BM Review: Xian

Last Saturday, I finally visited Xian, along with the owners of the blog Purple Cinnamon and Salt, Pallavi and Upasana, along with Sreeja (a friend of a friend) and her friend Snigdha. The full review for the paper along with a snap of the guests can be read here.

I don't know the exact reason, but someone at the paper seems to like articles in the English language very much, so much so that they added a 'The' to the start of the title I'd given for the write up. I'd titled it as 'Yin yang harmony', to indicate the balance between the good and the not so good at Xian (and there being a giant yin yang at Xian contributed heavily to this title). By adding the 'The' at the start, it sort of makes it sound as an attribute almost exclusively meant for Xian (which obviously isn't true - almost all places could be recipients of this phrase as most would have some not so good things to go with the good...thus, yin yang). But anyway, what do I know about English, I'm just a techie who happens to love and know a little bit about food, so let's put an end to the English grammar lesson here.

We started off with some chicken and pork steamed momos, and then moved on spare ribs, crispy spinach, chilli prawn balls, and bacon-wrapped prawns. The momos were good, but I've found the momos served at delicacy to be better because the outer casing of the momo is not hard, but still soft (at Delicacy), but here, it was a little hard, but taste wise, they were good. The spare ribs stole the show, like totally! Served in a sweet-ish sauce that probably was a mixture of barbecue and a bit of Worcestershire (for a little tang and zing), the meat of actually so yummiliciously flavoured and tender that all of us had to struggle to remain civil at the table. In short, it was good. Then, things slid a little down hill. The crispy spinach was nice, but had flour added to it to 'hold' it together I'm guessing. Bad idea! not only did it add an unearthly whitish-cream colour to the green of the spinach, it cut into the taste as well.

Spare ribs...some of the best I've ever had

Crispy spinach with vegetables

On the menu, this chilli prawn balls was under the 'chef recommends' section. This dish was a little spicy (and some found it a little too spicy). Flavour wise, there was the distinct prawn flavour mixed with a little coriander and chilli, however, what was missing was something to go with the dish and probably cut out a little bit of the heat from the chilli. After talking to Pallavi, who thought a lemon-honey based sauce/dip could've helped as opposed to my garlic-mayo dip suggestion, I tended to agree more with her idea for the simple reason that a bit of acid WAS precisely what was needed for a sea food dish, and the lemon would certainly have provided that while cutting into the chilli. Some garnish on the dish would've helped as well - rather plane-Jane if you ask me.

Chilli prawn balls

Bacon-wrapped prawns. On any given day, I'd have to say that even in my sleep I'd answer that this would be a winner. now I'm not sure if this is the trend everywhere, but here the dish came batter-fried!!! Oh dear, my fat, crumbled heart nearly skipped a few beats when I saw it. And the batter coating was too thick to enjoy the salty, bacon-infused flavour on the prawns. Tch tch, I think even the prawns felt bad, and I felt bad that the prawns didn't get to be more physically intimate with the bacon.

Bacon wrapped prawns

For the mains, we ordered a Malaysian flat noodles and a Thai red curry with a portion of steamed rice. Along with this, we ordered a char-siu pork, dragon lamb, and Xian pickled prawns (with black bean paste). The flat noodles looked nice, with nice colours, and tasted good as well.

Malaysian flat noodles (kway teao)

The Thai red curry was quite lovely - coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, and red chilli paste... yummmm-meee!

Thai red curry

Pork was a bit of a specialty here I think, and the char-siu pork served was quite good, save for a few pieces of meat that were a bit chewy. But otherwise, the honey-sweetened pork (generally flavoured with Chinese five-spice powder) is quite a good side dish to be had any time. the dragon lamb seemed and tasted almost like the char-siu pork, with the only difference being in the texture of the meats - they are different animals after all!

Char Sui pork

Dragon lamb

The Xian pickled prawns had got us a wee bit excited. We were anticipating a slightly sour, and probably fermented dish (it did say pickled, and was in a black bean paste, which is normally fermented and pungent). However, what came was a bowl of a thick gravy with prawns and vegetables, with tiny flecks of black bean in it. On it's own, it tasted good, but having being primed with the word 'pickled', it was a let down.

Pickled prawns in black bean sauce

Overall, quite a decent place, and since the prices are slightly on the higher side when compared to any of the other 'Chinese' joints in town, the good thing is the dishes, decor, cutlery, etc do live up to a slightly higher standard that you'd expect while paying this kind of money.

