Oriental Fare - East Winds

Oriental cuisine and in particular, Chinese food has taken quite a twist in India. Most of us are very familiar with the Indo-Chinese version, which we love to no end (the veg fried rice, chicken chowmein and of course the famous 'gopi manchuri') :-) Authentic Chinese cuisine while not too drastically different is really good with quite a bit of variation across the geographical confines of the region, very similar to India. But today I will not be looking only at Chinese cuisine but Asian cuisine in totality. S Hotel in JP Nagar has 2 restaurants of taking note - one an Indian called Swad-Desh and the other which serves multiple Asian cuisines called East Winds. My wife and I, feeling in the mood for Chinese dropped into East Winds last weekend. Located conveniently on 13th Main, 2nd cross, JP Nagar 3rd phase, right behind Mandovi Motors, its a roof top restaurant with an open view of the city at night. Alcohol is served, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare is served here and it is not air-conditioned being open roof-top.
The ambience is so-so and can definitely be spruced up. The tablecloths were a little dirty and I could see furniture not being maintained properly. Off the bat, we ordered steamed momos (veg) or dimsum as starters with a pint of Fosters for me. Kimchi salad and some cut veggies in vinegar were offered on-the-house  while our starters were getting done.

The Kimchi was a little spicy as expected from the dish and slightly overpowered the tanginess of the salad and the crispness of the leaves. The momos are exceptional here, I always try them here as my first choice for a starter. The filling was perfect with the right balance of spices and crunchiness to the veggies while the sauce was brilliant with a shade of ginger drifting above its natural spiciness. If there was one thing that put me off, it was the momos texture itself. With the flour not setting properly the momos broke open while being steamed. Hence they kinda crumbled when we tried to take them out, not to mention that they were fused together.
Next up was the main course and we decided to be a little exploratory here. The Thai curry (green and red) are brilliant here which we usually order. Today we decided to try the continental fare for a change. My wife ordered the Cannelloni Florentine while I chose the Chicken steak Singapore.

First up the Cannelloni Florentine - tubed pasta filled with spinach and creamy white cheese sauce. The marinara sauce was good, fresh and vibrant while the dish itself presented a pretty picture. The cannelloni did seem a little big to me and over cooked a bit on top that it resembled a tawa cooked kathi roll with stuffing in it. Generous portions of spinach and less cheese sauce inside ensured that the taste was a little bland. Could have been balanced a little bit better - neither the fresh spinach nor the cheese stood out on our palate.
Next was the Chicken Steak Singapore - chicken burger steak served with mashed potatoes, boiled veggies garnished with pineapple slices.

This dish was a big let-down for me. Here are the points:
a) No pineapple (don't put fancy descriptions in your menu if you are not going to follow it)
b) One big thick chicken steak - too dry, over cooked and just too much to eat
c) Sauce was plain and had no flavors - tasted like ketchup with a few chunks thrown in
d) Boiled veggies were ok but again no flavors - no trace of olive oil or butter. The scattered herbs were too fine and too few to make a difference

All in all, the moral of the story - go to East Winds and stick to Asian fare which they are pretty good at. Skip the continental fare - its too much of a mess to comprehend.
Cost being not too expensive - this above meal for 2 cost us 950 Rs/-
Service - pretty quick and efficient but the waiters have no clue about the dishes

A 'Little' taste of 'Italy' in Jayanagar - Eurasia

Italian food has always been my weak spot and my favorite cuisine to boot. Hence it is no surprise, that I try to find out the good Italian joints in Bangalore - be it authentic or the ones that have 'Indianised' it perfectly. Last Thursday was a holiday and we hate cooking at home :-) We quickly decided to go to Eurasia for dinner - an old favorite for the missus and I. A quick background to the place - its an Italian vegetarian restaurant run by the Little Italy franchise in Bangalore. It contains a huge variety of dishes in the menu - pastas, pizzas, salads / soups, appetizers, barbecue and a nice wine bar. As the name suggests, its an unique mixture of Europe and Asia offerings. Situated in the heart of Jayanagar, 7th Block, 32nd Cross (near Channel 9 and Coffee Day), its a small 2 floor independent house that has been tastefully converted. It has valet parking (which is a big plus) since its usually hard to find parking in Jayanagar. Walking in, the host took us to our table on the first floor.
First off, it was the appetizers... I love their bruschetta (freshly made toasted rustic bread with tomato, basil toppings with olive oil dressing) and crostini (essentially the same - toasted bread with multiple toppings). But their all time best starter (hands-down) is the Spinaci Salsa. It is nothing but piping hot creamy spinach salsa with oodles of molten cheese served with thin slices of toasted bread.

The dish is fantastically simple but it works.. and how well... there can be nothing wrong with excess molten cheese. The crispy slices of toasted bread act as perfect dippers and we have never left even a crumb on the plate so far. I also ordered a salad to go along with it - Insalata Dello Chef which was a julienne of salad with mayonnaise, artichokes, olives, capers and olive oil.

The salad was fantastic with the mayo providing the rich creamy texture that balanced the acidic and tangy taste of olives and capers. Olive oil balances the entire structure and is extremely pleasant to taste. The warm slices of fresh bread as sides only add to the strength of this dish.
With the starters warming our belly, we decided to move onto the main course. I ordered a Pizza Alla Vodka while my wife ordered the Mongolian Barbecue Wok. All the pizzas out here are thin crust - just the way I like them with a generous amount of cheese, olive oil and fresh toppings.

