PoshVine Blog

Thank god for mall mercies

If you, like me, and some of my friends, suffer from mall-phobia, then Bangalore’s most popular recreation activity is not for you. For there they are, the teeming masses, riding the escalators, window-shopping at everything from Archies to Debenhams and crowding the food courts. And a Sunday evening is not a good time to go find out if Kailash Parbat is as good as its original in Mumbai. It took me nearly an hour and much jostling to get my rather sanitized pani puri. So, no, it isn’t as good as in Colaba.

Still, nowadays the foodie has no option but to go to the malls for that’s where all the new restaurants and lounge bars seem to be coming up. Sahib Sindh Sultan and Firangi Paani set the trend all those years ago at Forum Mall and are still pretty good. And after Kobe, Copper Chimney, Spaghetti Kitchen, Toscano and Bon South, there’s now a whole new range of restaurants within malls.

That, for me, is one of the few reasons to go these vast temples of endless shopping. Dinner time is better, because the noisy, gawking crowds have gone home by then. In fact, I had a very pleasant meal at Twenty.21 at the Ascendas Park Square Mall in Whitefield the other night. This is a neat looking restaurant serving modern European fare; it’s a buffet for lunch and a la carte for dinner here.

I was given a tasting by the chef who has had experience of working in London. It shows in his understanding of the ingredients and attractive plating. We began with an amuse bouche of a seafood ceviche. Then, there was a perfectly dressed salad of beets and apples with rucola and goats cheese. The soup was a creamy broccoli topped with slivers of almonds; again, well made. Superb prawns and calamari a la plancha followed. The fish course was pepper-crusted seer with a carrot compote – an uncommon pairing which worked wonderfully. Chefs can sometimes tantalise with their opening course and lose their way towards the end of a meal. But the grilled lamb chops on ratatouille did not disappoint in the least. We drank a nice Merlot through the meal and every element pleased. So, Twenty.21 is certainly a good reason to go mall visiting.

Then, there’s Mai Tai at Brigade Gateway, rubbing shoulders with Orion Mall. More on that in this week’s review.

The water crisis

Priya Bala | Editorial Advisor, PoshVine

No, it’s not a shortage of water, but an abundance of it, or, rather, the choices surrounding it, that’s causing the crisis. I know more people who are annoyed and put off by the water service in restaurants than by bad food or bungled orders. 

There was a time when restaurants always poured you a glass of drinking water even before you were handed the menu. Simpler times with fewer options. Now, you sit down and a starchy person comes up to you and asks `Bottled or regular?’  For me it’s always regular, assuming that it’s purified.  Some diners will order bottled, especially if they are in a group, conscious that others may think them cheap for asking for free water.  Yet others are finicky and want to be ultra-safe so it’s always bottled water for them.

I drink regular water because purified tap water suits me just fine. Also, I’m conscious that bottled water is not the most environment-friendly, considering all those plastic bottled and carbon miles it consumes. Advocates of bottled water call it convenient T-shirt slogan morality, but that’s another argument.

Abroad, the bottled versus tap water debate has been raging for several years now. The very green Alice Waters banned bottled water at Chez Panisse sometime ago. In Europe and England diners constantly battle with restaurants that simply won’t serve them tap water, insisting they buy a bottle.

We are better off in this regard, with most restaurants giving diners a choice. So, what irks me is when some sneaky waiter opens and pours from a bottle of mineral water before I’ve been allowed to decide.

And I do love Monkey Bar for pouring water from nice, old bottles and not hitting me with a barrage of questions even as I sit down —  “Will that be regular water or mineral, chilled or room temperature…” Oh, the tedium of it!

What’s this on my plate?

Priya Bala | Editorial Advisor, PoshVine

Back from a break, it was time to catch up with friends. So, we went for late afternoon cocktails at this hip resto-bar. All was well, until, feeling a little peckish, we ordered a dish of batter-fried chicken bits. They were shreds, rather than strips and also had a piquant sauce around them.

There I was, telling travel tales and munching on the chicken, when my teeth hit something I couldn’t chew.  Perhaps, a bit of gristle, was my first reaction.  It was unpleasant, but it happens, is what I told myself. But as the morsel continued to be unyielding I had to do the ungainly and, frankly, quite yucky thing – take it out and look at it.