Food: Some good, some not so great, overall - pretty decent.
$$$: Not your average Chinese joint...maybe around 500 or so per head.
Service: Decent
Verdict: Worth a visit if in that part part of town.

Xian, #132, Gangadhara Chetty Road, opposite Ulsoor Lake, Bangalore. Phone: 41515163

TGIF

It'd been a loooooooooong time since we visited TGIF, and what better day to go than on a Friday! We'd initially planned on going to some place where we could have a meal with 500 bucks (totally, for all 3 of us), but eventually ended up spending 1200 bucks each!!! I hope this spell doesn't continue too long or I'll be broke soon. Since we got there during the happy hours, we would get a drink free for every drink ordered, so we ordered a mojito and a blue something (which was basically vodka).

Mojito

Blue Something (Vodka)

P being a veggie, there weren't too many options available, and very few seemed interesting, and so he ordered a plate of loaded potato skins. These weren't as good as the ones we had at Woodstok - these had only cheese in them.

Loaded Potato Skins

I ordered a Jack Daniel's Tower, comprising of shrimps, ribs, and chicken with the JD sauce and it was superb. Apologies for the quality of the snap, but if you've been to TGIF, you'd know that the lighting there is weird and not very conducive for taking snaps unless you have a flash, and I didn't want to make everyone around aware that I'm taking pics with my phone

Jack Daniel's Tower (shrimps, ribs, chicken)

P then ordered a South-West Potato something, which was potato wafers with jalapeno, cheese and a couple of other things tossed in to make it tasty. This was far better than the potato skins. This option was from the happy hours menu, which we'd completely missed looking at while placing the initial orders.

South-West Potato something

For the main course, I noticed that there was a new burger on the menu, South-West burger, that was a beef patty with jalapeno, cheese, and tomatoes. It tasted OK - I guess I'm picky now coz I refer the burgers at Thulp simply because of the fact that they constructed perfectly. Here, the patty was dry, and it had lettuce below it, so it wasn't on the lower half of the bun, and the worst part was the bun was started crumbling half-way through the burger.

South-West Burger

P & VP shared a cheese dish whose name I can't remember now. It seemed pretty good.

Cottage Cheese something

VP got conned - when I say conned, I mean a waiter came up and goaded him into having a tequila shot. That cost us 400 bucks! For that tiny amount...geez man.

Tequila shot

Once we were done with the meal, we sat outside TGIF to allow things to settle in our stomach,s and we were joined by a rather nice looking and well mannered dog. She sat by our sides, wanted to be petted, and even knew how to shake hands with us.

The dog outside TGIF

TGIF on Wednesday

Two of us were recovering from a slight illness - me from a fever and a sore throat and Mr VP from an upset stomach. Well, ok, let's add one for Mr P as well - he was recovering from working a lot unnecessarily. VP had a presentation at work on Tuesday but it didn't go through, and on Wednesday all of us were yearning for a break, and so TGIF it was.

We got there during the 'happy hours', so buy one-get one drink free time, but since they didn't have anything 'hot', I was a bit peeved (didn't want my sore throat to flare up again). But what the hell, we were there to enjoy, and so that's what we did. We had a lemonade and a summer cyclist - mixture of strawberry and orange juice, and since it was happy hours, we got one extra of each.

To nibble on something while we were planning the movies to watch during the coming weekend, we ordered a plate of grilled pita dippers, with hummus and salsa.


Angels & Demons it was, but with the governments new rule for theatres to show movies only at certain fixed times had us in a bit of a bother - none of the usual multiplexes that we go to would be showing the movie :( [eventually we went to watch it at Rex on Brigade Road]. Mr P and I also had a bowl of soup, broccoli cheese, which wasn't the best I've had, it was just eh.

For the mains, I had a nice fat juicy strip steak, and it was juicy. 12 ounces of red meat, and it was only once the order came that I remembered that I'm supposed to be off beef - my 2 cents towards helping in the fight against global warming. :( I'll need to remember from now on.

VP had a half rack of ribs with the Jack Daniels sauce, which came with a side order of onion rings. And surprisingly, this was the first time he finished everything he ordered! I mean he actually finished everything, and I didn't have to polish his food off lest it were wasted.

Mr P ordered something called a Mediterranean veg stack.

For desserts, we ordered the mini desserts, four mousse like desserts in glasses slightly bigger than shot glasses. After much debating as to who will have which flavour, I can say with some authority that none of them were good. Try to avoid these if you go there, order something else, or go out to Corner House next door and have a nice ice cream there.