Spaghetti Kitchen, Koramangala : Restaurant Review

Cheerful, tastefully done up (lavish) restaurant in Italian ceramics and glass +

Stylish cutlery +

Assortment of wine bottles +

A yummy-looking dessert counter +

A menu with exorbitant prices it make holes in your wallet just looking at it +

A name like Spaghetti Kitchen = ??

Good Italian cuisine worth the money spent? Well, yes. Spaghetti Kitchen in Koramangala Bangalore does serve good Italian food, however with some sore points.

My husband and I dined there last night after high recommendations from cousin A*.

Every table is served a complimentary bread basket comprising bread sticks, a couple of rolls and some focaccia with a dip. Started with some beer and moved onto shooters. We ordered shots of Sleazy Kamikaze (tequila, blue curacao, and lime). Turned out to be a pretty mild shot, but refreshing never-the-less.

French fries with Aglio dip is what we ordered as an appetizer. The fries turned out to regular fare, but what made a difference was the dip - simply delicious - creamy and yummy!

After sinfully deep fried fires, we wanted to go healthy and try a salad that we've never had before. So we zeroed in on the Insalata Tabouleh Di Quinoa. At this point, we asked the waiter what exactly this salad was. He could not explain and dint know what to say. My take is that people here are still discovering Italian food and it helps to have knowledgeable staff - specially if you have fancy names straight of the streets of Italy and prices to match. A foodie like me would definitely want to know in detail about what I'm eating. We anyway ordered it and discovered that it is a vegetarian salad with toasted quinoa grain (a gluten free grain ), tomatoes, bell peppers, green beans. Healthy veggies all the way - and a tasty salad too!

This was followed by their signature dish - Penne Vodka (penne tossed in a light pomodoro tomato-cream sauce with sweet onion and flamed with vodka, finished with shavings of parmesan and Italian parsley) for the main course. On the whole, this dish was very tasty. However, there was hardly any trace of vodka. Also, the menu gives the impression of the dish being flamed at the table, but nothing as dramatic happened. When we asked the waiter first and then the manager, both said it was already flamed in kitchen, if you please!

Also, no parmesan shavings, and I spotted exactly one parsley leaf. We had to order garlic bread as a separate accompaniment. Served cold I might add.

We were pretty full after the penne dish, but with my sweet tooth, I had to end the Italian meal with Tiramisu. And I'm glad I did so - as this was the star of the meal. The dessert serving was pretty big as compared to the main course and salad. Creamy, with juicy layers of cake and coffee on top.

Would recommend this place for an Italian meal albeit with a HUGE hole in the pocket. Tiny portions= big price tag. Overall, a decent dining experience, quick service and polite staff who know absolutely nothing about Italian food.

Verdict: 3.5/5

Hotel Original Mylari, Mysore : Restaurant Review

For me, a visit or drive through Mysore is incomplete without a visit to Mylari - the famous masal dose joint situated off Nazarbad main road. I cant call what they serve mysore masal dose

or anything else - it is just Mylari dose - a league of its own.

Mylari has been serving dose to Mysoreans and Bangaloreans (some who even drive down all the way just to eat the dose and get back - like my friend P) for at least four decades.

The narrow lane is Nazarbad houses two Mylaris. One that says Hotel Original Mylari, and another across the road that is called Mylari. A "we have no other branches" sign board is displayed in both the Mylaris. Interestingly, both the Mylari doses taste almost the same. A chat with one of the managers revealed some interesting family history between the two.

Hotel Original Mylari is a small narrow room with tiny tables and benches. The waiting to get a place to sit can really get annoying at times. This is not to say their service is bad - on the contrary they serve real quick, just that almost everyone who goes inside to eat wants to down at least two doses at a time.

The Mylari dose is fluffy, soft and light brown in colour, coated with a layer of ghee and an additional blob of benne (butter) thrown on top. You can ask for regular masal dose - which has a dry palya (potato preparation) inside or the saagu masala, which is a semi-gravy type mixed vegetable preparation. The chutney is a coarsely ground coconut chutney of medium spice. The chutney, dose and saagu combination is heavenly. Absolutely delicious! However, do note that Mylari doses can leave you feeling very heavy and lethargic - to the extent of skipping meals rest of the day.

