Birthday @ Tandoor

11th was when I became 26...which means I need to update the byline of my blog :)

I started off with a mutton shorba, which was nice, but then I regretted it because that was something you should be ordering on a cold, chilly, winter night, and not on a warm summer night.

Mutton Shorba

My brother, the fussy eater, wasn't having any of the standard fare, and settled for a mango drink, a mocktail comprising of mango and orange juices.

My mom, who's turned vegetarian since last year, ordered the veg gilafi rolls, and although it didn't taste bad, we weren't quite sure how to put our finger on the exact tatse - so for the time being, to be nice to the people at Tandoor, I'll say it had an interesting taste.

My brother and I ordered a plate of malai kabab, and it was wonderful - soft, juicy, and of course creamy.

For our main course, we ordered some breads - kulchas and rotis, and ordered a brinjal (egg plant) dish called bhartha Rawalpindi, and I have to say that for someone who didn't like brinjal at all, this dish made a believer. It was simply amazing! Along with it, we also ordered a butter chicken, and without a doubt it was sinfully good.

Both mom and bro aren't as heavy eaters as I am, and so I ordered a kulfi for dessert and sighed at the end of a satisfying meal.

26. Another year gone by, and to be honest, this year hasn't started off in the best of ways. Things are still frosty at best, and acrimonious at worst, with a friend of mine with whom there had been a 'fallout' a couple of months back. I hope things improve with the weather, and a change in the season beings about a change in my friend. As Ogden Nash said:

Man is a victim of dope,
In the incurable form of hope

All I can do is hope, hope that things get better, because there's isn't anything I will be allowed to do on my own to get things to improve - my friend won't allow it (I still say friend, because for me it's still the same).

Food: One of the better north Indian food joints.
$$$: Probably around 300-400 per head if in a group.
Service: Good
Verdict: If anything, go for the bartha Rawalpindi - divine! :)

Tandoor, Oasis Mall, 4^th Floor, Koramangala-Indiranagar (Intermediate) Ring Road, Bangalore.

BM Review: Bangalore Bistro

This visit to Bangalore Bistro was official - it was part of me doing a review of the restaurant for the tabloid Bangalore Mirror. Pretty snazzy huh? :) Mr P and Mr VP accompanied me on the 10th of April, on a warm Good Friday night. We were joined there by Dr V, the photographer from Bangalore Mirror - Ph.D in English, and as Mr P said, "He looks too happy to be married!".

I was informed that I won't be able to put up the same content on my blog, but there no restriction on me giving a link here to the review, so click here. However, I am allowed to put up the pics of the food we ate (the ones I clicked), so those are here.

Once in a blue moon (Orange juice and blue Curacao)

Virign Mary

Once in a blue moon with someone's bust as the backdrop

Res Sea (Strawberry crush, lime juice and 7 Up)

Corn and cheese fritters

Caroza (sandwich with pesto and buffalo mozzarella)

Spoony beef

Cream of mushroom soup

Mozzarella and jalapeno balls

Citrus pepper fish

Veg gnocchi with mushrooms

Lebanese veg shawarma rolls with hummus

BaPeTo Chicken (Basil pesto tomoato) with polenta

Lava Java

Sizzling Brownie

Mango Cheesecake

Food: Very good.
$$$: Moderately expensive, around 400-600 per head depending on what you have.
Service: Very good.
Verdict: Must visit if you like continental and Mediterranean food.

Bangalore Bistro, #74 Brigade Road, Opposite St. Patrick's Church, Bangalore. Phone: 41131616, 25571616

At the risk of losing the review, since I can't expect the website to host the link for years, after a period in time I'm posting the review here:

The dictionary defines bistro as a small, modest, European-style restaurant or café. Bangalore Bistro is anything but small or modest, and one look at the place will dispel any notions of a small street-side café you may have conjured up. The restaurant has three sections — open air, a fine dining area and a lounge area. Chef Junaid Rafiuddin, formerly with the Taj Residency, started Bistro in 1999 on Cunningham Road, dishing out Italian and Continental fare. Around two-and-a-half years ago, a change in location to Brigade road seems to have also brought about a change in the ambiance and
cuisine, with a Mediterranean touch added to the place.

