4 Seasons wine tasting bloggers meet at Royal Orchid

Last month, I was invited to my second bloggers meet arranged by 4 Seasons wines, and this time around it was at the Royal Orchid Hotel on Old Airport Road. The guest of honour who was going to be joining us was Shamita Singha, who is also a brand ambassador for 4 Seasons Wine.

It was a cool, sunny day, and almost perfect for a wine pairing event, especially since camera-wielding bloggers like me crave for day time meetups with ample sunlight.The get together began with Shamita talking about the wines, and surprisingly, she actually knew quite a bit about wines, and didn't seem as if she were just repeating lines someone had fed her. That actually is quite a pleasant turn of events as it's actually good to see more and more people in celebrity positions getting more involved with promoting wines, which happens to be at a very nascent stage in our country, and a far more nascent stage in the food scene of our country.

  

After giving the bloggers a brief about the wines, it was time for the food. Starters started doing the rounds , and we had a decent selection of starters that could be paired with the wines. The Chenic Blanc went well with both the chicken satay as well as the grilled vegetables. While we were downing glass after glass of wine along with the food (starters), the staff of The Royal Orchid started getting things ready for the cooking demonstration.

  

  

The chef started off with the salad - slicing the apples deftly, and then tearing up the lettuce and went on to make the dressing. The dressing is what can make or break the salad, and an orange juice based dressing was in store for our salad, mixed with olive oil.

  

For the main course, the chefs went ahead with preparing a Thai green curry. Many of us were a little miffed that the chef chose to use canned coconut milk powder, canned green curry paste, and a whole lot of ingredients that were canned and not fresh. The dessert though was quite simply awesome. Overall, it was a nice opportunity to interact with Shamita (for that matter whoever 4 Seasons chooses to send) if wine is something you want to learn about.

Ginseng

Gin·seng -noun [jin-seng]: any of several plants of the genus Panax, esp. P. pseudoginseng, of eastern Asia, or P. qinquefolius, of North America, having an aromatic root used medicinally.

Gin·seng -noun [jin-seng]: The Oriental cuisine restaurant in Bangalore, part of the Royal Orchid group of hotels.

Birthdays are always nice, and birthday lunches or dinners are even better, especially when someone else is footing the tab. A couple of folks in my team took the team out for lunch to celebrate their birthday, and after narrowing down 3 places, Ginseng was chosen. I'd have loved to have gone the a la carte way (don't I always), but going on a weekday from work always has a few restrictions, and time certainly is one of them. So the buffet it was, which isn't half as bad as I'd be making it out to be right now, but I'd still take the a la carte anyday :)

We started off with the soup of the day, which was a mixed vegetable sweet and sour soup, which all of us agreed was simply amazing. The few who felt a little disappointed that there was just one soup were soon all smiles.

The appetizer spread was pretty decent: starting from the 12 o'clock position and going clockwise, we have some chicken, followed by pomelo fruit, then some pineapple, followed by some very lovely kimchi, wafer fried in prawn oil and finally deviled egg.

For those of you unaware of what a Pomelo is, this is what it looks like.

The spread for the main course was a delight, but sadly some of the food didn't live up to my expectations :( This time, starting from the 11 o'clock position (clockwise), we have stir fried French beans, followed by Thai chicken curry, and some mutton dish whose name I can't recollect now. Then we have the Thai chicken fry (which resembled gobi manchurian), and some fried water chestnuts. And in the middle is some fish, again whose name escaped from my head. The chicken fry (red one, 6 o'clock) wasn't very nice and was a little rubbery coz of the batter it was cooked in, and the mutton didn't seem to have been cooked recently and felt cold and didn't have any 'juice' in it. The rest of the dishes were good, and lived up to the expectations that I had been told to expect at Ginseng.

The dim sums were heavenly. Biting into them, they would almost melt in your mouth. The sesame seed sauce and the pepper sauce as accompaniments were perfect. Nothing to write home about the hakka noodles and the veg fried rice, except that they weren't bad.

And onto the desserts! By now if you've been reading my posts, you'd know that this is the part I love the most. 12 o'clock Kiwi cheese cake, chocolate cake with walnuts, Strawberry cheese cake, something I have no idea about but was filled with Mascarpone cheese, a coconut roll with cream (which oozed oil and tasted horrible), a pastry of some kind and a classic Tiramisu. The glasses in the middle had different souffles in them which were amazing to look at and taste.

After all that I had heard about Ginseng, I'll have to say that although overall I was very happy with the place, especially the ambiance inside and the decor and settings, I was hoping against hope that all the buffet dishes would have been up to the mark and would not leave me disappointed. Well, maybe the next time I come, I'll have to go a la carte and hope for the best.

Ginseng, The Royal Orchid, 1, Golf Avenue, Old Airport Road, Bangalore.

Limelight - Royal Orchid Coffee Shop

Team lunches are always fun - we get to eat at the someone else's expense, and this time around it was at the company's expense. This time we chose to go to Limelight, the coffee shop at the Royal Orchid hotel on the old airport road. The only disappointment was the fact that in spite of calling and making reservations, when we got there, our names were surprisingly missing from the register; but it wasn't a problem as they were able to make arrangements for the 14 of us within 5 minutes.

The spread was pretty decent: the salads and cold cuts were nice (what you'd expect at a place like Royal Orchid) while the hummus and the pita bread were very nice, although I must warn you that it is an acquired taste and not all may like it. The chicken Manchow soup was nice and hot, perfect to get your appetite on the right path,

while among the cold cuts, the fish and lamb were particularly tasty among the non-veg items and the hummus and pita bread, along with the mushrooms and paneer were particularly delightful.


The main course offered use the usual fare of Indian breads, along with a variety of curries: chicken, mutton, fish, paneer, Thai green curry, and also an Italian stuffed pasta that was simply wonderful.

And now for the best part of every meal, the desserts. There was enough items to make a main course itself! From rasgullas to souffles, from tarts to pastries, they were there in all shapes and sizes and colours.


Food: Good (continental cuisine)
$$$: I think the buffet was around 400 or so per head, and for the spread they had, it was totally worth it.
Service: Buffet - what service do you expect?
Verdict: Can visit if you fancy a conti buffet amidst a nice surrounding lawn.

The Royal Orchid, 1 Golf Avenue, Adjoining KGA Golf Course, Old Airport Road, Bangalore

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.