Zheng

So after the near miss of Zheng on Friday night, Sunday night we decided to go to Zheng. As if the weekend wasn't bad enough for me (in spite of having Friday and the weekend off, I had to be at office), things took a turn for the bizarre on Sunday night. We were supposed to meet at 8. VP called saying he'd be late 'coz he was stuck in Malleswaram, Saucy and Ms WeightConsious too were going to be a little late, and so I was waiting outside for P to come. Finally, Saucy and WC came, but no signs of P. We waited till 9 and then went inside.

Once seated, WC looked over at the counter, and who do we see there eating - P! He'd been waiting for us inside! Aaaarrgghhh!!! In any case, he was almost done with his dinner and so the rest of us, while waiting for VP, had a few drinks. Surprisingly, they didn't have Long Island Ice Tea on their cocktail menu! That was indeed a surprise. Saucy didn't like his mojito, claiming that it didn't have enough mint and lemon in it, while WC said her cosmopolitan was like cough syrup.

We didn't fancy any of the starters and were pretty keep on trying out the Mongolian barbecue section, and so that's just what we did. VP and WC had a Teriyaki sauce bowl, VP with rice, while WC had it with Hakka noodles.

Rice with Teriyaki sauce and chicken and veggies

Hakka noodles with Teriyaki sauce and chicken and veggies

Saucy had a smoked mustard BBQ with lamb and hakka noodles. His dish was really good compared to the Teriyaki thing.

Smoked mustard BBQ with lamb and veggies

I had rice with a Kublai BBQ bowl with shrimps. This was also very good and it was tough to decide which was better between this and the one Saucy had.

Rice in Kublai BBQ with shrimps and veggies

Kublai BBQ with shrimps and veggies (as above, being put on my plate)

For desserts, since P was in early, and was done by the time we decided to stop waiting outside and went in, he first had a lychee pudding. He didn't like it, in fact he hated it, so did the others, and even I, with a high threshold, didn't like it too much - I think the texture of pudding doesn't go well with lychee, and there was a strange coconut flavour coming that wasn't in place. This thing should go off the menu immediately. When it came to our turn to have desserts, VP had a banana toffee, pieces of banana deep fried and served with a syrup. This is nice. I decided to go traditional, and had a Hong Kong street food dessert called Sago Float, which was sago balls with mango and lychee jelly with coconut milk. I actually liked it, and thought it was good. However, if you don't like the flavours mentioned, then stay away from this dish.

Banana Toffee

Sago Float

Lychee Pudding

Food: The Mongolian BBQ food was very good. The cocktails were not great and they need to get their act straight there. Desserts were a 50-50.
$$$: The Mongolian thing costs 300 for veg, 350 for chicken and lamb, and 400 for fish and shrimps. The a la carte menu is the usual slightly high end price list, which would probably come to around Rs. 500-600 per head (without drinks).
Service: Good, but slow. Actually, courteous, but very slow.
Verdict: I'd like to go back just for the Mongolian thingy, and maybe try something from the a la carte menu if it seems different.

Zheng, Blu Petal, Jyothi Nivas College Road, After Jyothi Nivas College, Bangalore.

Barbeque @ VP's house

Saturday night fever! That's what it was all about. VP celebrated his 25th birthday (yeah, although he's my batchmate, he's a year younger than I am...one of those 84 kids and not an 83 adult) on the 25th (coincidence!) of Feb and decided to have a barbeque party for the Army School gang on the weekend. As usual, I was supposed to do the cooking, and with VP's skills in the kitchen (he didn't even know where the salt is kept), I knew it was going to be an interesting evening to say the least.

So Saturday afternoon I go to his house (he's already purchased most of the stuff we need) and we start - I with the marinade, and he handing over the ingredients I ask for (as and when he finds them). So we decide to make two kinds of marinades for the chicken - a coriander-mint-green chilly-curd marinade for one, and a soya sauce-sugar-white-wine vinegar-spring onioin-chilly powder marinade for the steaks. This second one was a typical Korean way of marinating and barbecuing/grilling chicken in the open.

For Mr P, the vegetarian, there was the ever faithful paneer, and Mr VP had bought 1 kg of paneer, and so we knew there was going to be enough. Although we had some mushrooms, we weren't able to do anything with them coz of the lack of time, in spite of starting at 3 in afternoon. So for the paneer, one marinade was the same coriander-mint-curd, while for the second one I kept wondering what a good friend of mine, with whom I had an unfortunate fallout a couple of days prior to this party, would have liked being a paneer lover. Peeved at myself for the fallout, I tried to think what could be done to make a paneer lover enjoy the dish. A moment of inspiration from VP's mom and we had it - lemon juice, with curd, a little chilly powder, turmeric, a little garam masala and chat masala, and some salt.

After leaving the food to marinate in the refridgerator for a few hours, we killed time by shopping for some charcoal! Boy, it's tough to find what you want when you want it. We, however, got lucky as we found a place. However, finding charcoal is one thing, getting it to burn is quite another, as we soon found out! Luckily, VP's dad was an old hand at this - I guess his days in the air force had made him a pro at such things.

VP and his dad starting the barbeque

Pretty soon, that darn black thing was all ablaze and we were all set for the grilling - or actually, the food of all set for the grilling, we were just plain hungry!

And then there was fire!

Food, glor-e-ous food :)

Paneer with the coriander-mint-curd marinade (L) and chicken with the same marinade (R)

A different view

Miss BakeACake also joined us, and although I had initially started the blog with no pictures of people, to heck with it! That's Ms BakeACake, who left her husband (no, no, I mean left him at home) and came skewered a quite a few (I tried to make it sound like as if this was a hunting expedition and she came and shot a few, but I know I'm falling woefully short of the mark).

And that's yours truly on the left, and Mr P on the right - excuse the glitter on my face, but the place was HOT and the only benefit of standing in front of a hot barbeque grill is it will clear your nasal highways, that's all!

The paneer sitting in it's tangy, lemony marinade - oh I so wish that things get back to where they were before the fallout! Sniff, honk.

That's the Korean-styled soya sauce steak - juicy!

The end is nigh! The closing ceremony has the birthday boy putting off the barbeque in style.

So after eating, we drive Ms BakeACake to her house and reunite her with her hubby dear, spend some time there discussing iPhone apps that could be possible hits, and finally head back to VP's place at close to 2 AM. Long day, and for me, a long wait.