A Sunday evening at TGIF's...!!!

Thank God It's Friday is a movement for many people. I have been to the chain countless number of times when in US. So, when the restaurant opened pretty close to my house in Meenakshi Mall on Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore, I just had to try it out. The mall was unusually empty on Sunday night and we actually got places to sit immediately in spite of not making advance reservations. But I definitely would recommend making reservations as this place gets really crowded on Saturdays and Fridays and waiting time can be as long as 45 minutes. We were quickly ushered to our seats and I looked around. The ambience and surroundings have been faithfully adhered to the original and looks sprightly.

They have a good selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages but we decided to skip it completely with the next day being work day. Looking at the appetizers, I would recommend their non-veg samplers or the veg equivalent of it, if you were in a big group. Their buffalo-style original chicken wings are extremely good with a punchy sauce to go with. We finally decided to try the Dynabites or their version of Jalapeno Poppers. Essentially cheese balls stuffed with jalapenos, bread crumb fried and served with a Tabasco - Mayo sauce.

They were crisp, perfectly fried and melted literally in your mouth. If at all I had a crib about this dish, it was that the sauce was cheese heavy and so was the stuffing the cheese balls, totally suppressing the jalapeno bite. It was tad too cheesy for me. A sharper tangier sauce to go with the cheese balls might have accentuated the dish better.
Off we went to the main course. With my wife being a veggie, she chose the Tuscan Melt sandwich - sliced mushrooms between Jack and Mozzarella cheeses,  roasted onions, tomatoes on a toasted buttery bread. You can opt for this with a choice of the soup of the day or salad or Friday fries. Little doubt that we went for the fries. The dish arrived and mildly put, was a massive let-down. In my wife's words, it was like tasting a plain tomato, onion sandwich. The cheese flavoring in this case was too less and mushrooms hardly discernible. Needless to say, she did not complete it bringing a tear to my eyes considering the price of each dish there.

Saving grace being the fries, TGIF standard and awesome...!!!
I decided to try the time-tested fan favorite, the sizzling chicken fajitas. This is a meal on its own with no need for any starters or soup or sides. As a student, if you wanted just one dish and you wanted it to fill you up, this was it. Here the dish meant marinated, flame-grilled chicken with chimichurri sauce served with roasted onions , red and green peppers and rice. It is accompanied with tortillas, pico de gallo (fresh salsa), sour cream and cheese.

As the picture above depicts, I found it pretty different from what I was used to. Food is meant for all senses, especially the eyes, nose and then the taste buds (in that order). My sizzler had just a smoked smell to it, I could not smell the meat. It looked pretty bland and uninviting. The chicken fajitas sizzler is meant to be a carnival of colors exploding on your plate.. with the grilled chicken, green yellow and red peppers, bright green sauce, white sour cream and flavored fried rice with tomatoes and bacon bits in it. As the picture above shows, I was a tad disappointed. Well, 2 out of 3 senses down.. hopefully the taste works. Let's break it up. The chicken was well cooked and succulent enough but the green chimichurri sauce on it was thick, bland and not appetizing. The onions were not roasted and pretty raw. The sour cream did not have the sourness in it and the pico de gallo was pretty bland with low flavors. Salt was lacking in the dish and the flavored rice was spicy but not seasoned in balance. Put together, it drove me crazy. I just quietly finished the chicken separately, the tortillas separately and the rice at the end on its own. Quite a let-down, unfortunately.
Now to the kicker... its an expensive fine dining restaurant concept here in India and it shows on your bill. But if I am going to pay that much, which I don't mind, I expect carefully crafted dishes that explode in your mouth  in a multitude of flavors. It would be a really tough day for me to venture again to TGIF... probably if i have no other choice at all and I just want to go nearby.

Location: Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore, in Meenakshi Mall
Cost: Very expensive. Above meal for two came to Rs. 1500 / -
Ambience: Nice, enjoyable and comfortable

Barbeque Nation - Grill Paradise

 With both of my brothers-in-law visiting me from the US, and a day off from office resulted in quite the day out. Started off with some shopping and by noon we were starving. Being around the JP Nagar area in Bangalore, we decided to head to Barbeque Nation there. The concept of grilled food with low amount of spices, oil and fat seemed to coincide with their views, being from US and all :-) 

 We reached the place around 2 pm and were promptly shown to our table. Being a weekday, not much of a rush or wait. The waiter promptly gave us all our options. There is no A-la-Carte menu here. You have a Starters package followed by a buffet lunch with a welcome drink thrown in. Two of us chose Non-Veg while the other chose the Veg starter package. Coming to the details - the center of the table is hollowed out where a grill is kept. This is where the food is cooked on skewers. Right at your table - served piping hot.

As can be seen, food is cooked at your table and you have an array of sauces and dressing to spice up your fare. Reminds me a lot of the street fare you would get prowling the alleys of Hong Kong. For the veggie lovers, the choice was any and all of mushrooms, potatoes, pineapple, mix veggies, cutlets and paneer. For the meat lovers it was 3 types of chicken, prawns, fish, mutton seekh kebabs and chicken leg pieces. The food is unlimited, meaning you can keep ordering as much as you want of any item and the waiter would keep replenishing the skewers. They also served us a welcome drink (which is part of the package). I would recommend the Masala Cola which is a mixture of jal-jeera and coke and spices with a healthy dose of pudina floating on the top. 3 sauces (curd and pepper, tomato salsa and hot chilly) along with 3 dressings (vinegar, soy chilly and mustard) are provided to flavor the meat as it cooks.

