Phobidden Fruit

So the last time I visited Phobidden Fruit in Indiranagar, I was a newbie to Vietnamese cuisine, to the point where I knew only about Pho (had heard about it) and was a little blank when it came to more or less everything else. Well, I spent some time learning (if you can call the description that follows as learning) about the cuisine - reading Wiki to watching videos, including one having the bad boy himself, Anthony Bourdain, I had a more sound 'theoretical' knowledge about the cuisine when I went in the second time.

Vietnamese cuisine is a classic example of east-meets-west, and how tây (Vietnamese for 'western') culinary influences have been absorbed and seamlessly integrated into the local cuisine - in this case, the western influences are French, and although the cheeses that France is famous for may not be on the list, it's a little more than just the baguettes that were introduced. So we were all very thrilled to visit the place, this time around with a bigger group (12 of us).

The seating downstairs is a little limited - two 4 seaters, and one longer table behind the spiral stair case. However, upstairs, (after you've twisted yourself up via the stairs) the seating capacity improves.

The view as soon as you reach the top

We started off with something to drink. While a couple of caffeine fiends had cold coffee, some of us had iced teas, Pandan iced teas, and a tropical fizz (lime and mint in a fizzy mixture). The drinks were indeed quite refreshing, especially given the fact that the mercury seems to have already started on it's northward journey this early in March (hopefully they'll come up with some way to shift+del the month of May year). The snap right below here is that of Sriracha (pronounced si-ra-cha, after the town in Thailand it originates from, which is a mixture of red chillies, vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt). Try a spoonful of the Sriracha and it'll bomb you outta your skin!

Sriracha (L), pickled carrot and radish (R)

Lemon iced tea

Pandan iced tea

Tropical fizz

Cold coffee

Vietnamese cuisine wouldn't be complete without pork. And when you have spare ribs on the menu in a sweetened bbq type sauce, you'd be crazy to miss out on it. The ribs were wonderfully done, although we'd hoped that either there'd be a few more pieces, or at least slightly bigger pieces. The beef spears were minced beef, seasoned and drizzled with sesame seeds and grilled. These were quite juicy and although they weren't the melt-in-your-mouth type texture (this isn't like a seekh kabab), it was still very good.

Spare ribs

Beef spears

Vietnamese cuisine involves the use of a lot of vegetables (crunchy and fresh ones at that), either directly in the preparation process, or indirectly in the form of condiments served along with any dish. Bean sprouts, raw onions, and greens of various kinds are the most popular. We ordered a rice crepe-like dish called Banh xeo, served along with the fish sauce nước mắm (don't ask me to say it - I tried and I sounded retarded, I swear). This was stuffed with mushrooms and sprouts, but was a little difficult to eat without looking clumsy, with the stuffings falling out all over the plate. This tasted ok, but certainly wasn't a 'hit' at the table. What was a hit, however, were the chicken spring rolls (also served with nước mắm). These too were stuffed with sprouts and a few strips of carrot and choice veggies along with the chicken, and the taste and texture was excellent. These spring rolls were made with the thin rice paper wrapper and weren't deep fried with flour-based wrappers (thankfully!). I tell you, rice is soooo much more easier to deal with than wheat (spoken like a true South Indian).

Banh xeo with nước mắm

Spring rolls with nước mắm

To round up the starters, we had a plate of chilli beef and pork momos. The chilli beef had small pieces of beef that were very nicely done and not chewy at all, while the pork momos tasted very nice, although the outer casing a touch too thick.

Chilli beef

Pork momos

For the main course, we knew we had to have Pho, which enjoys the status of being like Vietnam's national dish. So we had planned to divide the Pho and has asked for extra bowls (and let me say this categorically - the wait staff actually had an issue giving us extra bowls, claiming there weren't as many as we wanted! Yikes). Anyway, with that out of the way, we also ordered a Bún riêu (a north Vietnamese specialty) that involved crab meat in it. I loved this dish, although there was one fundamental flaw in all the Pho and Bún dishes. Vietnamese cuisine involves the use of rice noodles in most of the dishes, especially in Pho and Bún dishes. Phobidden fruit has substituted the rice noodles with the flat wheat noodles, thereby making the dish heavier and not the moderately light dish it's supposed to be.

