Biryani Pundits

Biryani Pundits is a restaurant that has come up in the same spot in Koramangala that once housed Sonakshi Sharma's (another restaurant). When you hear the name 'Biryani Pundits', you're bound to think of a joint where you'll be spoiled for choice with copious varieties of biryanis. Au contrare, one look at the menu, and you'll notice that the biryani constitutes a very small percentage of the total number of items on the menu. So much for 'it's all in a name!'. Located in Koramangala, a little after Umerkot, Biryani Pundits has colour-coded seating only on the first floor and can seat around 30 people or so. The ground floor, by the looks of things, is mainly the wait-for-your-take-away spot. The food on offer ranges from kulchas to iddiappams, from naans to idlis, and perhaps almost everything in between.

With a menu as diverse as the one they have here, it took 5 of us dissect it and put every section to the test (or in this case, taste). So after scanning through the pages, we thought of starting with the lamb head meat fry, but were told that it isn't available...on a Saturday night! Of all the days in the week, you'd expect restaurants to stock up on what's on the menu for the weekend, but that wasn't the case here. So a lamb liver fry, a chicken 65, a paneer chilli, chicken tikka, and chicken and lamb kottu paratha made up our starters.

Lamb liver fry

Chicken tikka

The paneer chilli was about the most atrocious excuse for paneer I've EVER had. Really, it was that bad. A coating of corn flour gave it an almost bullet proof-like jacket that our teeth found hard to penetrate at first, but we did make inroads, eventually. The chicken 65 was probably the best dish of the evening, being soft, juicy, and well flavoured. While I can't say with authority that I've ever tasted an authentic chicken 65 before, this one at least tasted good, so full marks. The chicken tikkas were the usual fare and there wasn't anything memorable about it. The kottu parathas were decent, although a couple of folks believed that the salt wasn't mixed properly as they got mouthfuls of more salt than what they'd bargained for.

Kottu paratha
For the mains, we had to try the Pundits special biryani. Along with that we wanted to have the iddiappams, which we were told weren't available. And the guy taking our orders gave us some extra info here: "Not available coz they smell bad!!!" Like we wanted to know that. Thanks, next time also tell which buddy of yours in the kitchen is digging his nose, and who's got their pinky waxing the insides of their ear! And that pretty much summed up the service in general - uninterested, just passing through the motions. This was exemplified by them bringing all the food at once and plonking it on the table, only to realise that there wasn't any space left, which then made them try to make space by removing plates that still have food on them!

So we went with the special dosa, egg appam, lamb biryani along with the Pundits special, a chicken pepper curry and a lamb curry. The special biryani was anything but special. There was hardly any difference between it and the lamb biryani except the meat. Both tasted below average. The special dosa, again, proved hard to decipher what made it special, because any of the Shanti Sagars will server you a paper masala dosa in the shape of the an inverted cone. The curries were just OK, but the biryanis, as mentioned, were below average, and so the overall dinner experience was one I'd like to forget soon.

Special dosa
Egg appam
Lamb biryani
Chicken pepper curry

The biryanis were supposed to be served with raita, brinjal curry, and a dessert. They never came. So we asked. And they asked back, "Do you want them?" I honestly started looking around to see if there was a hidden camera, a la candid camera show where we were the scapegoats. Alas, that wasn't to be. This was happening for real.

I don't know what kind of punditry got the owners to conceptualise this sort of an operation or what the philosophy was behind then name and the menu, but good luck to them is all I can say. I wish I could rate this place 1.5 stars, but I guess 2 should convey the message. If it runs for more than a year, they should consider themselves fortunate. Or they can just thank their stars that there are sufficient people who appreciate bad food. Whatever.

Food: You've gotta be kidding me!
$$$: Affordable - approximately Rs 300-350 for two.
Service: Uninterested
Verdict: Visit if you're a bachelor with no particular interest in good food because you're primary concern is to save up on your hard earned money.