It was a piece of rubber! After a bit of investigation, my friend and I figured out it was the finger of a glove. So much for hygienic practices in the kitchen.  Completely unacceptable, if you ask me. We managed to catch the eye of a manager type. He came, inspected the offending item, and without so much as an apology took it away, telling us he would replace it. He returned with a fresh plate, and because we were having such a good conversation, we simply carried on with our drinking.

Perhaps if I was in a bad mood, I would have raised a bit more of a fuss. I dread to think if other inedible things, besides the piece of kitchen glove, had made their way into the chicken or the batter. What do you really do, when restaurants slip up in this manner – make a noise, ask for the item to be taken off your bill, write a stinker to the restaurant?  Seasoned restaurant-goer that I am, I am completely stumped when this sort of thing happens. Suggestions for appropriate responses are most welcome.

Tandoori abroad

by Priya Bala, Edirotial Advisor, PoshVine

I have been travelling. Imagine my surprise then to find tandoori chicken among the sandwich filling options at a popular baguette chain while traipsing about Bergen in Norway.  Yes, I know chicken tikka masala is the national dish of Britain, but in the northern reaches of Scandinavia? Certainly makes you  understand and appreciate the universal appeal of our tandoori cooking.

The baguette stuffed with tandoori chicken in curry mayo is apparently a hot favourite. It was a discovery which, again, made the case for celebrating our classic and traditional dishes. Restaurants frequently spend way too much effort on conjuring up new things – not all of which hit the spot. All the more reason to perfect what exists in our culinary tradition.

The tandoori chicken is sometimes a cliché, and sometimes made fun of. But there’s no denying its place among Indian dishes worth preserving and celebrating. It’s ubiquitous, no doubt, but how well do Bangalore’s restaurants do it? For tandoori chicken or murgh tikka offerings cover the gamut from excellent – perfectly marinated, cooked through, but still moist and succulent – to abysmally bad – covered in synthetic colour, overcooked and cardboard-like.

Come to think of it, while most North Indian restaurants will serve some version of tandoori chicken, the really good showcases for this popular dish are limited.  If you don’t mind the prices, then  Royal Afghan at ITC Windsor does an excellent job.  Among the standalones, our vote goes to Tandoor. This MG Road restaurant, with its ‘80s décor and old-world service, is one of the very best places to order tandoori chicken.  Other North Indian restaurants like Copper Chimney and the Kebab Factory at  Mantri Square in Malleshwaram also make a decent fist of this eternal favourite.

And if you are ready to slum it, then look no futher than Kebab Corner. This chain makes a very good tandoori chicken, ready to take away. We’d like to hear about where you find the tandoori chicken to be the best, too.

The case for small menus

by Priya Bala, Editorial Advisor, PoshVine

I am assisting a restaurateur and management pro who is writing a book on how to start and run your restaurant. He blogs on the subject and it’s widely read. I believe the book will be a success, too. He has some pet theories and they are based on sound research and analysis. One is that single product restaurants are probably more tuned to succeed than those offering an array of not entirely connected products. By single product one doesn’t, of course, mean one item, but a firmly focused range of choices that fall into one category. Obviously, many restaurants don’t buy into this, or we wouldn’t be seeing so many multi-cuisine eateries with 300-plus dishes on their menus.

Still, editing this chapter got me thinking. A small and focused menu achieves excellence more easily than an unwieldy one. For one thing, the inventories can be small and ingredients of a better quality.  The kitchen can be smaller and more efficient, working on select specialities, rather than take a hit or miss approach to an unwieldy menu. I’m often aghast at restaurants that serve Chicken Kolhapuri, kadhai, Jaipuri, Afghani, masala, makhni, Chettinad and more. Do they really think we believe each of these is distinct? Often it’s a one-gravy-fits-all concept, with a garnish here and a swirl of cream there differentiating one from the other.

I would rather eat in a restaurant  that does a few things and does them superbly.  If it doesn’t have a small menu, then at least a restaurant that sticks to one signature style which it perfects. I like how the Biere Club has fine-tuned its finger food menu. And Aloro at Crowne Plaza sticks to a rustic-style Italian menu. This, by the way, is a restaurant you must visit, not complaining about the drive to Electronic City. Szechwan Court, the best Chinese restaurant in town, also has a lean menu, but serves up memorable meals.

I have been travelling recently. And in Oslo, there is Statholdergaarden with a Michelin star to its credit. Here, the chef draws up a daily menu determined by the fresh produce of the season and the day and that is what the diners experience. I do wish Bangalore diners wouldn’t keep making the jaded complaint ‘Not enough choice’ and give restaurants the chance to excel in a chosen specialty.

