The Fat Chef

Just to emphasize, this blog is NOT dead! Although it's quite an old post, and I thought I'd write in the usual style (what style?), I decided to go with a more 'editorial' approach, just for a change (not that I particularly like this style or anything). A few months ago I'd visited The Fat Chef - the phrase apparently refers to the owner, who is a rather 'healthy' chef - is located next to the Jagriti theatre on Varthur Road in the Whitefield area. Notice how us folks from areas that we consider to be within the city refer to Whitefield as the Whitefield area - that's because not only do we not know where it starts and where it ends, even the residents there don't!

The Fat Chef may be off traditional 'restaurant zones' within the city, the new settlements springing up around the periphery of the city seem to swear by this place. And why not! The restaurant is located within the Jagriti complex, and adjoins a small lawn. Seating is both indoors as well as outdoors, and both options give you sufficient space, light, and a semblance of well-being. White interiors make the place seem that much more well lit, and the place has decent ventilation and is almost always cool. And did I mention that the restaurant's menu is chalked up on a blackboard? This just goes on to add to the charm of the place.

The food at The Fat Chef is mixture of Mediterranean and Western European food. Among the starters, you would do well if you stuck to the nachos, baked stuffed mushrooms, sauteed prawns in coriander, Vietnamese rolls, and chicken wings. The beer battered prawns is a much touted dish, but I feel it's the coriander prawns that score higher simply because of the flavour. Also, I'm not a big fan of batter frying meats because it can so easily mask the actual taste of the meat if not done right. Among the salads, the watermelon, feta and olive salad is a must have. Light, refreshing, and tasty, this should be on our list irrespective of whether you are a weight watcher or not.

























The chicken wings with a barbecue sauce flavoured coating is also a superb starter if you don't mind having starters that have bones in them. For the vegetarians, the sauteed mushrooms is another decent option.


For the main course, if you want something light, then the crepes or the grilled fish are the way to go. If not, then the lasagna, chicken casserole, or the steaks, or even one of the pastas are perhaps options that could satisfy you. There's also quite a decent selection of wine on offer, so if you're a wine lover, then do look up the list.

The fish curry and rice is a wonderful curry-rice combo if you like rice. And in fact, if you don't want to try pastas and other such dishes, I would suggest you go ahead and try this dish - it was finger lickin' good. The ratatouille, on the other hand, was a little insipid in flavour.

Ratatouille
Indian fish curry with rice
Chicken breast stuffed with cheese
Veg lasagna
Lemon grilled chicken
Grilled fish
Mutton curry with rice
The chicken breast stuffed with cheese is nice, but the cheese is just way too powerful and completely dominates the dish. You'd do well to ask them to go easy on the cheese. However, I'd prefer if they used a milder cheese. The veg lasagna was nice and a very satisfying dish, both in terms of quantity as well as taste. The lemon grilled chicken was very nicely done, but a little too lemony for my liking. The mutton curry with rice, just like the fish curry, was a smashing super hit with everyone at the table.

For dessert, it's a bit of a lottery. You need to make sure you place an order soon because desserts are in limited quantity on display.




Service can be a little dodgy on weekends when they're running full, but otherwise, for the best part, the restaurant staff are fairly well informed about most of the details of most dishes. The owners, Mayur (The Fat chef himself) and Vandana can be seen doing the rounds and you could very well ask them your queries. Overall, very good ambiance, and if you can stomach the drive till that corner of town, the food should feel just fine in the stomach.

The Fat Chef, 5/2A, Jagrithi, Ramagondanahalli, Varthur Main Road, Whitefield, Bangalore. Phone: 080 40992981, 080 40992982.

Herbs & Spice burger fest, Pizza Hut, and Spoonful of Sugar

A couple of weeks back, my mom had gone off on a tour to Amritsar, Jammu, and Srinagar with her friends from medical school. So that meant no lunch for me to pack, and so that meant eating out. Herb & Spice was running a burger fest during that time, and so that was a blessing that I very happily gorged on.

Complimentary bread and herbed butter with the beverages
The pulled pork burger that was served was divine. Not just coz I love pork, but it truly was a fine example of how a burger should be, and how pulled pork ought to be. The pork was well flavoured, 'pulled', or extremely tender, and there was sufficient amounts of it to me smile from ear to ear. The honey mustard pork burger wasn't as good as the pulled pork burger - not that it was bad, but the pulled pork was just better - but the honey and mustard did add a nice zing to the burger. And once again, as with the pulled pork burger, there was enough of meat in the patty.