Biryani Pundits, #1018, 80 ft Road, Near Wipro Park Signal (after Natural's), 1^st Block, Koramangla, Bangalore. Phone: 8880050001

After hours...iftaar raid in Frazer Town

Ramzaan is that time of the year when almost all the Muslim dominated areas of Bangalore (for that matter anywhere in India) are abuzz with a lot of activity post the evening prayers (after the fast is broken). M M road, the one perpendicular to Mosque road in Frazer Town, is one such area where even someone like me, who is kind-of a cleanliness freak, won't mind stepping into for the feast that is set up before our eyes. Last Saturday, I'd been there with Suhas and Santosh (from Saffron and Khazana), along with Ruth's husband Sudhakar (from Pizzeria Romano and Veekes & Thomas), we set about in the hope that we'd be able to cover some decent round.

The first attempt at this turned out to be a washout as the rains showed no mercy, and this Saturday (28th), the rains didn't seem to want us to have a good time. But by 6:30, thankfully, things cleared out, and by the time we met at 7, it seemed like we were late! The crowds swarmed both sides of the streets, and popular joints on the road had set up stalls outside selling anything from skewered chicken to roast legs to kababs to rolls... it went on and on.

Since Sudhakar had to leave in a rush (he plays for a couple of bands, and had a performance that night), we had to initially rush through a few things, and so the first bunch of snaps are on his phone, so you'll have to see them on Ruth's blog once she puts them up. We had some batter-fried chicken on skewers, which in all honesty, was the kind of stuff you'd wanna give to people to make them quit eating chicken! It was bland and dry. The other two dishes - the gosh (the first name eludes me now) and the caramel custard were very good. The cara,el custard especially, for just Rs. 15 a piece, was a steal if you ask me.

Once Sudhakar left, Suhas, Santosh and I had a little more leisure in selecting where and what to eat. We moved over towards Kababbish, and immediately realised that this was where the hard-core stuff was at. A plethora of beef items with a smattering of chicken dishes. Santosh would have to wait (he doesn't eat beef), while Suhas and I tried some roast tongue. Crunchy, 'meaty', and very spicy. I initially thought we'd been conned as I didn't expect the tongue to have a similar texture to that of beef, but then realised that the tongue is pure muscle, and hence it wasn't surprising that it did have the same texture as the beef. It'd have been better if we could have tasted the meat more, but the overdose of spices seemed to have killed it.

Tongue roast

After a glass of 'paani kum chai' each, we crossed the road onto another shop selling anda mutton kheema fry, or eggs and minced mutton in a thin roti and fried. Just looking at these things being fried can give someone a major arterial clog, but what's life without indulging in a few such activities! Quite a meal in itself.

Anda mutton keema fry

Anda mutton keema fry up close and personal

Once this was done, we hopped into Bombay Chowpati Kulfi and downed a coupled of kulfis before calling it a night, but agreeing that we needed to have a revisit to do 'justice' to this place.

M M Road, Perpendicular to Mosque Street, Frazer Town, Bangalore.

BM Review: Sultans of Spice

A couple of weeks back, I had been to Sultans of Spice, a new restaurant part of the Blu Petal Business hotel in Koramangala. My last visit here was to Zheng, with some friends (not part of a review). The review can be read here.

Here's a shorter take on the experience, along with some of the snaps I took.

We've all heard tales of the wild west, with gun-slinging cowboys shooting up towns, a la dirty Harry, but we've almost forgotten about the wild west in our neighbourhood - the 'frontier' region (as it was known during British rule). Yup, the NWFP, the badlands of north-nest Pakistan and Afghanistan. A lot of the culinary traits of these regions are heavily influenced from the Central Asian countries (once the satellite states of the erstwhile USSR). The landscape being arid, with scrubs and bushes making up the prominent vegetation, goats and sheep are the primary source of protein here. And so it isn't surprising to see that a restaurant serving food from a little beyond the Khyber Pass, through Punjab, all the way to Delhi, should have a good selection of dishes involving lamb.

