Emgee's

Saturday night, after a good spell of rains in the evening, saw the P, VP, and I heading out for a 'light' meal - by light, I mean there would be no animals or birds or sea creatures involved in this holy ritual. We decided to meet up late, at 9:30, so that we could avoid all the mind-bogglingly crazy Saturday evening traffic, and at 9:30, met outside Emgee's (of course silly, it's on M G Road, why d'you think it's called Emgee's otherwise?). The restaurant is located in the same building as Gangaram's book store (one of the 'veterans' on M G Road).

Once we were seated, P asked if I was willing to split a soup with him, and "bring it on" was my reply, to which he put up a smile of pure delight and said:
P: "Shetty's at a vegetarian place!"
me: "Eh? I'm not the one who discriminates when it comes to food, remember?"
P: "Yeah, but you almost always have only non-veg, or make it a point to."
me: "Bull, I only eat non-veg, or leave out the veg option(s), if it is named after some actual non-veg dish and found it's way onto the menu only because the owner wanted to draw in a few veg eaters as well...so basically economics dictated it's inclusion, not merit."
P: "Hmm, ok, you're right, point taken."

For those of you clowns who are still skeptical, you can even check out some of the reviews that I've been on where I ate the veg dish (most notably at Medici, where I could have gorged on all the non-veg I wanted but ended up ordering a veg tortellini, which was superb).

So P and I eventually settled for a sweet corn mushroom soup (I've heard sweet corn soup, and cream of mushroom, but this was a first). It was nice, as it had been a long time since I had a decent sweet corn soup, but I wasn't sure what the mushrooms were doing in this soup. The soup, as it is, was very tasting sweet, and adding mushrooms into it didn't really complement the sweetness, but I guess it works for some people. The other starter we had was one of the most expensive one on the menu - at Rs. 135/-, the mushroom rangeela made us curious, and although we even spotted a veg shaslik under the starters, we decided to skip it and go for the mushrooms. 7 large button mushrooms came, and on biting into them, we realised they were stuffed with paneer, and the dish tasted good. Stuffing mushrooms is a common practice, with cheese as well, and so we weren't disappointed.

Sweet corn mushroom soup

Mushroom rangeela (stuffed with paneer)

With our initial orders out of the way (actually, into our stomachs), we decided to have some dosas. P and I settled for the paper masala dosas, while VP had a tomato uthappa (yes, I say uttappa and not uttappam because I'm from Karnataka, and we say uttappa, while folks from Andhra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu say uttappam, and the rest of India says uttapam because most of them think that south of the Vindhya's, it's what the Tams call things that rule).

That aside, the dosas were nice.

Paper masala dosa

Tomato uttappa

And finally, there was peas pulav and some dal makhani to go along with it. P thought the pulav was a little too oily, and VP was only too glad to agree with him (he needs to have an excuse to waste food, but surprisingly this time he actually finished eating everything).

Peas pulav with dal makhani

After dinner, we walked up to St. Mark's road where there's a Natural's ice cream parlour. Just as we neared Natural's, we saw hoards of regular cops and traffic policemen in front of Bishop Cotton's girls school checking for drunk driving, and saw several people caught. We rushed into Natural's, bought our ice creams, and rushed back out to watch a lot of crack-brained idiots get caught by the cops. I tell, I'm not a sadist, but there's something about watching those who break the don't-drink-and-drive law get caught, and more importantly, watch them come up with all kinds of excuses, half of them blabbering something in Hindi while our cops not giving a damn about their frantic pleas and nonsense. Pure ecstasy. Sadly, some manage to pull out phones and make calls and get away, which is an inherent flaw in the whole country.

Food: Nice
$$$: Not too expensive... we totaled up around 700 for this meal.
Service: Decent
Verdict: Can visit if in the area and you feel like eating low-key, light Indian fare and go easy on the pockets.

Emgee's, #73, Below Gangaram's book shop, M G Road, Bangalore. Phone: 40430000

A Pinxx Saturday afternoon

XX and XY. That's how the rest rooms at Pinxx are marked, and if you weren't too good at bio in school and don't know which chromosome combination is for a guy and which is for a girl, then please ask the bearers or waiters.