Easy on the pocket, tasty and very different.

A must visit for dosa lovers.

Verdict : 4.8/5

Rich Christmas Plum Cake

The spirit of Xmas is incomplete without the traditional yummy Christmas plum cake. Once our Christmas tree was, up my 8 year old daughter - who loves baking, was after me to start preparing to bake the plum cake.

I have been trying different plum cake recipes every Christmas for the last few years. This year, I am greatly inspired by fellow food blogger Aliena Varghese 's recipes on her blog, and have tried to follow her plum cake recipe, with a little variation in some ingredients. Thanks for this Ally.

My daughter and I baked this plum cake together last evening. Here is how we did it.

Ingredients:

Butter - 250 gms

Brown Sugar - 200 gms

Eggs - 4

Plain flour - 350 gms

Rum/Brandy - 3tbsp

Salt - 1/2tsp

Mixed Spice (powdered nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves) - 1tsp

Vanilla Essence - 1tsp

Molasses - 5tbsp

Apricot Preserve - 1/4cup

Orange Marmalade - 1/4cup

Fruits:

Orange and Almond Essence - few drops

Baking soda - 1/2tsp

Almonds/ Cashew nuts - 200gms

Cherries - 125gms

Raisins - 100gms

Sultanas and Currants - 250gms

Tutty Fruity - 250 gms

Dates - 200gms

Mixed peel - 125gms

Preparation:

Chop and soak all the fruits in dark rum or brandy one week in advance. Stir everyday.

Method

Pre-heat the oven at 140 degrees centigrade. Sift the flour, salt and baking soda and keep aside. In a separate bowl cream the butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Whip the eggs separately and add them little at a time, making sure the mixture does not curdle. Add in the essences and keep beating. Fold in the flour and continue stirring till batter is fluffy. Add the fruits, peel, spices, apricot preserve and orange marmalade and mix thoroughly till well combined. Pour the batter into a greased baking tin. Bake at 140 degrees centigrade for 45 - 55 mins (depending on the oven) until the top turns a dark brown and when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out with dry crumbs.

Notes:

You can use caramel instead of molasses and regular sugar instead of brown sugar.

The quantity and type of fruits/nuts is entirely your choice, however I'd recommend to use orange rind if you can because it enhances the flavour a lot. You could also throw in some

dry sugar coated ginger.

If you plan to ice the cake, reduce sugar by 1/3 cup. This cake is sweet enough on it's own.

You can soak up the cake after it has cooled completely with a little dark rum.

Baking time will vary as per the oven, but typically, keep checking after 40 mins.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Banana Bread (egg-less)

Been craving for some home-made dessert for a while now. So decided to snap out of my lazy stupor and bake something. There were a few over ripe bananas sitting in the fruit basket - ideal for baking banana bread (egg less).

This is the first bread I learnt to bake few years back (after having tasted the banana walnut bread at ICRISAT Hyderabad). Moist, delicious and wholesome. And folks at home love it.

Ingredients

1 cup sugar ( Indian granulated white sugar or brown sugar)

3 bananas (ripe)

4 tbsp melted unsalted butter

2 tbsp curds/dahi

1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour (maida)

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla essence or extract

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1tsp cinnamon powder

Method

Pre Heat oven to 350 degree fahrenheit / 180 degree centigrade. Blend the bananas, add sugar, curds and mix. Add butter, salt, and flour till incorporated. Mix the baking soda with the milk and add it to the above mix along with the vanilla essence. Mix in the walnuts and cinnamon

powder and stir till everything is well blended. Pour this batter into a greased bread tin and bake for about 50-60 minutes or till a tooth pick inserted comes out dry.

Aroy, J.P.Nagar, Bangalore : Restaurant Review

Having enjoyed Thai food in Singapore few months back, decided to sample some of it in South Bangalore. Aroy - is what the Thais call pleasure, is situated in JP Nagar, facing mini forest.

Its a nicely done up classy restaurant with a big roof-top seating area and a small indoor one. It was pretty crowded for a mid-week night - few families but mostly large corporate groups.

I ordered Jamaican Passion cocktail (White Rum, Dark Rum, Passion fruit, Clove, lime & orange), as I love passion fruit. However, there was hardly any passion fruit flavor. Basically orange juice and rum. And no clove for sure!

