Ali Baba Cafe

The Gourmet Group had decided on visiting Ali Baba Cafe this past weekend (April 10), and so that's where we went.

Some of the furniture (below), and above is the entrance when viewed from the inside.

Although I've covered Ali Baba before, there were a lot of things that we had that I'd not had before. The doogh, which is a yogurt and soda drink is very good and refreshing for the hot days we have.

Doogh

Another drink we had was the Tausha, which was a cucumber based drink which was also pretty darn good. This didn't have fizz, but I immediately knew why they say 'as cool as a cucumber'.

Tausha

The third drink was a mint+lime drink. Again, another winner.

Mint+lime

For starters, we had an Ali Baba jumbo platter (non-veg), and also a couple of veg dishes, one of which was the Kadang Fry, which was slices of sweet potato that were batter fried. This is a very typical coastal dish.

Kadang fry

The hummus was superb, garlicky and the olive oil used made the hummus taste good.

Hummus

The other veg dish was the Bhendi Fry, which was fried lady's finger (okra).

Bhendi fry

For the main course, we had decided to have the weekend special biryani, called Maqboos. So we had the chicken and mutton biryani, dajaj maqboos and laham maqboos. In the laham maqboos, the laham (mutton) was a bit stringy, but I liked the dajaj (chicken). Along with there, we also had some roti with keema, and some vermicelli dish mixed with mutton, which I liked, but some of the others thought would have been better with something a little more firm instead of the vermicelli./

Keema + roti

Dajaj Maqboos

For dessert, we had a kunafa, which was made from semolina, dried fruits and had a base made of cheese.

Kunafa

Qahwa with dates

This was nice, but a little hard to cut with the spoons. Overall, a wonderful meal, and even though we had a record number showing up, this was quite a pleasant meal.

BM Review: Saffron

I'd been to this new place called Saffron in Koramangala to review the place for Bangalore Mirror this past weekend. My guests were Santosh Gowda and Suhas Cadambi, but engineers from RV and avid quizzers (which is how I met them) and also hard-core foodies. The review can be read here.

Below is a pictorial description of what we had with the summary at the end.

Reshmi kebab

Achari Paneer Tikka

Mutton Seekh Kebab

Shammi Kebab

Boti Kebab

Navratna Korma

Keema with Egg

Mutton Qorma

Peethi Poori

Mutton Biryani

For the below three, one is rabri, one is kheer, and one is phirni. You guess which is which :)






I gave the place an equivalent of 2.5 out of 5, primarily because the mutton dishes weren't up to the mark, but otherwise it was OK, nothing special.

Food: Decent
$$$: Moderate; our bill came to a touch over Rs. 1800 (they have a 7% service charge)
Service: Decent
Verdict: Can visit if in the area
Extra Info: It's on the road where Lazeez, Thulp, Kabab Magic and Rolls United are...in fact, it's just after Rolls United (on the other side of the street), and before Nous Systems.

Saffron, #5, 1^st Floor, 1^st B Main, 1^st Block, Koramangala, Jakkasandra Ext, Bangalore. Phone: 41317579