The service charge debate

By Priya Bala, Editorial Advisor, PoshVine

At PoshVine, it crept upon us while we weren’t looking. Or, you would’ve known when restaurants started adding service charges to the bill. But now everyone seems aware and there’s even been a debate in the newspapers about whether it’s a fair practice. One view, and it is endorsed by the government authorities, is that it’s ‘illegal’. The other comes from restaurateurs who argue that customers who have the means to splash out on pricey meals shouldn’t be quibbling about a 10-12 % mark-up which goes towards service.

I had been following this issue long before Bangalore restaurants started adding service charge to the bill. Some years ago AA Gill, the vitriolic restaurant critic of the Sunday Times, London – and I rate him one of the best ever – spent the better part of a review questioning the integrity of restaurants in the matter of service charge. It sparked off heated debates, but diners – even those who disliked Gill’s sharp, even vicious writing – took his side. Gill concluded by saying that he had no reservations about paying service charge if he was assured the money actually went to the frequently underpaid wait staff. He has, since then, made it a point to inquire of the wait staff in the restaurants he visits whether the service charge comes directly to them. If it doesn’t, he asks for the service charge to be removed from the bill and often leaves cash as a tip.

There are different ways in which restaurants utilize the service charge they put on your bill. Sometimes it goes directly into the waiter’s pocket as a tip, which is where you think it’s going. And if it is, then it’s perfectly okay for you not to leave another tip in cash. Other places put the collections from the service charge into a pool to be shared by all the waiting staff. And yet others put it into a pool from which they pay their waiters in which case it’s not a tip at all. This should be unacceptable to most diners. I am not sure we are up to questioning the restaurant’s real intent in charging extra for service. After all, not all of us share AA Gill’s penchant for causing a stir. What would help, though, is for restaurants to be upfront and ensure that the entire service charge reaches the waiters. Then it’s up to individual diners to decide if they want to tip on top of that or not.

With all this brouhaha on service charge going on, PoshVine seems to appeal to the aspiring affluents. Not only it helps save significantly, it also provides attractive rewards for dining out at iconic destinations. Do give it a try today - you won’t be disappointed. 

Keep It Simple

by Priya Bala, Editorial Advisor, PoshVine

I’m a food show junkie. I can watch them back-to-back, glassy-eyed, taking the occasional mental note and finding inspiration for my own cooking.  Of late, I’ve become addicted to Rick Stein. One of the shows I saw recently was about the famous chef’s food heroes. He travels all over England, looking for the British classics – both ingredients and dishes. Stein is a world apart from the captivating, cussing likes of Bourdain and Ramsay. But he is no less watchable. He brings a quiet, intellectual air to his shows, quoting from Defoe at times, drawing parallels with music and his beloved Italian opera, in particular.

On the most recent show I caught, Stein travels to Sussex, home of the boiled suet pudding, visits a small turkey farm and wonders why supermarkets have no space for products such as these. He wanders off to Stilton and experiments with the best ways to serve its blue cheese, and then drops anchor at Margate where he gets an introduction to bass fishing.   Then, the chef, famous for his fish cooking, makes one of his signature dishes with farm-reared bass. Which brings me to the point of this ramble. He simply pan-fries the fish and sets it atop a mound of Oriental-style stir-fried veggies, brilliant with its colourful mosaic of snowpeas, pakchoy and red peppers. And nothing more.

‘That’s it,’ Rick Stein concludes. ‘I think there’s too much embellishment going on these days.’ Wouldn’t you agree? Restaurants, interpreting rather too literally the line that we eat first with our eyes, are tending to go overboard with their decorations. And believe, too, that good looks alone will do. My particular grouses are sugar spirals on badly-made desserts. Also, stuff you don’t particularly want to eat, like carrot roses and tomato flowers. These are a legacy from the past and we seem loath to let go. Why not invest the time and labour spent on carving vegetables that most diners don’t even look at in the main act?

Little drops of sauce that decorate the plate, but don’t hit the palate are also a wasted embellishment. I’m not saying for a moment that restaurant food can do without some gilding, but the finishing touch should also heighten and intensify the entire taste experience – like the aubergine chips I once tasted atop some halibut that sat on a bed of lentils at Graze.  Or, the fried green tomatoes in Olive Beach’s latest watermelon gazpacho.

For, we may eat also with our eyes. But eventually it’s about what goes on in the mouth. Decorating chefs might do well to think about that from time to time.