The Thai raw mango salad - Yam Mamuang, is something I was really looking forward to, and I was very excited to see that it was listed on their menu. While I cannot say that the salad was bad, it was definitely not authentic. The raw mango slivers were fresh and tangy, spicy too - but what was missing was the generous garnishing of crushed groundnuts and cashew nuts. While there were no cashew nuts at all, I did count about 4 pieces of crushed groundnuts. No basil or cilantro. Funnily, the chef had added quite a bit of glass noodles....I am guessing the intention was to add some body to the dish, however they failed miserably at the attempt. I know lots of people who dislike noodles (like my husband) but love the salad, and for such folks, finding noodles in their favorite salad can be quite a turn off.

A starter that was really nice (again - nothing Thai about it) was the Golden Basket Veg. Basically crisp tarts with corn, bell peppers and onion filling.

Moving on to mains, we had Chili Basil Fried Rice (Khao Pahd Bai Kraprow). Tasted like a typical Chinese fried rice with a dash of basil. Nothing to write home about. For accompaniment, we wanted something tasting very very Thai with coconut flavor. We asked the manager to suggest - and he asked us to try the Thai Red Curry with stir fried veggies. This is not on the menu but he offered to make it for us. Again, we were very disappointed. Turned out tasty alright, but nothing Thai again. Just a run of the mill oriental red semi gravy with vegetables.

The service was good, and the staff was obliging when we asked for extra groundnuts in the salad.

On the price front, Aroy is way too steep for the kind of food they offer.

Decent enough to classify as 'oriental food', - but definitely not my first choice for Thai food in Bangalore.

Verdict: 2.8/5

Dilli Chaat Wallah & Kabab Souk, JP Nagar, Bangalore : Restaurant Review

A cafe that displays art/works of photographers is nothing new; a family home converted to an eating joint that promises to serve chaat from the capital & authentic North Indian khana on the ground floor and a gallery set to house works of photographers on the first floor is definitely new. That too in JP Nagar!

Discovered this delightful little place initiated by photographer and filmmaker Sudhir Boury. His former family home on the JP Nagar 6th phase ring road (close to the underpass) is converted to house Dilli Chaat Wallah - Kebab Souk and the up-coming art/photo gallery. Although it is situated on the busy ring road, it is on the corner of a quiet tree-lined lane.

Longing for some chat-pata chaat on a wintry afternoon, my mother and I decided to lunch at this new eatery as it is very close to our workplace.

The smell of fresh paint, polish and new furniture greeted us as we walked in. The place is not entirely ready, (minor last-minute touch-ups were going on) but the kitchen is functional. Seating options include indoor dining or you can enjoy your meal under the lush green tree along the outer wall of Dilli Chaat.

We were a tad disappointed to learn that chaat is available only after 3pm - but we (rather my mom) happily settled for a roti - subzi affair on learning that it was a vegetarian restaurant.

Started with refreshing drinks of aam ka panna and ananas ka panna. While there was hardly any aam/mango taste in the aam ka panna (was more like jal jeera), the ananas ka panna was simply superb. Pineapple lovers will for sure like this one - tangy, just enough of the

pineapple flavor and masala.

We straightaway ordered the main dishes - lachcha parontas and dum aloo, along with raitha. The parontas were golden, layered and crisp on the edges and soft towards the center. Pleasantly surprised to notice that it was actually wheat based without maida.

Dum aloo was just right in terms of spice, fragrance and consistency, although I think the number of baby potatoes in the gravy were not enough - just about 6. The gravy was thick and creamy, and delicately flavored. The potatos were nicely cooked and retained the taste of the

gravy.

The curd in the raitha was rather dilute, but fine otherwise.

We ended the meal with hot gulab jamuns. One plate serves three pieces of medium sized jamuns. The jamuns were soft and fluffy, however the center of one of the jamus was not cooked well enough, bit into some raw dough.

On the whole, the food was very home-made types - which I think is a good thing. By this I mean there was no excess oil floating on the gravy and no maida used in the wheat parontas. Also, the meal did not leave us feeling full and heavy. Light and just right.