The atmosphere inside the restaurant was very pleasant - light music, good clean linen on the table, nice upholstery for the chairs, and a menu that wouldn't disappoint even a vegetarian, and would certainly make a carnivore's mouth water. I'm not too much into the ambiance and music, so I didn't mind the Jagjit Singh ghazals in the background, but some of the guests did, although not to the point where they started throwing tantrums.

The food was great. I didn't care too much for the Punjabi section - don't get me wrong, they were nice - I just liked the dishes from the other two sections better (and so did the guests). Also, to the credit of this restaurant, the lamb dishes that were served among the starters were wonderfully cooked. Very often, the mutton in a biryani is tender and drops off the bone and this is because it is 'pressure' cooked (may not be in a pressure cooker, but you know what I mean). However, starters usually aren't, and these are slow cooked in a tandoor, and very often the meat is still a little chewy. This often spoils the experience. However, the lamb at Sultans of Spice didn't suffer from that and came off the bone quite easily. Kudos to the chef.

Paya Kalimirch Shorba

Gosht Nehari Shorba

Boondi shikhanji (minus the boondi)

Tikka Rasmonak (mushroom, background), Bhatti da peela kukkad

The one other dish I'd like to mention specifically is the Matiya Road bharwan tange. This was chicken legs stuffed with mince meat and methi. I was unable to decide which I liked better - this or the lamb chops (gosh quburghah). Eventually I settled for this because this had chicken as well as minced lamb.

Matiya Road bharwan tange

Gosh quburghah

Surjeet di Amritsari macchi

The main course, after the initial onslaught, was a little tame. Although we did have a superbly 'crafted' lamb chops dish in the main course as well (burrah kaliyan) along with the breads, we also went in for a keema fry and a mutton biryani.

Karim's keema mutter fry

Burrah Kaliyan

Among desserts, the stuffed gulab jamuns in a mango nectar were the most appealing (visually) - check out the snap below, I really liked the picture. Taste wise though, I'll have to go with something a little more, well, exotic if you like - the chickoo kulfi (they actually have a custard apple kulfi, but that is seasonal).

The hand wash bowl, with flower petals

Stuffed gulab jamuns with mango nectar

Chickoo kulfi

Jalebi + Rabdi (served in a cup)

Food: Very good
$$$: Moderately expensive
Service: Good
Verdict:Must visit
Extra info: Unless you're in a large groiup, and/or have a craving for Punjabi food, skip the Punjabi section and stay with the Kabul and Delhi section. It's not the Punjabi section is bad; it's just that the other two sections are better.

Sultans of Spice, Blu Petal Hotel, #60, Jyothi Nivas College Road, 5th Block Koramangala, Bangalore. Phone: 43431800

BM Review: Dalma

Last Sunday, I visited Dalma, a restaurant that specialises in the cuisine from Orissa, located in Koramangala. Needless to say, I was thrilled at visiting a restaurant which had food of a cuisine about which so little is known about. The review can be read here. Thanks to Ruth for delivering me with the guests for the review.

Here's what I made of the entire experience. The food served is simple, yet awesome. It really is home food, and is probably one of the very few 'fancy' (I hate to use the word fancy here because it'll give the impression that it's expensive) restaurants that serve home food. Don't be fooled by the 'fancy' word - it's NOT expensive even though it's situated in Koramangala. One of the other restaurants (that I am aware of) that serves quintessentially home food is Kudla.

My guests suggested that the pakhal thali is a must as it is one of the best examples of Oriya cuisine. It comes with a large bowl (read cauldron) of rice mixed with curds and water (with a few curry leaves and cumin for good measure) and is accompanied by a few veggies and a mixture of fried & dried onions and garlic. The rice is sometimes left for a while and allowed to ferment, but the one served here is the 'straight' kind.

Pakhal thali

From the vegetarian dishes, the ghanta, pronounced ghon-tuh, was a medley of several vegetables. According to my guests, in Orissa, this is made only on special occasions, and is supposed to have all the known vegetables in Orissa! To hell with that, it tasted great, and it reminded me of something that's made in the countryside around Mangalore, which includes some of the same ingredients like the dark brown channa-like pulse, and another vegetable that's called dondekai in Kannada and manoli in Tulu.

