Merry ol' London - gastronomic memoirs of a travelophile

It has been almost forever since I last visited this hitherto blank page, where once I used to visit it every 10 days. A lot of food has passed between my lips, and many a drink has splashed into the pit of my stomach since November, and sadly, not a single one of those adventures has found its way onto these pages here. Well, I think it's about time that changed.

November end (2012), I flew to London on work, to help launch Zomato in London. Post that, the last 10 days of January 2013 I flew to Doha (Qatar) - again to help launch Zomato in Doha, and in early February I was in Colombo - same reason. March set in, and I was in Manila. In between all these trips, I was in Delhi. Right now, I'm back in Bangalore, and will be here for a short while before I probably head out someplace again. Since we're gearing up for the IPL T20, I think I'll first put up a highlights package - just to set the mood, and dish out the detailed posts in the following days.

I'll start off with merry ol' London, and work my way through the winter onto the other cities and the other gastronomical delights that came up before me. Hopefully this little preview will be enough to whet your appetite for the details that will follow soon.

BM Review: Chamomile

Wow, it's been a full month since the last post. Sorry for the delay, but after shifting to a new house, there are soooo many tasks that crop up every now and then, at times I've even wondered if it was worth it. Well, just so that I don't leave that dangling, it is. So a while back, I visited Chamomile again, this time to review the place for Bangalore Mirror. The review that was published can be read here. As I had already visited the place during Christmas, I knew what to expect from the place, but since we were in a group, and it was essentially going to be a collective opinion, I didn't see any points of potential conflict. Moreover, when P, VP and I had visited during Christmas, we ordered from the special Christmas menu, while this time around we were ordering from the regular menu.

There aren't any snaps of the starters that we had, so apologies for the same. For starters, we selected dishes from the regular menu as well as the bar menu. So the dishes we had from the regular menu were shrimp and avocado salad, honey mustard chicken, herb marinated prawns, and chicken wings and mushroom & Parmesan cigars from the bar menu. The only disappointment here was the salad, with the avocado being old and soft, 'sagging' being a word used at the table by someone. It surely could've use a shot or two of botox. The wings and the honey mustard chicken were nice, both with suitable amount of seasoning and flavours. The hits at the table that evening were the herb marinated prawns - large, chunky prawns marinated in a mixture of coriander, basil and perhaps mint (green stuff), and the mushroom cigars - these were phyllo stuffed with mushrooms and Parmesan cheese. The mushroom cigars were a pleasant surprise and were actually quite delightful and we couldn't seem to have enough of these.

For the mains, we selected one dish from each 'section' that we were able to form after looking at the menu. So Italian saw us ordering the aubergine lasagna (also doubled up as the vegetarian option) and the seafood cappelletti (cappelletti is a stuffed pasta, and means 'little hat' because that's what it kinda resembles), proteins were going to be the T-bone steak and the rosemary flavoured leg of lamb, and then there was grilled salmon in an orange sauce with a whole lot of other things.

The salmon was the only disappointment - almost no seasoning, bland, and the fish actually seemed old. The rest of the dishes though, we quite superb. The T-bone steak was a lovely cut of meat, and I'd for it to be done medium-rare, and it was done to near perfection there, well seasoned, and the mashed potatoes served with it were also very nicely done. The only grouse - they gave us a stainless steel table knife instead of a proper knife knife, and cutting a medium rare steam with such a knife is quite an effort. The cappelletti was a pleasant surprise - didn't have a fishy smell to it, tasted good, and although the texture of the stuffing inside wasn't very 'firm', it tasted good nonetheless, and so got the thumbs up.

Grilled salmon with an orange sauce

T-bone steak

Seafood cappelletti

Usually, whenever someone uses rosemary, they tend to screw up the flavour by using too much. If you ask me, adding too much rosemary often kills the dish, but these guys had managed to get the amount just right for the leg of lamb. What's more, the meat was cooked well and it wasn't chewy, making it a good selection, and a better dish to eat. The aubergine lasagna was a smashing hit at the dinner table that night. Who'd have thought a bunch of carnivores would be raving about a vegetarian dish, but that's exactly what happened. Although the lasagna looked a little disheveled, when it came to taste, it was quite exquisite.

