas in Bangalore.
Service: Very good
Verdict: If you don't visit this place, you're missing out on good pizzas.
Extra Info: Parking could be an issue if you're in a vehicle that has more that 2 wheels, so either park on the main road i.e. the road before you turn onto 5^th cross, or try one of the small lanes on 5^th cross.

Pizzeria Romano, #55, 5^th Cross, 6^th Block Koramangala, Bangalore. Phone: 25525104

Food Fest @ work

On Wednesday, we had a food fest at work, and everyone from our floor (our team) was supposed to cook something and bring it to work. And obviously, there were some who, well, couldn't/didn't tow the line and so they just bought stuff from a restaurant. Nevertheless, it was fabulous. We had made elaborate plans to ensure that people bring the right quantity, but when plans are made, they bear fruit only when people follow them.

We'd asked people who were bringing rice dishes to plan for 5-6 people, i.e. make enough rice so that about 5 or 6 people can have a proper meal, starters or side dishes should in sufficient quantity to feed 20 people, and likewise with sweets - enough for 20 people, since we could cut them and distribute them among the 45 team members. But when they came the next day, there were some who got enough rice to feed 30 people. And when around 45 people bring food, there sure as hell is going to be a lot, and I mean a lot!

Starters: Pappadums, dhoklas, mixtures, vadas, jaljeera (in container)

Main course: Pooris, parathas, chole (chickpeas), rice cakes, drumstick curry, puliogare

Main course: Lemon rice, veg pulav, avial, a couple of dry curries, curd rice, vadas

Main course: Another angle of the above

Desserts & sweets: My pannacotta is at the back (top left, to the right of the bowl of curds).

Chocolate Pannacotta

I finally made pannacotta! I'd been craving for it ever since I ate it at The Rogue Elephant, and finally, I was almost forced into making it. We had a 'food fest' at work, where everyone from our team was supposed to cook something and bring it to office. I'll be writing about that in the next post. For now, let's just stick to getting it out of the system and publishing what I made, the way I made it :)

Since it was for a team strength of 45 (I didn't make enough for 45, coz everyone was bringing something = I kept the number 15-20 in mind), the ingredients used were slightly more.

Ingredients:

6 packets of fresh cream (200 ml packets)
a glass of water
Gelatin
Sugar
Chocolate sauce

Method:

Make sure the water isn't hot, but it shouldn't be ice cold either, room temperature is perfect. Take a cup and a half of water and add to it around 8-9 teaspoons of gelatin. The formula I used was one to one and a half teaspoons of gelatin for every 200 ml of cream. Allow the gelatin to soak up the water and ensure that it doesn't lump together. Add the cream to a saucepan and start heating it on a low flame. After a few minutes, add sugar (this is as per taste - some like it really sweet, some prefer it not too sweet) and stir a little. Once the gelatin has dissolved, or appears to have soaked enough and is dissolving, add it to the cream and stir to mix well. Add the chocolate sauce (or any flavoured sauce/essence). Once the cream begins to boil, turn off the heat and allow it to cool naturally. Pour the mixture into little cups or into one large bowl and cover them/it and keep in the fridge to set. This should take about 4-6 hours (I left it overnight).

Super! Even my brother liked it, so I guess it did turn out well :)

BM Review: Southin

This past week I had visited a restaurant called Southin, claiming to serve Chettinad cuisine. The full review can be read here. I wasn't able to click any snaps with my phone, so the ones from the PDF will have to suffice.

Chilly Prawns

Kottu Paratha

Mutton Chukka

Vellore Chicken

Food: OK - some good, some tasted good but lacked authenticity, some average.
$$$: Cheap - seven of us ate, and bill came up to a little over 1800.
Service: Usual - place order, they'll get it.
Verdict: Can visit if you want Chettinad food, but otherwise, there are other options available.

Southin, #56, 1^st A Main Road, 7^th Block, Koramangala, Bangalore. Phone: 40927887, 40927897