Ghanta

We also ordered the dish, the namesake, dalma. This is nothing but lentils, or dal, that is cooked with some spices. Along with that, we also ordered another 'classic' of sorts, the alu-potal rasa, which was potatoes and, well, excuse the excessive use of Indian languages here, but I really don't know the English name of this vegetable, parval (in Hindi). Awesomeness I say. Going back to the food, it was good.

Alu-potal rasa

To represent the !vegetarian dishes (ha ha, {evil grin}, I had to sneak in something to show that I'm an engineer), we had the chicken kassa, mutton kassa, and chungudi malai, which was prawns cooked in coconut milk. All three dishes were wonderful because of the minimal use of over-powering masalas, and the taste of the meats were quite easy to find on the palate and wasn't lost in the midst of the masalas.

Chicken kassa

Mutton kassa

For desserts, we weren't lucky enough to have the rasgullas or the chennapoda. The rasgulla , for long and even till date, is attributer to the state of Bengal, but actually traces its origins to the state of Orissa. Later, during the 'renaissance' in Bengal, rich households employed brahmin cooks from Orissa and the dish 'migrated' to the neighbouring state. Years later, a young mand called Krishna Chandra Das, popularly known as K C Das, started canning and selling them. The rest, as they say, is history.

The chennapoda means baked cheese, and is nothing but cottage cheese, or paneer, that is baked for hours until it develops a thing brown crust. In some cases, sugar and cashew nuts are also added. We settled in for the kheeri, or kheer, and it was great as well. Not quite like the wheat payasa we have in Mangalore and parts of South Canara in terms of texture, this one being more smooth.

Kheeri

Drop in for some simple, yet delicious 'home food', Orissa style.

Food: Simple and wonderful.
$$$: Cheap! Meal for two should cost you about Rs. 300. The rice in one thali is more than enough of two people, so thali + 1 side dish could well be less than 300!
Service: Decent
Verdict: Must visit.

Dalma, #37, 100 Feet Road, 6^th block, Koramangala, Bangalore. Phone: 41660921

Mutton in creamy fenugreek gravey

Happy new year! No, I wasn't delayed because of some post new year celebration hangover...I was just plain busy at work. During the run up to the new year, I decided to try my hand at a mutton dish that I came across here.

I found a half KG pack of boneless mutton cubes at Spar, and so I decided to use that. Below is a snap of the ingredients I used. One thing that I missed pointing out in the image is that next to the coriander seeds are fenugreek seeds as well.

Make a paste of the above ingredients (I had half a yellow capcicum, and I so I added it - you can add anything else you want, or don't add anything in place of it at all - no problemo). Once you get a paste, use it to marinate the mutton and add some salt and curd to the mutton and refrigerate for around 3 hours (I also added something like 2 teaspoons of pepper to the mutton which later turned out to be a little spicy, so you may wanna skip the pepper unless you really love spicy food). Also, at the time of making the marinade, I didn't have cumin seeds (mom bought them later in the evening), so you could add a teaspoon of cumin seeds to the marinade as well.

Remove the mutton an hour before you're gonna toss it over the flame...give it some time to thaw. To start off, take a deep dish (I used one of our pressure cooker vessels itself) and heat it and add 2 table spoons of ghee (clarified butter), and toss in a teaspoon of cumin seeds, about 8 cloves of garlic minced, and one onion cut (I cut them into rings, you can cut them any way you like). Sauté this until the onions are golden in colour.

Add the mutton to the pot and continue to cook. Add some water to the mixture (amount should vary depending on how thick you'd like the gravy to be).



Add some coriander leaves and fenugreek leaves to the pot and mix everything properly. I also added a couple of small potatoes (cut them into small cubes) and then pressure cooked the whole thing until the mutton was soft. If you have all the time in the world, and/or if gas doesn't cost you a bomb, then you could allow the mixture to simmer on the flame until the meat is soft. I prefer the pressure cooking method :)


Voila!