Rosemary leg of baby lamb

Aubergine lasagna

Desserts were a bit of a mixed bag, tending more towards bad than good. The strawberry cheesecake was the same as the last time, good to taste, but hard and not creamy and soft (however, I've been reliably informed that they have now changed the cream cheese they use for the cheesecakes, and so it's supposed to be better now), the hazelnut brûlée had a nice crust, but what lay beneath was nowhere near the custard-like texture that a brûlée is supposed to have. The vanilla pannacotta was just waaaay too plain and insipid, and I'd have liked to see a little less gelatin used so that it is a little more 'creamy' when spooned out. The saviour of the night was the triple layered chocolate mousse, rich and chocolaty and not disappointing us any further.

Strawberry cheesecake

Vanilla pannacotta

Triple layered chocolate mousse

Hazelnut brulee

Food: Good. Need to work a little on the desserts and this place can be a winner.
$$$: Slightly expensive. Approx Rs 1000 per head for a full meal.
Service: Good
Verdict: Can visit for a select few dishes.

Chamomile, #4031, 1^st Floor, Above Bombay Store, Next to Domlur Flyover, 100 Feet Road, Indiranagar, Bangalore. Phone: 42156000, 42167000

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

BM Review: Cafe Thulp

I've got a little bored of putting the link to the Bangalore Mirror site, but since I know it's the right thing to do, so here goes, but I'm also giving the review down below. For the rest of the news, you can visit the Bangalore Mirror site.

Thulp? Wha...?:
If you're wondering what the word 'Thulp' means, then you haven't grown up in Bangalore, or if you did, then, well, you obviously were oblivious to all the slang that was used by a vast majority of us. Thulp is a word used to describe a good beating, but contextually it can also be used to describe binging on food, much like another quintessential Bangalore slang expression, "belting food". So having grown up listening to this word in and out, it's small wonder that Chef Gautam Krishnankutty (of Tai Tai and Asia in a box fame) chose this as the name of his latest venture. Along with Padmakumar, the two have given Bangalore just what was missing - a good place for sandwiches and burgers in a bright, colourful café, which although isn't open air, is extremely cool and breezy and feels just as good as any other open air café, if not better. Oh, and you could also pick up a book from the book shelf to pass time.

Burgers and sandwiches are the kind of food that almost anyone and everyone would like, which is why they've both evolved into various shapes and sizes, and make use of different types of bread, from Cubans to Falafels, shawarmas to subs. Although the sandwiches are the more traditional, classic varieties, Thulp offers them along with their better known cousin, the burger, with different fillings. The burgers here are only beef - the authentic hamburger. In fact, Gautam and Padmakumar had several lengthy discussions over whether there should be a chicken or a lamb burger as well, but Gautam's diktat won over with essentially one point - without beef, it ain't a burger (scores for authenticity).

Fellow Thulpers & grub:
My guests who helped me thulp some food at Thulp were Sunil D'Monte, a free lancing techie, and Ujjwal Vijayakrishnan and Nikita Vasan, both commercial pilots. Ujjwal and Nikita had a couple of shakes - a Boston cooler and a Snicker blizzard, both of which were good. We opened with a chicken satay called 'bird on a wire', a prawn ceviche-like dish called 'Prawnic healing' and chicken momos called ‘steamy critters’. The prawn starter was OK, but the satay was very good, bearing all the hallmarks of a good chicken dish - soft, juicy, and flavourful. The steamed momos were the best of the lot, in terms of taste, texture, and overall feel-good factor.