Service was pretty efficient and staff was friendly. Sudhir actually took time out to talk to us about Dilli Chaat Wallah & Kabab Souk. His idea is to give us Bangaloreans authentic Delhi style chaat (he has lived in the capital for more than a decade and has a good understanding of what chaat lovers in the city want), and good wholesome North Indian vegetarian food - this comes naturally being a Punjabi himself. Serving vegetarian kababs is another concept close to his heart.

Cant wait to go back and sample the chaats one of these evenings. Would love to see some basics such as rajma chawal & kadhi pakodi on the menu.

A meal for two costs about Rs 370/-.

Verdict - 3.8/5

Ente Keralam, Ulsoor, Bangalore : Restaurant Review

Sunday lunch at Ente Keralam began on an unpleasant note from the time I called to make a reservation. We asked for a table for four and what I got was a whole 10 minutes of let-me-see, I cant promise you....we'll see when you get-here kind of nonsense from the lady manager. I almost hung up the phone when she suddenly had a change of heart and told me she could give me a table (like she was doing me a big favor!). Since my friends were really eager to eat mallu food and I have a weakness for appams and stew we decided to give it a shot - explicitly told the lady that we would be there between 1:15pm - 1:30pm.

We reached at 1:20pm. Our presence was acknowledged by a mundu wearing chap with a smattering of disgruntled grunts. When we told him we had a reservation, he rudely snapped in an uncouth manner and told us that since our reservation was for 1:30pm, he could not give us a table right away. We realized it was no use arguing with this mundu wearing villain who seemed to be straight out of a C grade Malayalam flick.

When the mundu wearing villain went back inside the restaurant, we realised that more than half the place was empty. We were about to fight our way in when the lady manager came and ushered us inside. Basically, we figured that they make the guests wait outside to create some kind of hype around the place. We were asked to go in only because another group of people were entering the restaurant, so it was their turn to wait till another lot was heading that way.

The only thing authentic about Ente Keralam is the ambiance and decor that includes traditional urulis and paras (vessels), an elephant nettipattam (handcrafted gold ornament that adorns an elephants forehead), portraits of kathakali dancers, mudras, chinese fishing nets, and old Malayalam film music.

The menu looks appetising on paper and stops right there! Each table is served a small portion of complimentary salted banana chips that were sodden and Chakkara Varatty (banana chips tossed in jaggery) that was not-so-sodden.

We started with Keraleeyam - a chilled tender coconut water based drink with coconut ganjee (pulp), mint leaves and a dash of lime. Quite refreshing.

Keraleeyam

For mains, we ordered sadhya, appam and vegetable stew. The appams were soft and fluffy, but the stew was actually sweet. While I do understand that coconut milk is mildly sweet, a stew is laced with spices to bring down the sweetness which was not done in the case on Ente Keralam. For a minute, I did wonder if I was having a Kerala meal or a Gujarati one.

Appam and Vegetable Stew

Next, the sadhya - a traditional vegetarian Kerala meal/thali served on a banana leaf. The sadhya comprised of vegetable side dishes such as avial, thakkali curry, eruseri, sambar, rasam (sambar and rasam are not native to Kerala at all), papad, chutneys such as enji puli, curd, rice and three kinds of payasams. All the vegetable sides were very mediocre and some were sweet too. My friend mistook a yellow smooth pulp in one of the small katoris for dessert, but on tasting it, discovered that is was mashed salted moong dal! Very very unkerala!!! This I know for a fact as I have a malayali mother-in-law, malayali neighbors and friends in dozens. The icing on the cake however, is the jet black authentic kerala coconut-oiled curly strand of hair that we dug into in the dish of white rice! Yuck! The waiter apologised profusely, and even tried to make up by serving us a complimentary dessert. Also, the buttermilk that is part of the sadhya was not served at all. We had to ask for it and it was brought to the table after desserts.

Sadhya

White rice with hair

Three types of Payasam

We pulled up the manager and all she could say was sorry! And the best part is after we paid the bill and the change was returned, the folder with change of Rs 170 went missing from the table. The manager had actually taken it away even before we could take the change back and decide if we needed to tip the shoddy service at all!

Hospitality lessons is what the management needs to dish out to their staff. Next on is a lesson in serving authentic food from God's Own Country.

Visit recommend only if you want a serving of authentic mallu hair in your food.

Verdict 1/5 (only for the ambiance and decor)