The proportions of the ingredients:
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
8 cloves of garlic
1 inch ginger piece sliced
1 onion chopped
2 green chilies
1 tsp chili flakes
6 cloves
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 cup curd
salt to taste
pepper (optional)
1 onion sliced
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp ghee
2 small potatoes, chopped to small cubes
Handful of chopped coriander leaves
Handful of chopped fenugreek leaves
1/2 kg lamb

Make a marinade out of all the ingredients and add 1/2 a cup of the curd to the marinade and allow the meat to marinate for 3 hours. Then slice an onion and some add a tsp of cumin to 2 tbsp of ghee in a deep vessel. Fry until golden, and then add the meat. Add the coriander and fenugreek leaves and add water depending on how thick you wan the gravy to be. Add the potatoes into the pot and pressure cook until the meat is soft and tender. Add the remaining curd into this, and Bob's your uncle.

Nachiyars & Mozaic

Mr P had gone to Hyderabad to attend the wedding of a colleague, so Mr VP and I had a perfect opportunity to visit Nachiyars in Ulsoor, which supposedly served some, well, weird food, like rabbit meat, quail meat, etc. Since Mr P is a vegetarian and wouldn't have much to graze on here, it seemed a perfect opportunity to for us to pig into the delights(?) this place had to offer.

This place isn't your quintessential restaurant where you go and expect to be treated with a certain level of regality. It's actually a quintessential hole-in-the-hole joint, complete with a narrow passage, creaky wooden tables and benches, banana leaves on the tables, etc. And once we settled in, Mr VP tells me he has a bad tummy. "Not exactly the best choice of restaurant in that case", I told him, and he grinned. What the heck, we were here, and it was time to get down to business.

Like I said, this wasn't a typical restaurant, and the waiter didn't quite understand the concept of starters and main course being brought to the table at different times, and so when we were going through the menu card, we decided to just order whatever we like, irrespective of whether it was a starter or main course. We ended up ordering a plate of mutton pepper fry (a little bit that I spooned onto my 'plate'),

a plate of prawn fry (on the left) with a dosa (in the background) for Mr VP,

a couple of plates quail fry [on the right in the pic above] (I've forgotten the local word used for it, something starting with K). The best part of the quail fry is that they give you an entire quail! That's right, what you see in the snap above to the right is an entire quail, divided into two portions: one part body and another part with the legs.

We also ordered a chicken kozumbhu,

and a chicken and crumbled paratha for me.

Since I wasn't quite sure about how 'safe' the food would be, I didn't want to risk having the water served here, so both Mr VP and I settled for bottled drinks.

After dinner, and a spicy one at that, I wanted ice cream or some kind of dessert to cool off, and we decided to head towards Taj Residency's coffee shop. On getting there, we realised that the coffee shop didn't have anything great (surprisingly), and so we were directed towards one of their restaurants, Café Mozaic. Tip: whenever headed to the restaurant of a 5 star hotel, don't forget that the food you plan to eat will be at 5 star rates.

Well, we went in, settled down, opened to menu and looked into the dessert section, and our eyes nearly popped out of their sockets (at least mine did) which was when it fully dawned on me, at almost 10 in the night where we were(dawned, night, get it?... never mind). But what the heck, there's always a first time for everything, and so we ordered what we wanted. I went for a bull's eye, which basically was chocolate truffle and chocolate something cake/pastry with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top and some fancy decoration that you see in the picture.

Mr VP had a choco trio, a chocolate triplicate with mousse in a pure chocolate cup, a brownie and chocolate ice cream.

I've eaten chocolate truffle before, and I've had some really good chocolate truffle before, but this one takes the cake :) It's the best chocolate truffle I've ever had and after eating it I didn't flinch even once when it came to paying for it (Rs 325 for each dessert). Yeah, it was a lot of money, but hey, I happened to step into a 5 star hotel, what could I expect. Expensive Sunday dinner, but luckily it didn't leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Nachiyars, Near Ulsoor lake, After Daily Bread, Ulsoor, Bangalore.