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
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 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.
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.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment