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.

BM Review: Phileas Hogg

On the same day that I visited Khazana (lunch), I visited this new restaurant opposite the Innovative multiples in Marathahalli called Phileas Hogg, a pun on Phileas Fogg, from Around the world in 80 days. The entire review can be read over here. A pictorial & detailed description can be found below.

For starters, we had the chicken satay, which although tasting nice, didn't come on skewers and certainly wasn't grilled. A significant part of the satay's flavour comes from grilling it over the hot embers, and a pan-fried substitute sometimes just doesn't cut it.

Chicken Satay + Peanut Sauce

The galouti kabab, the legendary dish, popularised by the Nawab of Lucknow, Asad-ud-Daulah. The aging Nawab was actually toothless, but loved to eat, and so his chef made these kababs so soft that even that toothless old man could mush them down his throat. True to the legend, our kababs were tender and just melted in the mouth.

Galouti Kabab + Mint Chutney

The minestrone soup wasn't all that bad, but there was something about it that just didn't give it that 'oomph' required for us to say that this one was yummy.

Minestrone Soup

Chicken + Gin Ball

The macher jol wasn't all that great - fish wasn't all that fresh, and it's not supposed to be tomato based (from what I've read and heard) but this one was, and I was later told by the owner that I should have ordered one of the north Indian Mughlai dishes which he claimed were one of the better ones.

Macher Jol

This dish below, the Khow Suey, is a Burmese dish, and was one of the better dishes we had that night. The noodles along with the meat and all the little condiments, wish a dash of lime made it a pleasant surprise.

Khow Suey

The chicken burgundy steak was pretty good - I guess the wine sauce in it made the difference.

Burgundy Steak

The seafood risotto wasn't very good - in fact, it was bad, although the owner has told me now that they've improved it since my feedback (which is good to know).

Seafood Risotto

The pizza pie was nice addition to the menu, although in terms of texture, it could have been a little better. I didn't like parts of the sides, because they tasted like, well, hardened dough - duh, that's what it is - I know, but it was flavourless, so maybe it should be made thinner, but then the pie may not hold...I don't know, I don't need to provide a solution, I just get to complain!.

Chicken & Bacon Pizza Pie

Probably a little less gelatin could have been used for the souffle. Taste wise, it was nice. The fried ice cream was ok, nothing special.

Strawberry Souffle

Fried Ice Cream

Food: Nice

$$$: Moderately expensive. What we ate came to around Rs. 2600 or so.

Service: Good

Verdict: Can visit if in the area if you're on the lookout for multi-cuisine food.

Phileas Hogg, 90/3, 4th Floor, above Purple Haze, Opp. Innovative Multiplex, Sarjapur Outer Ring Road, Marathahalli, Bangalore. Phone: 25223828, 42001297

BM Review: Woodstok

Sorry that it took this long to post all that was done on the food front... no, I wasn't nursing a new year hangover or anything, I was just plain busy at work. The review for Woodstok can be read here.

Crème de potage de broccoli (broccoli soup)

Loaded potato skins

Mozzarella cheese sticks

Woodstok non-veg platter

London House Grill

Pescado a la Veracruzano

Chicken Crostina

Cottage Cheese Hawaiian Sizzler

John's Joy

Blueberry Cheese Cake

Food: Nice, but I've had better for these prices
$$$: Expensive...our meal was a touch below 3000
Service: Decent
Verdict: I'm undecided for the simple reason that places like Bangalore Bistro are a lot better for the same cost.

Woodstok, #3777, Domlur Service Road, HAL 2nd Stage (after Subway and Nandhini), Indiranagar, Bangalore. Phone: 42115042

Woodstok

I hadn't carried lunch to work on Monday, and so I decided to try our this new place that'd opened up called Woodstok. I found the place easily enough thanks to Google maps (working in Indiranagar for the last 5 years also helped), and since I was alone (yes, I'm the strange breed that can enjoy my meals alone as well - I had a nice Roald Dahl book for company actually), I knew I wouldn't be eating too much. One look at the menu confirmed that this place was almost a copy of Zoe's, although the prices at Zoe's are a less compared to this place. I was hoping to have a below 200 meal, but I knew that wasn't going to happen.

To start off, I settled in for a French onion soup. Traditionally made from beef broth, I didn't even bother asking the staff if it was indeed beef broth or not, because just one spoon down I knew it wasn't beef broth, but vegetable stock. The soup though, was nice, and the caramelised onions in it gave a hint of sweetness to it, along with the a dollop of cheese (wasn't sure what cheese this was specifically, but who cares - I love cheese in all forms).

French Onion Soup with the 'croutons' on the side

For my main course, I saw a beef burger on the menu, and I didn't need to look any further :)

Beef Burger

The burger was actually pretty good, although, if you go purely by construction of a burger basics, this one would probably fail. The cardinal sin of putting the lettuce on the lower half of the bun and the burger patty on top of it was done here as well. And the burger wasn't the soft bun type - either this was a different bun, or they done something to it to kinds get it to be stiff. The burger patty though, was superb. Nice a juicy, it came with a large serving of fries, slaw, and a spicy salsa.