My guests were Pranav and Prashanth, both techies who’ve travelled around the globe on work and have sampled the wares of lands beyond our shores. Dressed in shorts and Ts on a warm Friday night, we stepped into Bistro to warm, comforting lights and light music, and sheeshas in the open air section – belly dancers would have completed the Mediterranean feel! Sigh. The menu starts off with Chef Rafiuddin extolling the chefs for the use of “...prized ingredients that makes all the difference...” In the menu, under soups, there aren’t any options given, only this line: “We would be glad to cook up anything for you.” This place scores for originality for sure.

A rule of thumb that I use at fancy restaurants to judge how good the food will be is by ordering a cream of mushroom soup and a Virgin Mary (if on the menu). If these two can be made to perfection, you can be assured that the food to follow would be good. The soup and Virgin Mary turned out to be fantastic, so were the other drinks — Red Sea (strawberry based) and Once in a Blue Moon (orange juice and blue Curacao).

Unlike several other places, veggies won’t have to worry for choice (Pranav being a veggie will testify), simply
because there’s plenty. The corn and cheese fritters were tasty, although the cheese inside could have been cooked a little more. The coroza (sandwich with pesto and buffalo mozzarella) was delightful, the mozzarella and jalapeno balls felt a little doughy (probably the only disappointment of the night), and the spoony beef was subtle and light on the flavours.

Onto the entrées, and although Pranav thought the gnocchi was a mixed bag, with the sauce having the right blend of herbs and spices while the gnocchi itself being a little bland, the Lebanese shawarma rolls (which had a zing to them), the citrus pepper fish and the basil pesto chicken were all executed to perfection. Prashanth has a sensitive stomach that usually acts up if the oil used is bad or stale, but he pointed out that the oil didn’t seem to have been reused – a definite plus. The desserts we had were superb — sizzling brownie, mango cheesecake and a Java lava, which was molten chocolate in a coffee cup served with ice cream.

The staff is extremely patient and helpful when it comes to helping you decide what to have, and what’s more, they know what’s on their menu. Their patience was demonstrated that evening when they put up with the tantrums and the ruckus created by a group of 20 or so high school/college kids celebrating a birthday there. My guests and I were amazed at the decibel levels the kids touched and by the way birthdays are celebrated today — I guess it’s a generational thing, meaning I’m getting old!

Bangalore Bistro is one of those places that delivers on its promises. The quality and finesse of the dishes match up to the ambience, and unless you are the type who’s used to the overwhelming power of spices and masalas in Indian cuisine, you would have to make an effort to not like this place.

2 weekes of non stop eating

Hurray! Finally, my brother's exams are over, and the next day we were off to shop for his birthday gift. Well, we didn't end up buying his 'gift', that's been put off for another day, but we did end up buying a lot of books to read. After the little shopping spree at Blossoms, we landed up in The Only Place, named that way because when it opened in Bangalore, it was the first restaurant (and for quite a while the only restaurant) to serve beef. And so it was a lasagna for the little brat, and I settled for a lamb burger.

The lasagna was good, and it's the first time I'm seeing it served on a plate, and not a bowl or a deep dish.

The burger though, was, well, a little dry for my liking, and I've certainly had better. And I just hate it when they add a raw slice of onion in burgers...why can't they caramelise it??? How hard is it? I can certainly wait a couple of minutes longer!

The 5^th of April saw Mr P and Mr VP headed towards F&B to have their 'lunch @ 360', and although a couple of the dishes we had were slightly different from when I had been there earlier on Christmas day of 2008 with my brother, and so there wasn't a lot of clickety click. Plus, the two of 'em were pretty amazed by the food and the service and wasted no time in tucking into the grub as soon as it hit the table.