Shake it up

If you’ve been following trends in food or, more specifically, bartending, bet you’re amazed and a little bit aghast at the goings-on in the heady sphere of cocktails. There’s plenty happening out there, beginning with bars ageing their own alcohol. Gone are the days of throwing a few chillies into a bottle of vodka and peddling infused liquours. Now, the booze goes into a barrel and, so the belief goes, only gets better. Aged tequilas are a particular favourite with the international bartending brigade.

Flavours are going beyond the realm of common imagination, too. There’s cake and marshmallow-flavoured vodka which is making the purists cringe. The reverse is happening, too, with cupcakes tasting like margaritas. But that’s another story.  Meanwhile, the Swedes are happy to drink a new fish-flavoured vodka, it seems.

Bitters are big, too, and no longer something that just comes from a bottle with an ‘angostura’ label on it. Edgy bartenders are making their own. And putting the finishing touches to their cocktails by dusting the rim with smoked paprika and demerera sugar, instead of the more common salt.

The idea of the cocktail as something to sip is also being challenged. So, here comes the boozy slush and the alco-popsicle on a stick. Perfect for a searing summer day, if not the ideal turn-on on your first date.

The molecular gastro-scientists are probably done playing with foams and gels, but carbonated cocktails are ruling the charts in the trendiest bars across the world. All it takes is a carbonator at the bar and plenty of creativity, of course.

In Bangalore, we may not be slurping on a negroni popsicle as yet, but wait for it. Meanwhile, experimental bartenders do plenty to keep cocktail boredom at bay. The best have given up artificial syrups and sweeteners and that is an excellent place to start. Here, our pick of the best places for cocktails in town:

• Hardrock Café
• Geoffrey’s
• Polo Club,  The Oberoi
• Blend, Royal Orchid Suites
• Liquid, Ista
• TGIF
• City Bar
• Couch
• I-Bar and Aqua, The Park
• Oval Bar

Where is the South Indian?

by Priya Bala, Editorial Advisor, PoshVine

I was chatting with Naren Thimmaiah, executive chef of Gateway Hotel who runs Karavalli, the coastal restaurant, with unmistakeable passion. The restaurant is undergoing a long-overdue refurbishing and a menu tweak as well.

As always, over our lunch of Aleppey fish curry and red rice, we spoke about food in the city. Naren told me about the new menu and his plans to introduce a section serving dishes using seasonal ingredients – with basale or the indigenous spinach of Mangalore and a dish of bitter gourd and sugar cane juice. Also, a range of curries cooked on wood fires. Meanwhile, he’s had to stave off crème brulee flavoured with coastal spices.

Here is a South Indian restaurant that is staunchly so. Agreed, Karavalli is not always within reach of the foodie on the street, but it does its bit to preserve an Indian tradition in a city utterly smitten by California pizza, burgers and buffalo wings. So, great job Karavalli.!

In fact, where are the really good South Indian restaurants in Bangalore outside the five-star hotels which, not without reason, aim to please the corporate traveler and give the foreigner a glimpse of Indian food?  There are the darshinis, but they are our version of McDonalds, doing a formulaic QSR take on idli-dosa-kharabhath, they might as well be factory manufactured.

There is South Indies and Bon South and I would like to see them keep the same commitment to classical South Indian cooking after Chef Venkatesh Bhat has moved to other pastures. But what else, save the occasional Mangalorean restaurant such as the excellent Sea Spice by Seven Star at JP Nagar and Anupam’s Coast to Coast.

North Indian restaurants abound here – serving their kebabs (good, bad or indifferent) and dal makhni drowning in cream to dupe the unsuspecting. I could count 20 North Indian restaurants to every South Indian one. We call ourselves foodie capital and gourmet heaven, but all the great food cities I know celebrate their own cuisine with pride. The aroma and flavour of Bangkok is that of Thai food. In Barcelona, the KFC, the Chinese restaurant, and the Indian takeaway lurk apologetically in the shadows while the tapas bars occupy centre-stage. It’s Italian in Florence and French in Rheims – where Champagne accompanies every meal. Hong Kong celebrates its dimsum above all else.

Show me the restaurant in Bangalore serving the subtly flavoured dishes of the Mysore Brahmins, the vast array of Mangalorean cuisine and Udupi classics, the rice rotis and chicken curries of Malnad, the Coorg classics. One pub puts a version of Pandi curry on the menu and we are so thrilled. I cannot fathom why Bangalore is so shy about its local cuisine. You tell me.