The Pho too was filled with the flat noodles, and had a dash of extra cinnamon (like the last time I visited), but was otherwise it was nice (considering this is the only place I've had Pho). Apart from the Pho, the Bún bò too was filled with the flat wheat noodles. Now, the Vietnamese word Bún is for a clump of rice noodles. So when you call something A, but give B, then, hmm, that's not right, is it? The Bún bò was spicy, look at the image to see the amount of chilli flotilla on it. But there was flavour too, and I'm not being sarcastic. But the only disappointment was the fact that since the noodles weren't made of rice, they didn't absorb anything, and were slithery and slippery.

With some of the typical Vietnamese dishes out of the way, some of the other dishes we had were a reef soup, a Vietnamese chicken curry, and tamarind fish noodles. The chicken curry was very good - well flavoured, tender, and juicy. The reef soup too was quite nice, but the tamarind fish noodles was a little insipid - nothing special. My last grouse was that a particular dish called the Bánh mì (a pork sandwich) was not available. This wasn't available even the last time I visited. The Bánh mì is almost as iconic to the Orient as the Cuban pork sandwich is to the Occident. Having something on the menu and continually saying "It's not available" is just plain stupid.

Bún riêu

Reef soup - stirred, not shaken

Vietnamese chicken curry

Pho (vegetarian)

Tamarind fish noodles

Bún bò

Pho (beef)

I'm not too big on south-east Asian, or far eastern desserts for that matter, and we were quite full after the meal. All in all, a very satisfying meal, and coming from an authenticity angle, a few changes here and there (most noticeably with using rice noodles instead of flat wheat noodles, and actually having the Bánh mì) would go a long way in making Phobidden Fruit a much sought after culinary destination in Bangalore.

Food: Very good
$$$: Around 500-600 per head
Service: Decent; could get a little cold with larger groups :P
Verdict: Must visit

Phobidden Fruit, #965, 12th Main, Next to Yamaha store, HAL 2^{ndM/sup> Stage, Indiranagar, Bangalore. Phone: 41255175}

Phobidden Fruit

A classmate of ours, who'd come down at the end of 2009, had come down again at around the same time in 2010, but got to Bangalore only last week. He was here to get engaged, and the wedding is scheduled for Jan 2012. Let's call him PiousDope. So P, VP, PiousDope and I visited Phobidden Fruit, a new Vietnamese restaurant in Indiranagar. So far, Taj West End is the only place with a Vietnamese restaurant called Blue Ginger, and from many accounts, I've heard it isn't the best you can get. So when I heard there's a new Vietnamese place close to where I work, I had to try it out. And so the four of us went there on Thursday night.

The restaurant is set at two levels, with more seating capacity on the first floor. The lighting is pretty dim (not something I like, especially when I'm trying to take snaps without using my flash), but one look at the menu and I knew that the food should more or less make up for the disappointment [however, please note, henceforth the flash shall be very generously used when there are issues with lighting - trying to capture the aesthetics in a photograph will be a thing of the past].

After a thorough examination of the menu and it's contents, we ordered the following: pork spare ribs (Duh! This was almost taken for granted that it would be ordered), Vietnamese spring rolls, Banh Xeo [a Vietnamese pancake], lettuce wraps, Vietnamese lamb, and veg momos. The photo of the ribs didn't come out too well, and was badly blurred (I know, I almost make it sound like a burn victim!), and so isn't put up. So since we're on the topic of the ribs, these were very good, but I think for the money charged, the portion was, let's say, tiny. I think when you charge around Rs 250 for a dish, it shouldn't get over in jiffy. Soft and succulent, the sauce was a darker than most places that make spare ribs - more soy, but tasty nonetheless.

The Vietnamese lamb (now I don't know if there is a local name for this or not) wasn't too different from any lamb starter I've had at most places that serve Oriental cuisine. This was nice as well, and since VP couldn't eat it due to his various funny allergies, PiousDope and I had the task of finishing it.