Chocolate mousse with blueberry cream

Anise spices cake

I forgot what this one was :)

The next weekend we were off to watch Fast and the Furious 4, and before we stepped into the theatre, we went to this place called Ramana's on Cunningham Road, just after Wockhardt hospital. Simple, north Indian fare, but amazing to taste. Too bad we were in a hurry to get to the movie, and so I didn't get snaps here as well :(

Aromas of China

Friday night,Mr VP's taken off from work, Mr P and I are still at work, and we (Actually Mr VP and I) crave to go out some place, and at the top of my mind is Aromas of China, which I've been wanting to go for probably more than 13 years now (of course, back in the mid 90s, the outlet at Richmond Circle was called Shanghai). This time though, it was the outlet in Eva Mall on Brigade Road where we headed towards. As usual, I was there well ahead of time, Mr VP was a little over 5 minutes late, and Mr P was 20 minutes late - some things never change!

Up we go and enter the place, and the look doesn't disappoint me, but Mr P makes a peculiar comment - "Hey, I think I've been here before". "Are you sure?" I ask. And then Mr VP says, "Hey, yeah, this place looks familiar". "@#%*@#$%*... Am I the only dolt in town who hasn't been to this place yet?". So in we go and are seated and vague memories of when the two of them visited this place started to come out. It was with WeightConsious and her guy Saucy, and then all of a sudden even I realised that yes, they had come here and for some reason that I couldn't remember, I had to leave them on that night. Well, I was here now, and wasn't leaving without a good meal.

We started off with soups, and although Mr VP wanted some meat in his soup, Mr P and I outvoted him for a vegetarian soup called 8 Treasures Vegetarian soup.
When the soup arrived, I thought it was going to fall from the waiter's hand, but then realised that the bowls are slightly tilted in appearance.

The starters we ordered were Prawn dimsums, which were slightly spicy along with the sauce that was served with it, but delicious none the less,
fried mixed vegetable (L), and honey chilly chicken (R).
I wouldn't recommend the honey chilly chicken since it felt a little chewy, and since the chicken was served in such thin slivers, I thought it was criminal to have it chewy.

For our main course, we ordered a crispy noddles with some sauce for Mr P, while Mr VP and I shared a some chicken noodle dish along with a side order of chicken & mushrooms in oyster sauce.

I was pretty darn full after this meal, and the fact that it was really good made me even happier. After a while of debating whether we should have dessert or not, and then what to have for dessert, we finally settled for chocolate spring rolls with ice cream, and they were divine. The snap below is not one that I took, but I can assure you that the rolls looked exactly the way they do in this picture (minus the china used here).

My fortune, from my fortune cookie.

Great food, and since this was after such a long time, it felt that much better. And my stomach was going to explode if I didn't lie down on my bed quickly, and so I said a quick good night to the amigos and off I drove towards me casa, to read The Prodigal Daughter (yeah , I haven't read it so far, so sue me!) and get some shut eye.

Food: Good
$$$: On the higher side - we shelled out nearly 600-700 per head
Service: Good
Verdict: Must visit if you love Indianised Chinese food (no MSG used here I've heard)

Aromas of China, Top Floor, Eva Mall, Brigade Road, Bangalore

Barbeque @ VP's house

Saturday night fever! That's what it was all about. VP celebrated his 25th birthday (yeah, although he's my batchmate, he's a year younger than I am...one of those 84 kids and not an 83 adult) on the 25th (coincidence!) of Feb and decided to have a barbeque party for the Army School gang on the weekend. As usual, I was supposed to do the cooking, and with VP's skills in the kitchen (he didn't even know where the salt is kept), I knew it was going to be an interesting evening to say the least.

So Saturday afternoon I go to his house (he's already purchased most of the stuff we need) and we start - I with the marinade, and he handing over the ingredients I ask for (as and when he finds them). So we decide to make two kinds of marinades for the chicken - a coriander-mint-green chilly-curd marinade for one, and a soya sauce-sugar-white-wine vinegar-spring onioin-chilly powder marinade for the steaks. This second one was a typical Korean way of marinating and barbecuing/grilling chicken in the open.