 Once you are done with this, you can proceed to the buffet lunch spread which is typical of most Indian restaurants (salads, rotis, rice, 3 side dishes - veg and non-veg, biriyani and curd rice). We skipped the buffet lunch by just taking a small peek at the curd rice and then proceeded directly to the dessert array. Dessert had a mixture of cakes, tarts, Indian sweets, ice cream and cut fruits. The fruits were fresh and they promptly found their way into our plates. Out of all the dishes, 3 dishes stood out for me - the Moong Daal halwa soaked in creamy milk with saffron and pista, the phirnee (a form of rice pudding) which was not too sweet and was slightly spiced to perfection and finally the Angoori Jamun (mini gulab jamuns) hot and perfectly made.

Fully stuffed and almost half-asleep from food intoxication, we walked away. Let me tell you the best part, all this and more at a fixed price of Rs. 475/- + taxes only. I found that absolutely worth every single penny and the quality of the food was delectable indeed.

Location: 67, 15th Cross, JP Nagar 3rd phase, near Daily Bread bakery, Bangalore

Cost: Value for Money

Ambience: Good

Service: Extremely friendly staff

Quality: Exceptional

Recipe for Avial

Continuing our journey on food, let me start off with one of my favorites. Avial - a wholesome healthy dish made of various veggies and unique to Kerala and Tamil Nadu cuisines. It can be had with hot rice or with Adai (a type of dosa made with mixed daals). This is a very simple to make dish with low level of complexities.

Ingredients

1 potato, 2 carrots, 100 gms each of runner beans, broad beans, colacasia or yam, raw banana, 1/4 kg of white pumpkin, 1 drumstick, 3-4 green chillies, 1/2 shell grated coconut, coconut oil, curry leaves, 1/2 cup of thick curd

Steps

1. Chop all the veggies (potatoes, carrots, beans, colacasia, banana, pumpkin) into small cube shapes (not too small nor too big and lumpy). Cut the drumstick in the usual manner i.e. lengthwise.

2. Add all the veggies+drumstick along with salt into a pressure cook and boil them. Take it off after one whistle and let it cool.

3. Once it can be removed, transfer the entire mixture into a vessel, add a bit of water and start heating them on a simmering flame.

4. Take 1/2 shell grated coconut along with finely chopped 3-4 green chillies and put them in a mixie to grind them together. Just add sufficient water to build a thick paste which will form the base for your Avial. The paste should be thick and not runny.

5. Once the paste is done, transfer it to the vessel where the pressure cooked veggies are boiling already. Let the mixture cook till the veggies are all soft to eat. Switch off the flame and let it stand.

6. Take 1/2 cup of thick curd and add it to the vessel containing the veggies mixture. Mix it properly.

7. Take a couple of teaspoons of coconut oil and curry leaves and fry them together to prepare the tadka.

8. Finally add the tadka to the mixture in the vessel and let it stand. Your Avial is ready to be eaten now.

As in with most dishes, consistency is the key and taste is of utmost importance. The picture below would give an idea of how the finished product should look like. Go ahead, enjoy the dish which has always thrilled me since when I was a child. And do let me know if it worked as well for you as it has done so far for me...

Howrah Bridge at Bangalore Central Food Court

Who does not love Kati Rolls..?? Succulent kebabs wrapped in layered paranthas with grease dripping off the plate make for a fantastic treat, be it lunch or dinner. A brief background on the humble Kati rolls from the streets of the 'City of Joy' - Kolkata. Stories all lead to a restaurant called Nizam in the city which made kebabs and had a monopoly on the same. Somebody came up with a brilliant idea of wrapping it in layered parantha and the rest they say is History..!! The word 'Kati' derives itself from the local language meaning stick which in this case referred to Bamboo skewers for the kebabs.

Having always loved Kati rolls, I have always been ready to try them out wherever I could find them in Bangalore. Bangalore Central (a shopping mall) has a food court where you can find an eatery called Howrah Bridge who claim to serve authentic Kolkata fare. My eyes lit up when I saw the menu - Double Chicken, Double Egg Rolls. Priced under Rs.100, the cook quickly throws the paratha onto the open tawa and adds a few dollops of what looked like butter (I was too scared to confirm the same..). He breaks a couple of eggs and as they cook, he shreds them on the hot plate along with the chicken pieces. Lastly he adds the veggies, onions and capsicum to finish his job. The cooked veggies with the chicken and eggs are scooped onto the parantha and served hot, all wrapped up. Take a cup of tomato ketchup and a glass of cold coke and you are good to go. Greasy, succulent and spicy.. Street fare at its authentic best.

Cost: Slightly expensive (Just under Rs.100 per roll)
Taste: 3 Stars (out of 5)
Location: Bangalore Central Food Court, Jayanagar, Bangalore