Going out for lunch with buddies from the famed 'last bench gang' from college is always fun, and this time was no different, in spite of it being just 3 of us. The buffet at Pinxx is indeed a pretty sight: extremely well laid out multi-cuisine food, with a variety of choices between vegetarian and non-vegetarian food (and if you're not fussy about eating non-veg, awesome!!!). We started with the soups: Chicken Manchow and Cream of Mushroom. I'm on a quest to find the perfect cream of mushroom soup, and took a bowl of it. It was good, but not the best. Moreover, I'm not sure if you're supposed to get as many bits of mushroom and what-not as I did. But don't get me wrong, it tasted very good, I just didn't think the texture was very consistent.

The salads (which I guess double up as appetizers) were ok; the two of us who ate non-veg agreed that the chicken sausage salad was the best, while the mushroom salad was probably the pick of the lot from the 'other side' (I mixed both and they are at the top of my plate). The dahi vada was good (right corner of my plate) and it wasn't soggy and stale (that can be very unpleasant). I also ventured into the main course section and added some vegetarian manchurian balls (left) which tasted good (sometimes this dish can be killed by adding too much soy sauce).

After two rounds of the above items (yes, we're a bit of the gluttonous types, so sue us), time for the main course. Let me start from the 9 o'clock position in the photograph: paneer butter masala (cottage cheese), some spicy dish (I can't recall the name), some more chicken sausage salad, fish something, mutton, chicken, Hakka noodles and vegetarian manchurian. The noodles were the usual, nothing special (it wasn't a special dish, so it was as expected), the fish was nice but the inside felt a little dry (I like the inside of cutlets to be moist or to have soaked in a little bit of the marinade). The mutton was the best among the three non-veg dishes; it was tender, juicy and not too spicy - a holy trinity if you ask me when it comes to any kind of meat. The chicken wasn't something special. It was a typical Mangalorean dish, my parents being Mangalorean, have eaten my heart's content of Mangalorean dishes. Maybe that disqualifies me from passing such a comment, but what the hell, I'm writing this, so it qualifies!

And in round two of the main course, starting from the 12 o'clock position, we have barbequed paneer, paneer butter masala, mutton biryani, and American chilly corn. The chilly corn was very good, the biryani was full of flavour and wasn't dry and the mutton in it was soft and cooked well.
Sadly, the best part of lunch at Pinxx, the desserts, will not be visually showcased here as my camera decided to go on a temporary strike and for some reason, it just didn't click and pictures of the dessert. And believe me, if anything, I would have loved to show the desserts here: strawberry cake, fig tart with mascarpone cheese (the mascarpone tasted heavenly), mango jelly, fresh fruits (mango, papaya and the sweetest watermelon I've ever had), a couple of Indian sweets, a sugar-free tart, and another pastry which I just can't seem to remember now. Phew! The desserts were truly the best part of the meal we had (as it usually is with the last bench gang). Ice creams are served upon request, although now the bearers come and ask you during dessert if you would like to have ice cream, and the credit for that goes almost entirely to me. Let me explain why. The last two times I visited Pinxx, I had filled out the comment card suggesting that ice cream ought to be part of every dessert table, and both times a lady walked up to me and told me that ice cream is served upon request, to which I replied something to the effect of not knowing that ice cream was part of the buffet and it's not fair to expect the customers to ask for what's there and what's not. I mean I would have also asked for some nice lasagna if that were the case. In any case, I guess they don't keep the ice cream out on the table with the other desserts because it could melt and become runny. In fact, when she told me the same thing the second time I visited Pinxx, I remembered that it was the same lady who told me the same thing the last time. Well, from now on, in case you visit Pinxx and at dessert time if you're asked for ice cream, the credit for that goes to moi.

Discussing about old classmates, Vishwa jokes (something only we know about) and the whereabouts of other classmates is always a wonderful feeling, and coupled with great food, it makes such meetings truly memorable.

47/1 The Central Park, Dickenson Road, Manipal Centre , Bangalore - 01.