The pizza has a fresh tomato sauce base with mozzarella and parmesan cheese topped with jalapenos, red peppers, capers, pineapple and vodka. Now for all the non-alcoholics, I am not sure if its real vodka or only flavoring but you can find that out from the host. The pizza was fresh, hot and well baked but somehow I felt it lacked something basic - it felt incomplete. The cheese was the only thing balancing all the acidic toppings plus the vodka and it showed in taste. A smattering of herbs like sage or rosemary along with freshly chopped tomatoes would definitely add a boost in flavor and balance.
Now to the Asian part of the meal - the Mongolian Barbecue Wok. This is a unique dish that I stumbled on by sheer chance and I have not regretted it yet. It is essentially a stir-fry of ingredients that you are allowed to choose with wok-tossed noodles or rice and a bunch of toppings and sauces. Noodles are either steak type, glass or the flat variety. You can pick one sauce from the following (Teriyaki, Schezwan, plum, yakitori, sour ginger pepper) and a choice of 5 toppings from a list of around 15-20 (like broccoli, tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, mushrooms etc.). We went with the flat noodles, sour ginger pepper sauce and for toppings - onions, mushrooms, american sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, capsicum.

As an alternative i would also recommend the steak noodles with Schezwan sauce. The dish was carefully crafted and brought hot to our table. The noodles were perfectly cooked - they were not sticky nor paste like, a sign of under-cooking. The sauce was a tad too light as i could not taste the flavors of ginger over the pepper but that did not take away the final taste of the dish. If I could probably change something, I would have preferred them to have reduced the amount of soy sauce which kinda made the dish too dark to look at and the taste a bit tangy. Overall, a great dish for the main course.
Now, we stopped here foregoing the dessert section but i would recommend the Tiramisu and the Cheesecakes which are heavenly here, not to mention the gelatos which are freshly prepared.
All in all, one of my favorite places to go, in spite of being totally vegetarian.

Ambience: Nicely decorated house with an outdoor sitting option on the balcony
Cost: Average (the above meal came to Rs. 1200/- )
Quality: Extremely good, authentic and tasteful - 3 stars out of 5

Taj Kuteeram near Nrityagram

   Weekend time again and my wife and I decided to head out to Nrityagram to spend a lazy Sunday there. Nrityagram is a Gurukul type school set up for Indian classical dances by Protima Gauri Bedi way out of the city. It is in Hesargatta, a good 1.5 hours out of Bangalore. Set in a rural backdrop, amidst Nature and serenity, it is a place to go and enjoy yourself even if you are not a lover of arts. Thanks to the whacky weather of Bangalore, we reached Nrityagram at 2 in the afternoon on Sunday when it was pouring cats and dogs. Unable to do anything at Nrityagram (since most of the activities is outdoors) I focused on the next best thing - food. Starving due to no breakfast, I started checking options. Only thing there in that wilderness is Taj Kuteeram, right opposite Nrityagram. Taj group of hotels... that kinda started me salivating and quickly the choice was made. We quickly went across and sat down to order.

Beautifully set up, a rustic environment awaits you at Taj. Its a beautiful serene place, with lots of water bodies, huge trees, ducks wandering around, absolutely one with nature. We quickly realized that there's no a-la-carte service here rather a fixed menu. They do have some starters (both veg and non-veg) that you can order along with sandwiches but the lunch option is standard fare. Already close to starvation limits, we all chose the lunch option which includes a soup, salad, main course(veg / non-veg), rice, rotis, daal and then dessert. All this priced at budget range of Rs. 625/- (inclusive of taxes). First of all, the ambience... It is a rustic cottage environment but that does not excuse Taj hotels providing us with stained dirty table cloths and unclean cutlery. Gave 'budget' a new meaning. The soup arrived along with salad. Vegetable soup with coriander and lemon was perfect. Not too sour or tangy and the right amount of coriander made it a great start but the salad was a let down. A bunch of hastily chopped veggies thrown onto the plate with loads of oil oozing off the plate, kinda put me off the salad (who said salads are healthy..??)

Off to the main course i was.. between the 5 of us we covered all options. I took the traditional fish curry while the rest took veggie options - an eggplant (brinjal) dish, bhindi (okra) masala, mix veg curry. The other non-veg options include a chicken curry.

The veggie dishes were ok, nothing special or great. The mix veg curry tasted like what you would get in any decent dhaba - sweet, tomato gravy with butter thrown in for good measure. All tasted good, but not Taj standard (its hard to take some factors out of your mind). Now onto the fish curry.. the gravy was fantastic with the rigth amount of spices but the fish was a tad overcooked and dry. The portions were more than sufficient for a single person to eat. These dishes were accompanied by Kerala paranthas (bread basket), some Daal and portions of steamed white rice.

The Kerala paranthas were awesome... right flour thickness and consistency, soft and easy to tear and eat. Having finished this, we moved onto Dessert, which was Gulab Jamoons.

Let me tell you at the outset, the jamoons were bad. They were not fully and properly cooked leaving a solid raw chunk in the center. The syrup was way too sweet overpowering everything else. That kinda ended the lunch for me. All in all, I had expected to really enjoy the food since we were starving and anything hot should have been ok. But I felt a little let down especially considering it was Taj group of hotels that we are talking about and the price you shell out for an ordinary lunch.

Location: Hessarghatta, Bangalore Rural District, opposite Nrityagram
Cost: 625 Rs for a meal for one (expensive)
Ambience: fantastic, rustic cottage environment set in nature
Quality: a let-down by Taj standards