South Indies - A Struggle beyond borders

South Indies is a pure vegetarian restaurant set in Indiranagar and Infantry road. It is a south Indian themed restaurant with more of a Kerala touch to it.

     
 

South Indies offers buffet with some delightful south Indian delicacies. But would that be appealing or not at south Indies Indiranagar? Now that’s a million dollar question.

It was a get-together hosted by a friend for about 15 folks. The host who was throwing the party did make the bookings in advance. But upon arrival we realized that the restaurant reserved the seats for 15 but space made available was just for 10, now how do we manage? That’s our headache. It was still ok since people were not on time with few of them running late. It looked like we will be able to house all with the space offered.

In past few years I have learnt one basic rule that you must arrive at a restaurant as soon as it’s open to get finest food and supreme service. And same goes with south Indies BY FAR. When I reached at around 12:30, we were just three. Being the first batch I expect tables and cutlery to be spotless but there was unclean cutlery all over the table. From stained glasses till forks having soap between prongs, I hope that was soap!!

The expedition started from welcome drink, all appetizers (3 of them) and a soup. And while waiting for others we consumed almost 3 plates worth of starters which waiters were dishing out to us in no time.

After almost 30 minutes the fun part kicked off, soon it was houseful and servers were running from here to there. More people arrived and more friends arrived. And soon there was no place to move around and that's when we realized how congested the place is. Looking at the servers it was clear that they were way too understaff. Our folks who arrived late did not get any welcome drink or soup and got just 2 out of 3 starters. They served Parathas/Dosas/Appams on the table but with this bad service people ended up eating rice. It took them ages to bring what people wanted to eat.

Now coming to the food, the food was not bad but wasn’t outstanding or what it should be for the price. South Indian food is famous for least amount of oil. Yet there were couple of dishes that were showcasing a good amount of greasy layer which was kind of a turn off. Desserts too weren’t exciting and Besan laddu were as good as they can injure someone if thrown at.

I did not like the place even when I did not have to pay for the food. And it’s interesting to note that the infantry road branch is quite good but I visited that long back so not sure what are the standards now. I think there were only couple of good things at South Indies,

1.    The welcome drink which we ordered again as goodbye drink
2.    The best part of south Indies is its valet parking.

 

My report card for South Indies Indiranagar is,

Price – 7/10

Taste – 6/10

Service – 4/10

Ambience – 6/10

Value for money – 5/10

Will I go back – I don’t think so

Sattvam - A Vegetarian Delight

Sattvam is new and a distinctive restaurant, offering more than 75 varieties of sattvic food dishes including soups, shorbas, starters, salads, breads, rice, main courses with accompaniments and desserts in Indian and adapted world cuisines which is turning out to be a great food exploration among Bangalore vegetarians. The restaurant has both buffet and ala-carte but one way or another I found it puzzling to understand the ala-carte part of Sattvam because I could only interpret the place as buffet dedicated.

Sattvam is situated in Sadashivnagar off New airport road, Could not locate Sattvam identified as restaurant but its located just above Godrej Nature’s basket,

The interiors of the place are quite elegant, the seating area and cutlery adds to the fascination. The place offers an imperial experience that most mid-range restaurants these days fail to comprehend. They spend excessively but miss the mark to craft the mysticism.

Now let’s come to the food, as soon as you are settled; the soup and the starters are served on the table and as soon as you taste them; you know that this is going to be a fun ride,

The buffet spread is not ‘The longest Vegetarian Buffet’ or ‘The Biggest Buffet’ as others claim but it has limited dishes that do not compromise with the quality at all. I have been to many buffet places but always found quality a concern somewhere or the other, even in Barbecue Nation. Customer is offered 200 dishes but only 10 would make sense to taste buds. With Sattvam the dishes are right on money and everything is made with perfection.

The virtuous thing that Sattvam has done is that they have kept small cups that provide only a small serving at a time of anything and hence reducing the likelihood of any food wastage.

And last of all, the variety in dessert course is superior with refinement, pastries and cakes were very fresh. They were even considerate enough to offer Sugar Free Carrot Halwa with a very right extent of sweetness that my in-laws who are diabetic thoroughly relished.