Pulled pork burger

Honey mustard pork burger
The Thai beef burger was a fairly big let down - there wasn't anything in the burger that even remotely whispered Thai, let alone screamed. If they'd just called it a 'big beef burger', or had pinned any such lame name to the burger, I think it would've been great because as a simple beef burger, it was nice.

Thai beef burger
The burger fest ran for about 10 days to two weeks. Perhaps the next time they do some such thing, a little more thought into some finer details would be appreciated - like NOT placing the lettuce below the patty on the bun. As someone who loves burgers and sandwiches, and believes that a burger tastes best once all the components have been 'assembled' in the right way, this one minor glitch did get me to frown a wee bit.

Pizza Hut seems to have come out with a new menu - and by that I couldn't care less about anything, but a friend of mine dragged me to try some of the new goodies. Upon arriving and taking a look at the menu, the new pizzas did seem nice - if they'd deliver them in a size that I thought would be acceptable! Yeah, as you may have guessed, I'm not a big fan of Pizza Hut, or Domino's, but between the two, I think my vote would go to Domino's for the only reason being that the size of their pizzas are complete value for money (hah! I just used another very Bangalore phrase).

The beverages we had were average. The much touted very berry daiquiri had way too much of the berry thing going on in it - it was so tangy that once sip of it and I think my blood curdled, but that was before my whole body shriveled up with my face sporting that look when you have something unexpectedly sour and tangy. I'm pretty certain that too much of any berry will make it a gooseberry! Thankfully that was my friends drink, and my green apple mojito was decent enough to counter the effects that daiquiri had on me.

Very berry daiquiri

Green apple mojito

The Jamaican jerk chicken skewers quite decent in taste (although the spices used didn't seem like the actual Jerk spices), but the chicken did seem a little dry, but I guess that was being consistent with the standards set by Pizza Hut. Hey, if it was any better, they'd be moved from fast food to gourmet food, which I'm guessing would be a big no-no for their brand.

And finally, the pizza. A pesto pepperoni (pork) pizza is what we zeroed in on, although, in hindsight, we should've opted for the pollo heaven because that seemed to have a lot more meat on it. Nevertheless, the pork pizza was quite nice, think crust and all. They could've drizzled a bit of oil on top of it, but it was good nonetheless.

Pesto pepperoni (pork)
For dessert, we found this choco chip cookie sundae very intriguing and so we decided to give it a try. From the photo, you'll notice that there's a baking pan, and the cookie is actually at the bottom of it with some almond savings and ice cream on top of it. Warm cookie with cold ice cream was an amazing way to bring life back into the meal, especially since bits of the cookie were stuck to the pan and those slightly burnt bits are usually the gooiest and yummiest parts.

Choco chip cookie sundae

Spoonful of sugar is located right next to my office (OK, ex-office now, but when I visited it for this particular post, I was still working at GXS). Apart from the desserts - cakes, pastries, tarts - that they're famous for, Spoonful of sugar also dishes out a few pastas, quiches, and sandwiches, any one of which can be a full meal in itself. And so one afternoon we headed towards the place for an outdoor lunch (they have 3 tables outdoors and 1 indoors). I had more or less made up my mind to go and give their quiche a try (I've had some of the sandwiches before, and wasn't really in the mood for any kind of pasta that afternoon).

And so quiche it was for me. Taste wise, there wasn't much to complain about, but my friend who'd joined me is some sort of an expert when it comes to baking, and immediately pointed out to me that the crust of the quiche wasn't completely baked. If you notice the base, you can make out two thin yet distinct layers of differently coloured 'layers' - one golden brown, and another that's pale creamish gray in colour. This, according to my friend, is an indication of the base not having been baked properly. I didn't give a hoot - I loved the taste, but it did make me wonder about whether I should give a hoot about such things. Of course I should!

Quiche
The lasagna was, on the other hand, decent but the cheese used on it was quite evidently old, and it was a reheated lasagna served to us. This was disappointing, given that Spoonful of sugar's USP is that they use only the freshest of everything.