The last of the non-veg starters was the lettuce wraps, filled with bean sprouts, shrimps, and a couple of other veggies. This was served with a fish sauce and a soy sauce. This dish was very nicely done - crisp lettuce, with some nicely flavoured shrimps and crunchy sprouts, along with a fishy fish sauce made this a wonderful wrap. The flavours and the texture were quite good and the combination obviously works - worked for us at least.

Vietnamese lamb - wasn't too different from any other lamb I'd eaten before ;)

Lettuce wraps

Among the veg dishes, the momos were like at most other places, and there isn't much to say about them that no one already knows. If it helps, I'll also add that they weren't bad. For the other two dishes (almost the rock stars among the starters), the spring rolls and the Banh Xeo, I almost wished we could go there again just for these dishes. The Banh Xeo was a nice, crispy pancake - more of a crepe actually, had a nice taste to it. The rice flour used itself must've been seasoned quite nicely, and the stuffing of crunchy bean sprouts and other veggies added to texture as well as the taste. The veg spring rolls, although a tad difficult to hold in the hands (kinda flimsy), were quite superb when it came to taste.

Banh Xeo - Vietnamese stuffed pancake

Veg momos

Veg spring rolls

When it came to our main course, PiousDope said he was full and wanted only dessert and had a lemon grass ice cream (sorry, no snap), that turned out to be OK. P decided to go in for the national dish of Vietnam, Pho, which is essentially a large bowl of watery soup with noodles and veggies (and also meats of various kinds, but P had the veg version). VP, although full, made claims that he'd be in a position to eat a full main course dish (which is when I realised I'd be needed to finish off what he leaved behind to avoid wasting the food). So while VP ordered a jungle fish curry, I wanted to have a Vietnamese pork sandwich (which turned out to be 'over') but settled for a Vietnamese red curry.

All three dishes were nice, but I won't be able to comment on authenticity too much as the knowledge I have about Vietnamese cuisine is theoretical. The Pho, though, had a strong doze of cinnamon in it and I'm sure if that much was needed (personal preference - I love cinnamon, but in moderate quantities), while the two curries were quite good. I thought my dish could've used a bit more chili in it, but I'm not complaining.

Pho

Vietnamese red curry

For dessert, we ordered a coconut sorbet and a hot corn soup in coconut milk. P and I immediately guessed the latter to be a form of payasa, which is pretty much what it turned out to be, and tasted almost as good as the ones that our made in South Canara and Udupi districts of Karnataka. The sorbet though was kinda disappointing for me, although P liked it a little more than I did. The taste was not of fresh coconut, but it had the taste and texture of coconut fat that's solidified and then used as opposed to mixed and blended into the sorbet. Those of you from Mangalore and South Canara, in case you've eaten semeda addye (say-may-da add-yay) with coconut milk mixed with jaggery and sliced bananas, you'd know that if the milk is kept in the fridge overnight, in the morning the 'fat' solidifies on the top, and it's the taste of this very fat that I encountered in the sorbet.

Coconut sorbet

Hot corn soup with coconut milk - a Vietnamese payasa of sorts

Overall, quite a satisfying meal, although, for the prices charged, I wish they'd increase the portions a little bit. As it is I was a little sad that they didn't have bún chả, on the menu, and on top of that they didn't have the pork sandwich, which sort of made me feel worse. And since they're new, and we're very forgiving, we'll excuse them this time, but on the sauces served with the dishes (a waiter, upon being asked, checked and told us it was a chef's special sauce) actually contained fish sauce in it (not very pungent, or we'd have guessed immediately), and P ended up eating it. Luckily, he isn't the kind of vegetarian who'll want to go and jump into the Ganga to cleanse himself after eating meat. I just hope such fishy tales are repeated by other diners.

Food: Pretty good, although portions can increase
$$$: A touch on the higher side, considering the size of the portions served. Around Rs 600 - 700 per head
Service: Good
Verdict: Must visit, for it's probably the only affordable Vietnamese restaurant in town.

Phobidden Fruit, #965, 12^th Main, HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar, Bangalore. Phone: 41255175