Sattvam has reasonably decent seating capacity of about 140 people. But even with such large volume; the number of servers positioned is laudable. When we were there; it was a house full and for not even a second it felt that the place was mobbed or clogged or the service went from good to bad to worse. The service could well be comparable with that of Barbecue Nation (I am yet to see a restaurant matching service level of Barbecue Nation) but it was obvious that the man at work were under pressure. There were couple of instances where two different attendants dropped and broke the serving dishes because they were under tremendous stress to clean up hurriedly and were carrying back way to much cutlery then they can handle.

Last Thought:- Little Expensive for a vegetarian buffet but isn’t that bad knowing that Barbecue Nation is charging almost 800/- for vegetarian buffet !!

Here is my report card for Sattvam,

Price – 7/10

Taste – 8/10

Service – 8/10

Ambience – 8/10

Value for money – 7/10

Will I go back – Sure why not

Unlimited Pizza @ US Pizza–Last nail in the coffin

 

So here is the deal, how many of us know if there is another chain of pizzas that exists with the name US Pizza, I assume very less. In the times of Pizza Hut, Dominos and Pizza corner; US Pizza is trying hard to make its name known but getting nowhere. US Pizza outlets are located all around Bangalore, 13 of them apparently !! The one that I visited was located at 9th Block Jayanagar.

I personally love Dominos but what caught my eye was this enticing offer from US Pizza,

So I and my wife went for a brunch on Sunday to try out our luck with the Vegetarian offer. I read one review that said the service wasn’t great but food was good; experienced by a group of 4-5 bachelor guys. Still expectations were not high and we ordered 2 vegetarian unlimited pizza meals.

First Course was Salads, they have a complete salad bar with almost 10-15 different type of salads, dressings and fruits,

We tried almost all the salads in small bites and all of them were phenomenal for the price we were about to pay. And that led to a promising prospect to look forward to have something even better.

Then came the Soup, which tasted like salted tomato ketchup, it definitely wasn’t freshly made; to me it would have been perfect base for the Paneer butter masala gravy.

Next was the Garlic bread and Pizza,

So here is where all the beans were spilt, The garlic bread was good but the Pizzas were not so much. The problem was the crust and the issue was either of the following,

1. Either the Pizza base was old and hence was chewy, hard and dry, Or

2. They make a large size Pizza and serve a slice to everyone who opted for unlimited Pizza meal; they just heat up the leftover slices from previous batch made few minutes ago and serve again later.

So how much ever hungry you might be but will not enjoy more then 2-3 slices and might switch to Salads and Garlic breads.

Then arrived the last course, Brownie with Ice-cream, which was good for the money we paid,

First of all US Pizza is in no competition to Pizza Hut, Dominos and Pizza Corner but they are trying hard to get people with these kind of great deals BUT until and unless you do not provide and equivalent or superior quality; no one will return !!! The only thing I can think of is their targeted customers are college students and bachelors for whom quality is secondary !!

Here is my report card for US Pizza (Vegetarian Unlimited Pizza Meal),

Price – 9/10

Taste – 6/10

Service – 8/10

Ambience – 7/10

Value for money – 6.5/10

Will I go back – I don’t think so

Aroy – A Thai Delight

What is the dissimilarity between Thai and Chinese food ? In India; nothing. But yet there is a new place that does complete honesty to the food when its Thai. I am talking about Aroy, located in JP nagar above Crosswords,

Aroy serves both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food but strictly Thai in nature. They also have few dishes that are of Burmese origin.

Above Menu Pics Courtesy Zomoto – Visit this link for complete Menu http://www.zomato.com/bangalore/aroy-jp-nagar/menu#tabtop

Aroy is a rooftop restaurant where you can sit in an enclosed zone or in open-air. The only difference between inside and outside is mostly a glass wall. I have been here 2 times on a cloudy twilight and I must say that the ambience is just exquisite. The fixtures, the spotlights and the entire arrangement of fine dining excellence.

The only problem that I find with open air restaurants is that the food goes cold in no time but every time I have been to Aroy; I was ready to trade that with the charisma of outdoor cosmos.

The food served here is Thai which means lots of coconut based gravies. When I was here the last time; I and my wife were starving and jumped straight on main course, we ordered Ong Noh Khaw Swte (Burmese specialty which is Steamed noodles, Crispy noodles with curried broth served with selection of numerous add-ons), Coconut Rice, Green Curry.

