Breaking Bread in Bangalore Part 1

En route to Bangalore, on a surprisingly painless and punctual Kingfisher Airlines flight i tried to map out my expectations. Having heard horror stories about its traffic, paeans about its Dosas i wasn't sure if it was going to be a small town a metropolis.


Finally Bangalore turned out to be a little bit of everything, party city, part hamlet, a little Malgudi and a little Bombay. Thankfully my in laws stay in Bangalore, my sister in law Blublu had already marked out our dining options and we tried really hard to make her pleasing although in hindsight all too optimistic plan.

Our first stop was Central Tiffin Room or C.T.R as it is popularly known, initially it was also known as Shri Sagar and the board carries both names. The restaurant has been around since the 1950's and is a well known landmark in the Malleshwaram area.

The house specialty is the benne dosa, a compact masala dosa with white butter, a staggeringly good little dosa this. Buttery soft in the middle, crisp on the sides, just fantastic. It was so good i had to have another one immediately after.

Washed it down with a cup of some pretty good filter coffee. toasted, roasted, choclate like taste.

the set dosa was okay, served with white butter and tomato veggie gravy, this was not bad, but certainly not a stand out.

Overall, the place was clean and packed to the gills. The service quick and surprisingly friendly.

CTR: 7th cross, 3rd main, Margosa Road, Malleswaram (opp. Malleswaram playground)

Bheemas is an Andhra thali joint, we chose it over Nagarjuna due to its proximity to a couple of other places. Located on the extremely busy Church St, Bheemas is a largish space with ample seating and a/c and non a/c sections.

They serve loads of dishes, meat, sea food as well as weirdly North Indian.

 there was no way i was NOT going to choose the thali, so between the four of us we chose three thalis.

unfortnately it was a steel plate with a half banana leaf in it,  it is surprisingly difficult to eat southie food with your hand son a round plate such as this one.

      
                  anyway, there was two dry veggies, one gravy which was dal like and delicious.

 

the sambar and the rasam was decent. 

 

surprisingly they did not serve any chapatis with the thali so i had to order one separately. No chaas served either (well they did but in a small cup) so i ordered some more, delicious chaas this.

Overall though, the thali left me wanting, it was not bad but it was not well constructed or varied.

I am definetely not comparing this to the excess of a Gujju thali but from Southie thali standards even in Bombay, it felt inadequate. Also, service was disinterested as well as lackadaisical. While the meal was not bad but there are bound to be better options. Nagarjuna is said to be a more traditional and bountiful approach.

Bheemas : 31, Asha Building, Church Street, Bangalore 560001.


More later

Happy Holi & Off toBangalore

Hi All,

I am off to Bangalore tomorrow (depending on Mr.Mallya) for some work and some R&R. Any gastronomic pointers will be appreciated.

Drop me a comment or an email with recommendations.

Have a happy & Safe Holi! 

cheers,
Gaurav

Sunday Brunch - Hornbys Pavilion ITC Grand

Rest - Hornbys Pavilion
Meal - Lunch
Loc - ITC Grand Central, Lower Parel

The ITC Grand used to be quite a haunt for me back in the day when it was even remotely affordable, with the prices at the Grand and the almost unmanageable traffic en route, my visits to ITC have become very sporadic.

However, this weekend i was meeting my friends, OK and his family for lunch, since they live close by it was an appropriate choice. We met at their coffee shop for their expansive buffet, i have done breakfast buffets here (best ever, least they used to be) and dinner buffets (strictly okay)

We got there around 1.30 and had to wait till 2pm for a table as they were terrifically busy, once seated we went in straight into the food.

 I think my first dishes were salads, asparagus which was pretty bad, tasted like nothing, the sushi was tasteless and possibly stale, the curd rice was okay, the one with sun dried tomatoes was half decent overall, the salads were all disappointing. In fact the olives and pickled onions were the best thing on there.

They had kathi rolls which were brought out to the table without us ordering, which was nice of them but the roll itself was fairly disappointing.

The chap manning the Dosa section told me i could have a plain or methi dosa, however the wife got one made to her specs (like all beautiful women she tends to get pretty much what she wants) the dosas were good, the chutneys were excellent and then the gunpowder with ghee also kicked ass !

not so fresh orange juice.

I never, ever, waste food, was just brought up that way but unfortunately the Chinese was just atrocious, had to leave all of it behind. No one on our table had a good thing to say about the Chinese food.

The North Indian section was by far the largest one in the buffet, four entress from what i can recall, two dals and a few appetizers besides the biryani and rice. I tried the choley and paneer kadai which were okay and the single white paneer was an appetizer which was bland.

the dal, was decent, i have had way better in the same restaurant and their other properties so middling at best.

this was the wife's dessert selection, she said only the brownie was half decent, rest below average.

the choc mousse was not bad.

Overall, a massive let down, the standards have certainly fallen drastically, the spread is expansive but somehow really not upto the mark, none of the dishes really stand out. Its like buffet by numbers, to try and appeal to everyone (which is fine) but if nothing tastes right, its pointless.

The fact that certain things are made to sit (sushi especially) is not something i would expect from a 5 star chain. The entire performance is made doubly worse as ITC has done a great deal to push Indian cuisine in the upper echelon of dining (Dakshin, Peshawri/Bukhara, Kebabs n Kurries, Dum Pukth) 

The service was well choreographed, quick, efficient and eager to please, no real complaints here. 

Food : 4/10

Service : 7/10
Damage : 1800 (pp)