For Mr P, the vegetarian, there was the ever faithful paneer, and Mr VP had bought 1 kg of paneer, and so we knew there was going to be enough. Although we had some mushrooms, we weren't able to do anything with them coz of the lack of time, in spite of starting at 3 in afternoon. So for the paneer, one marinade was the same coriander-mint-curd, while for the second one I kept wondering what a good friend of mine, with whom I had an unfortunate fallout a couple of days prior to this party, would have liked being a paneer lover. Peeved at myself for the fallout, I tried to think what could be done to make a paneer lover enjoy the dish. A moment of inspiration from VP's mom and we had it - lemon juice, with curd, a little chilly powder, turmeric, a little garam masala and chat masala, and some salt.

After leaving the food to marinate in the refridgerator for a few hours, we killed time by shopping for some charcoal! Boy, it's tough to find what you want when you want it. We, however, got lucky as we found a place. However, finding charcoal is one thing, getting it to burn is quite another, as we soon found out! Luckily, VP's dad was an old hand at this - I guess his days in the air force had made him a pro at such things.

VP and his dad starting the barbeque

Pretty soon, that darn black thing was all ablaze and we were all set for the grilling - or actually, the food of all set for the grilling, we were just plain hungry!

And then there was fire!

Food, glor-e-ous food :)

Paneer with the coriander-mint-curd marinade (L) and chicken with the same marinade (R)

A different view

Miss BakeACake also joined us, and although I had initially started the blog with no pictures of people, to heck with it! That's Ms BakeACake, who left her husband (no, no, I mean left him at home) and came skewered a quite a few (I tried to make it sound like as if this was a hunting expedition and she came and shot a few, but I know I'm falling woefully short of the mark).

And that's yours truly on the left, and Mr P on the right - excuse the glitter on my face, but the place was HOT and the only benefit of standing in front of a hot barbeque grill is it will clear your nasal highways, that's all!

The paneer sitting in it's tangy, lemony marinade - oh I so wish that things get back to where they were before the fallout! Sniff, honk.

That's the Korean-styled soya sauce steak - juicy!

The end is nigh! The closing ceremony has the birthday boy putting off the barbeque in style.

So after eating, we drive Ms BakeACake to her house and reunite her with her hubby dear, spend some time there discussing iPhone apps that could be possible hits, and finally head back to VP's place at close to 2 AM. Long day, and for me, a long wait.

Egg Factory Breakfast Special

I regret the delay in getting this post out, but the weekend that I planned to do it, I fell ill, and found out I had appendicitis, so I had to be operated on (yes, I don't have an appendix now and I weigh about 5 grams lighter now). After that it was the recovery process and then an issue with a good friend, so finally here it is - no details for this post, the pictures should say it all, and although I did have one other dish apart from the 2 mentioned here (a tortilla with scrambled eggs and a mildly spicy salsa), I forgot to snap a picture of it.

A Greek omlette with goat cheese, olives and tomatoes

A classic, Eggs Benedict with soya ham

The weekend breakfast special was good - nah, excellent!

Egg Factory Republic Day weekend special

Since I am such a big fan of this place, I thought it would be pertinent to mention here that The Egg Factory on St. Marks Road will be having a special menu for the long Republic Day weekend (24^th, 25^th and 26^th Jan '09). I've been told on good authority (and trust me, it doesn't get bigger than this) that the menu will have a whole new range of dishes for breakfast on these three days ranging from new omelettes and frittatas to new dishes like burritos, along with speciality breads like bagels, croissants and English muffins, and also the ever famous English Egg Benedict.

For the vegetarians who don't mind eating egg, but would cringe at the thought of there being meat at the Egg Factory - relax. There won't be. Then "how would an egg Benedict be complete without ham?" you may ask?. Well, either the meat won't be there at all, or the equally tasty soya substitute may make its debut at the Egg Factory (the only way to find out would be to be there and order it). So be there; I sure will!