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