Prawnic Healing

Snicker Blizzard (L) and Boston Cooler

Bird on a Wire

For the mains, Sunil and I were hell bent on having the burgers, and so a regular beef burger, aptly called ‘Moo’, and one of the Chef's specials for the day, a Teriyaki burger, were ordered. The daily specials, written on a blackboard, usually include an Asian touch. We also had a penne arrabiatta with grilled chicken, a peppery Yakuza, and fish-n-chips called 'A fish called Wanda'. To try one of the sandwiches, I ordered a Chinese barbecued pork sandwich called 'Pigs on the wing'. If creativity with the names is something where Thulp scores high, then taste is where they take it a step further. Nikita and Ujjwal liked their fish-n-ships and the peppery steak respectively, and the penne arrabiatta was also good, but we struck gold with the burgers - right from the 'assembling', down to taste.

Teriyaki Burger

Pigs on the Wing

Gambling chicken - Penne Arrabiatta

Peppery Yakuza

A fish called Wanda

Deconstruction of a burger:
A good burger, apart from having a well-flavoured and properly grilled patty, also depends on what is placed where between the sliced bun. Yup, the any-which-way method doesn't apply here. The patty has to always be placed on the lower slice of the bun to allow any juice from the patty which may run out (and a good burger should always have juices running out) to get absorbed by the bun. Above the patty comes the cheese (should be optional), tomatoes, caramalised onions - this is where most burgers fail as they give raw onions (yeeuuck!), and lettuce. At Thulp, the burgers come with shredded lettuce. Having a whole lettuce leaf there makes it difficult to eat, and also makes me feel like a cow, not something I particularly look forward to, especially when I'm eating cow!

Finishing touches:
We were quite full at this point, but dessert was a must. For dessert, an apple pie with ice cream and a hazel nut mud pie were ordered for, and duly polished off in no time, the mud pie being the superior of the two delicatessens. As Ujjwal said at the end “It was a me‘moo’rable meal”, a pun on the use of ‘Moo’ to describe the beef burgers. Go now and thulp some burgers; it's a 'moo'st try.

Apple Pie

Hazelnut Mudpie

Cafe Thulp, #998, 1^st Main, 1^st Block, Koramangala, Bangalore. Phone: 25487788

Caesar's

Friday night saw P, VP and I make a sudden decision to go watch the new Bruce Willis movie Surrogates @ Fame Lido. After the movie, we were wondering where to head for dinner and started walking along M G Road, coming up with and scratching off options. We came up with Caesar's, and since none of us had been there, we decided to walk it down.

Entering Caesar's was like stepping into a era of Bangalore that existed when I was growing up as a kid. The paint, the setup inside, even the smell for that matter seemed to be screaming 'old Bangalore'.

We settled in and ordered a round of jaljeera. Three big glasses arrived, and along with it we also ordered a round of simple onion rings. The rings were oily (well, duh!) and the two clowns with me made me eat most of them - I tell you, these guys won't let me reap the benefits of all the exercising I'm doing (I run for 30 minutes every evening).

Jaljeera

P is a big fan of soups, and one of the soups caught his eye - tomato egg drop soup. Sounded interesting, and he asked me if I was willing to split a soup with me, which I was, so a split soup it was. The soup was actually nice, and although watery (P for some reason thought it would be creamy), he liked it too.

Tomato egg drop soup

Onion rings

While downing the rings and our soup, we were engaged in an prolonged discussion about the pros and cons of arranged marriage versus a love marriage, and everything that most of today's about-to-be-married folks seem to have taken for granted, especially stuff about the expectations from marriage - it's not the same as it was when our parents got married, that's for sure.

Garlic bread

After a wait for nearly half an hour, our mains arrived. VP ordered a Chicken ala Kiev, a crumb fried chicken dish that was filled with butter, served on a bed of mashed potatoes. And typical of VP, he never finishes a meal, and invariably it's me who mops up what he's left, but my steak was a little too filling, and so I wasn't able to finish his meal.

Chicken ala Kiev

My steak ala Caesar's was a superb combo of beef and chicken, and although I try to avoid beef nowadays, what with the global warming and stuff (in case you're wondering what's eating beef got to do with global warming, well, the cows that are in farms where they are raised for their meat are the no.1 source of methane, and I've verified it as well). In this case I made an exception, and now I can't think of why I chose to do so. In any case, my steak was good. Nice cut of beef, and the chicken was good as well.

Steak ala Caesar's

P didn't seem to have any complaints about his shashlik, and as usual, mopped it up quietly.

Veg shashlik

I was too full to eat dessert, and so the guys ordered a hot chocolate fudge from which I had a couple of spoons before paying the bill.

Hot chocolate fudge

Next weekend is deepavali, or diwali, as it's known in the north. I'm off to Mangalore, and hopefully I'll be able to indulge in some culinary adventures there. But before that, there's a whole week in Bangalore, so hopefully there's something more to come.

Food: Good
$$$: Slightly expensive; the bill came to about 1680 with tax.
Service: Good, but also a little slow. Also, they don't rush you & give you all the time you need.
Verdict: Worth a visit once in a while just to get the good, clean 'smell' of old Bangalore. Oh, and like I said, the food's not too bad :)

Caesar's, 9/2, Mahalakshmi Chambers, M G Road, Bangalore. Phone: 25584144

BM Review: C'est La Vie

C'est La Vie is the French bistro-esque restaurant of the Seven Hotel on the outer ring road. I'd been there last Friday to review it for the Bangalore Mirror. The review can be read here. Once again, I couldn't take pictures, so I'll have to use the ones taken by the photographer from the Bangalore Mirror, Ranjana, for this post. And thanks to her for the great shots!

The watered down version is here.

We started off with a velouté de champignons (mushroom soup) which was perfect in texture and taste.

A cold dish called gateau de taboulé aux aubergines et tomates confites, which was couscous with sliced of brinjal, tomatoes and capsicum was served, the capsicum adding a mild sweetness to the dish.

Velouté de champignons (top), and a melon sorbet

Another starter we had, typical of the Nice region, was the salad Niçoise, which was a combination of long-grained rice, tuna, sliced eggs, beans, tomatoes, shallots and potatoes.

Steak c'est la vie (left), and salad Niçoise

And finally, a quiche lorraine au poulet, or a chicken quiche.

For the main course, we had a filet de poisson grille (grilled fish),

a poulet Basquaise, which was tagliatelle pasta with chicken in a tomato broth,

Poulet Basquaise

a hachis parmentier au canard, which was a couple of layers of mashed potatoes with slices of duck meat in between, topped with a layer of cheese and then baked,

Hachis Parmentier au canard

steak c'est la vie, which was a moist and juicy cut of the tenderloin (or sirloin, not sure), and a brochette d'agneau, which was basically skewered lamb - like a kabab, only this had cubes of lamb meat, not minced meat.

Quiche lorraine au poulet (top left), Gateau de taboulé (top right), Filet de grille (bottom left), Brochette d'agneau (bottom right), Apple pie (middle)

Apparently, cheese is always eaten after the main course and before dessert. This is because the cheese has a pH value that makes it basic in nature, and this helps neutralise the acidity in the mouth that develops after the main course. We had a platter of Brie, Morbier, and Comté.

Brie, Morbier and Comté

We then had an apple pie (no picture), which was simply amazing, and easily the best I've had anywhere. Along with that, we wanted to have the chocolate pie which we were told was the best, but they didn't seem to have that, so we settled for a chocolate muffin-like thingy.

Chocolate muffin (or cupcake, whatever)

Lastly, a trio of sorbets - mango, melon, and red wine!

Red wine sorbet

Food: Excellent
$$$: Slightly expensive - it would work out to around 500-600 per head (although our bill came a little more - we had a glass of wine as well, so it came to Rs. 3511)
Service: Decent
Verdict: If you like Italian food (I'm not talking pastas, I'm talking about the taste), you would like French cuisine, and C'est La Vie certainly does justice.
Extra Info: While driving from Marathahalli towards K R Puram, the hotel comes on the left side.

All photographs used in this post were taken by and are the property of Ranjana of The Bangalore Mirror.