Lasagna
We rounded off our meals with a mud pie and a lemon tart. Both were divine. The chocolate pie, with warm molten chocolate oozing out (see picture) was simply fabulous, while the lemon tart was zingy and good in its own unique way. My friend was again going to point out how the base wasn't done properly but I asked her to put a lid on it and yenjaay it :)

BM Review: Chamomile

Wow, it's been a full month since the last post. Sorry for the delay, but after shifting to a new house, there are soooo many tasks that crop up every now and then, at times I've even wondered if it was worth it. Well, just so that I don't leave that dangling, it is. So a while back, I visited Chamomile again, this time to review the place for Bangalore Mirror. The review that was published can be read here. As I had already visited the place during Christmas, I knew what to expect from the place, but since we were in a group, and it was essentially going to be a collective opinion, I didn't see any points of potential conflict. Moreover, when P, VP and I had visited during Christmas, we ordered from the special Christmas menu, while this time around we were ordering from the regular menu.

There aren't any snaps of the starters that we had, so apologies for the same. For starters, we selected dishes from the regular menu as well as the bar menu. So the dishes we had from the regular menu were shrimp and avocado salad, honey mustard chicken, herb marinated prawns, and chicken wings and mushroom & Parmesan cigars from the bar menu. The only disappointment here was the salad, with the avocado being old and soft, 'sagging' being a word used at the table by someone. It surely could've use a shot or two of botox. The wings and the honey mustard chicken were nice, both with suitable amount of seasoning and flavours. The hits at the table that evening were the herb marinated prawns - large, chunky prawns marinated in a mixture of coriander, basil and perhaps mint (green stuff), and the mushroom cigars - these were phyllo stuffed with mushrooms and Parmesan cheese. The mushroom cigars were a pleasant surprise and were actually quite delightful and we couldn't seem to have enough of these.

For the mains, we selected one dish from each 'section' that we were able to form after looking at the menu. So Italian saw us ordering the aubergine lasagna (also doubled up as the vegetarian option) and the seafood cappelletti (cappelletti is a stuffed pasta, and means 'little hat' because that's what it kinda resembles), proteins were going to be the T-bone steak and the rosemary flavoured leg of lamb, and then there was grilled salmon in an orange sauce with a whole lot of other things.

The salmon was the only disappointment - almost no seasoning, bland, and the fish actually seemed old. The rest of the dishes though, we quite superb. The T-bone steak was a lovely cut of meat, and I'd for it to be done medium-rare, and it was done to near perfection there, well seasoned, and the mashed potatoes served with it were also very nicely done. The only grouse - they gave us a stainless steel table knife instead of a proper knife knife, and cutting a medium rare steam with such a knife is quite an effort. The cappelletti was a pleasant surprise - didn't have a fishy smell to it, tasted good, and although the texture of the stuffing inside wasn't very 'firm', it tasted good nonetheless, and so got the thumbs up.

Grilled salmon with an orange sauce

T-bone steak

Seafood cappelletti

Usually, whenever someone uses rosemary, they tend to screw up the flavour by using too much. If you ask me, adding too much rosemary often kills the dish, but these guys had managed to get the amount just right for the leg of lamb. What's more, the meat was cooked well and it wasn't chewy, making it a good selection, and a better dish to eat. The aubergine lasagna was a smashing hit at the dinner table that night. Who'd have thought a bunch of carnivores would be raving about a vegetarian dish, but that's exactly what happened. Although the lasagna looked a little disheveled, when it came to taste, it was quite exquisite.

Rosemary leg of baby lamb

Aubergine lasagna

Desserts were a bit of a mixed bag, tending more towards bad than good. The strawberry cheesecake was the same as the last time, good to taste, but hard and not creamy and soft (however, I've been reliably informed that they have now changed the cream cheese they use for the cheesecakes, and so it's supposed to be better now), the hazelnut brûlée had a nice crust, but what lay beneath was nowhere near the custard-like texture that a brûlée is supposed to have. The vanilla pannacotta was just waaaay too plain and insipid, and I'd have liked to see a little less gelatin used so that it is a little more 'creamy' when spooned out. The saviour of the night was the triple layered chocolate mousse, rich and chocolaty and not disappointing us any further.

Strawberry cheesecake

Vanilla pannacotta

Triple layered chocolate mousse

Hazelnut brulee

Food: Good. Need to work a little on the desserts and this place can be a winner.
$$$: Slightly expensive. Approx Rs 1000 per head for a full meal.
Service: Good
Verdict: Can visit for a select few dishes.

Chamomile, #4031, 1^st Floor, Above Bombay Store, Next to Domlur Flyover, 100 Feet Road, Indiranagar, Bangalore. Phone: 42156000, 42167000

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.