These guys have a 10% service charge, so I didn't tip. I really hate this practice of adding that in the bill - even if I felt that the service was extremely good and would want to tip more, I wouldn't if I saw a 10% service charge already levied.

I'll reserve my verdict for another visit - I don't I had enough to rate the place. The soup was 120, the burger was 180, and with taxes and their 10% service charge, it came up to 370. So much for a sub-200 meal!

BM Review: Ambrosia

Last weekend I'd been to Ambrosia to review the place for Bangalore Mirror. The review, with some pictures taken, is below. I gave the place an equivalent of 2.5 out of primarily because they claim to be fine dining, but fell short in a few areas. However, purely in terms of taste, the food is good.

Greek mythology is very similar to Hindu mythology – many Gods, many tales. Ambrosia, sometimes called the food (or the drink) of the Gods, is often depicted as conferring ageless immortality, much like amrit, or nectar, in Hindu mythology. So when a restaurant calls itself Ambrosia, I naturally thought they’d be serving Greek or Mediterranean food.

To set the record straight, Ambrosia doesn’t serve Greek food alone, it serves food from all over the world – I guess since every civilisation has had its own armada of Gods, there would be several, and so Ambrosia tries to please people from every culinary walk of life. Ambar Mitra, the CEO and one of the 5 directors of the place said the idea was to enjoy myriad cuisines under one roof. The dishes on the menu have a flag next to them indicating the part of the world they’re from. One thing that straight away popped into our minds was: with such an extensive and diverse menu, what’s going to be their signature?

Gautam Krishnankutty and Padmakumar, co-owners of Café Thulp, have seen their fair share of culinary delights from around the globe. Gautam’s lived in California, and is a trained chef in Thai cuisine, and was the genius in the kitchen at Tai Tai, while Padmakumar (PK to near and dear) has been in Mexico for close to 16 years before coming back to Bangalore, where he met Gautam and started Thulp. I was thrilled to have them as guests, taking time off from work on a busy Saturday afternoon.

Crab-stuffed mushrooms

The pita bread in our mezze platter (Greece) could certainly have had more ‘body’ to it (seemed too thin), but the hummus (creamy with the right amount of garlic and olive oil), the tzatziki, and the baba ghanoush dips were as good as any I’ve had. The crab-stuffed mushrooms (fusion dish) were nice, but the salad that accompanied the dish actually offset the taste. The batter-fried squid rings (Spain) with the tartar sauce were good, although the batter did lend a peculiar taste to an otherwise wonderful squid. The Caesar’s salad (USA) was simple and nice, and although it said it had Romaine lettuce, it was quite clearly iceberg.

Hummus, Tzatziki, Baba Ghanoush

Caesar Salad

Calamari Rings

We were reminiscing the old days of Bangalore, and the menu here reminded Gautam of the old Peacock hotel on Residency road and Caesar’s on MG Road, especially with dishes like Chicken Diane. Our main course consisted of chicken enchiladas (Mexico), a flambé dish of beef with mustard sauce (France), and a xinxim (Brazil), which is a stew of chicken and prawns, with coconut and peanut sauce, served with rice. The staff was keen to push the flambé dishes forward, so I guessed this could be their signature dish (confirmed later by Ambar). The flambé is done by the chef next to your table. Gautam wanted his beef medium-rare, but one piece was well done, while the other was slightly medium. Also, beef and fish steaks are never served with sauce on them – the sauce should be served by the side as an accompaniment.

Chicken Enchiladas with refried beans and rice

Xinxim

Flambé

Making the beef with mustard sauce after the flambé

Beef with mustard sauce

PK’s enchiladas were served with refried beans and rice. The refried beans weren’t mashed enough and were hard as opposed to soft and creamy, and PK didn’t think the tortillas tasted right either (I’ll take the word of someone who’s lived 16 years in Mexico). However, a newbie to enchiladas would have loved the dish (like Gautam and I did), but going by authenticity alone, it lost a few points. My xinxim was surprisingly the best of the dishes. The chicken and prawns were cooked nicely, the stew well flavoured, and the coconut used was fresh, and all the flavours blended well in the mouth.

For desserts, we tried a tiramisu and a flambéed banana (flambé certainly is their thing). The tiramisu was bad – hard, to the point where you wonder if it’s Mascarpone cheese or cream that’s inside, or something else. In their defense, it’s not made in-house, but it’s still something to be worked out. The flambéed banana, on the other hand, was simply fabulous – in taste, preparation, and presentation. If one weren’t concerned too much about authenticity and just wanted good, tasty food, Ambrosia would certainly score. However, since I have to critique the place, I think I’ll have to say it comes up short in a few areas, primarily because they claim to be fine dining, but with some effort they can certainly get better.

Tiramisu

Drunken Banana - another flambé

Food: Good, but not fine dining as they claim
Service: Very good
$$$: slightly on the higher side (they claim fine dining, remember?)
verdict: If it's fine dining you're looking for, then this place falls short in a few areas. Taste wise, the food is good in general, barring a few things here and there.


Ambrosia, #52B, 100 Feet Road, 4th Block, Koramangala, Bangalore. Phone: 40940101/102