C'est La Vie, The Seven Hotel, 39/5, Outer Ring Road, Doddanekkundi, Between Marathahalli and KR Puram, Bangalore. Phone: 42627777

The full review is here:

Most Indians would stay away from French cuisine citing 'lack of taste'. They can’t be more wrong. I'd never experienced French cuisine before (unless you call food eaten on Air France 17 years ago 'French cuisine'), and so I visited C'est la vie, the French bistro-type restaurant part of the Seven Hotel, with an open mind and no preconceived notions about French food. The restaurant's manager, Vincent Structure, came to Bangalore 5 months ago from France to nurture this smart, well lit, well spaced bistro-esque restaurant, with pleasant decor - little black slates on the tables showing the menu of the day (like in a bistro), paintings and names of prominent streets of Paris placed the walls. I hoped to get a taste of real French food, and decide first hand if there was any truth in the oft repeated excuses.

My guests for the evening were Vrata Venet, executive director at Raj Hamsa Ultralights, an ultralight aircraft manufacturing firm, his wife Nirmala, and their friend Veronique Sauzay, a French national staying in Bangalore for the last 3 years. Vrata is also a paragliding instructor, and is the brother of actress Kalki Koechlin (of Dev D fame). He pointed out that at French households and restaurants, the fork is set facing down, as was the case here. This is because when Catherine of Medici, an Italian, got married to France's King Henry II in the 16th century, she brought along the fork to France (hitherto unknown in France). However, the fork bore the symbol of the Medici family, an 'M', and the King's mother did not like it staring back at her, and so she turned the fork and made it face down, and the practice continued ever since.

We started off with velouté de champignons, a mushroom soup, which was perfect in texture and seasoning. Along with the soup, we ordered a quiche lorraine au poulet (chicken quiche), salad Niçoise (consisting of tuna, eggs, beans, potatoes, tomatoes and shallots), and a gateau de taboulé aux aubergines et tomates confites (cold couscous with brinjals and tomatoes). The chicken quiche was great, and unlike any other quiche I've had before, with a cake-like texture. The taboulé was a perfect blend of cold couscous and brinjals, with thin slices of yellow and red capsicum adding a mild sweetness to the dish. The etymology of aubergine was deconstructed by Vrata: from Sanskrit vatin-ganah to al-badinjan (Arabic - Arabs took brinjal from India), to albergínia (Spanish - introduced by the Moors), eventually, aubergine in France.

For our main course, we had a steak c'est la vie (beef), a hachis parmentier au canard (duck), a filet de poisson grille (fish), a brochette d'agneau (lamb), and a poulet Basquaise (chicken). Although we tried a variety of meats, we weren't disappointed with any of them. The steak was a beautiful cut from the tenderloin (or sirloin), and was nice and juicy. The hachis parmentier is a classic baked dish with two layers of mashed potatoes with sliced duck meat in between (traditionally minced beef), topped with a layer of cheese (similar to the English shepherd's pie). Named after Antoine-Augustine Parmentier, a vocal promoter of potato as a food source, all its components blended in harmoniously. The simplicity of the grilled fillet of fish was a lesson to all who think that thick, rich gravies are the only ways with fish and other meats. The lamb in the brochette (skewers of lamb) was nicely flavoured, and the poulet Basquaise had tagliatelle with wonderfully juicy chicken in a tomato broth.

Being gastronomic artists, the French eat cheese after the main course to balance the pH levels in the mouth (the basic nature of cheese neutralises the acidic nature of the food), and so that's exactly what we did. A trio of Brie, Morbier, and Comté was eaten before we switched onto the more delectable desserts of sorbets (mango, melon and red wine), chocolate muffin, and apple pie. According to Veronique, the apple pie was better than any she's had in France, while the sorbets were good. A rating of above 4 (out of 5) is certainly on the cards here.

The French have a proverb "Il faut manger pour vivre, et non vivre pour manger", meaning eat to live, don't live to eat. But with such culinary delights, it's hard to fathom which Frenchman came up with that - maybe it was an Englishman!