Now it was only 2 of us who are moderate eaters; who ordered three dishes. I did not appreciate 2 things,

1. All three dishes were presented to us at the same time instead we should have been asked which dish we want to have first. But still staff understood the situation and took back the Green Curry and Coconut rice.

2. The portions are relatively generous here and one dish alone was adequate for 2 of us and yet the waiter did not recommend us to go for one dish and order later if required. So eventually we ended up with take-away for rest of the 2 dishes we ordered which could have been circumvented.

Where we could have certainly had dinner inside 350/-; we spent 1100/- and ate that fine dining restaurant dishes at home the next 2 days for breakfast. I did not realize it last time because we were 3 with pretty much the same order.

Overall I am not disappointed with the restaurant because the food is delightful and have lots of finesse in it. The team of cooks here unquestionably know how to make Thai food, of course indianised version of it. Prices are not too extraordinary for the class food is offered.

My Report Card for Aroy based on my 2 visits,

Price – 7/10

Taste – 9.5/10

Service – 7/10

Ambience – 8/10

Value for money – 8/10

Will I go back – Hell Ya

The Wine delight

Friday afternoon, a working day but you have taken a day off from your chaotic office timetable to celebrate your birthday in peace. On one hand you have enchanting garden-fresh barbecued skewered vegetables and on other a glass filled with Heritage Cabernet Red Wine; perhaps a finest selection of an Indian Origin wine.

 

I am talking about the Heritage Winery located on Mysore Road. On Mysore – Bangalore highway you will encounter an uninterrupted display of red boards guaranteeing throughout the journey that you do not miss the turn to this estate

Just near Kadambam Hotel you will find a series of red boards indicating you to take left but don’t take a blind left as you might end up in a pit (Trust me there was one when this blog was written). Go a little ahead and then take your turn. It’s still 4 km inside; road is are great only till halfway; later half; not so much; still better than current Bangalore roads. Once you pass through flower farms; you will reach the entrance to Heritage Winery. They have done one hell of a job in showing the directions.

 

Once you are in, you will be asked if you would like to have a winery tour which includes an attention-grabbing video on wines, a wine factory excursion and 4-5 samples of wine for tasting. All this comes at a fee of 150/per person. Personally I did not find it worth for the money because the tour was ordinary; the point is that a factory visit cannot be an exceptional one unless it’s Charlie and his chocolate factory. 150 bucks in my opinion is for 4-5 samples you get to taste at the end of the tour. But this place is not only about wine tour; even if you do not go for the tour; you can still enjoy the Epulo Restaurant that serve fresh food with noble home brewed wine.

Above Menu Courtesy, Zomoto.com

The place is located 4 km inside the main highway surrounded with farmsteads and that gives the place a resort kind mood over other places. Here you can talk for hours, enjoy food and drink wine in tranquil countryside.

They claim that they do not keep things prepared but cook from scratch, hence anticipate a delay of up to 30 minutes which is worth. Since it’s surrounded by farms; you get a fresh flavour in the cooking.

 

Overall experience was not bad at all, with wine tour for 2, a three course meal and 3 bottle wine for home concluded with just 1300 bucks, which is quite economical considering prices at restaurants in Bangalore. But having said that, this is not a resort; we were told that they are forecasting a resort here and sadly; after that this place also will become swarming

My Report Card for The Heritage Winery based on my only visit,

Price – 8/10

Taste – 9/10

Service – 7/10

Ambience – 8/10

Value for money – 8/10

Will I go back – Of course

The Great Indian Thali

The Great Indian Thali is a pure vegetarian buffet restaurant on a similar concept as Rajdhani.

 

Similar to Rajdhani, here also you will be served everything to you on the table,

But not only that is comparable but the whole food experience is analogous too. The service is quick and the place is sparkling fresh. The restaurant is elegant and ambience is great. You get a fine dining experience which you might not find in Rajdhani.

Now let’s talk about the diverse aspects of the hero, the food.

The food here is good, it’s delicious but at the same time is very rich in nature. In Rajdhani the food is not that greasy and you can relish it for a longer period of time but at “The Great Indian Thali” food had lots of fat in terms of butter, Ghee and Oil which might not allow you to take pleasure from it for long. All the side dishes had heavy butter and cream, dals had a quite good coating of cream, something that gives it an edge on taste over Rajdhani. The bottom line is that within 1-2 Parathas or Phulkas or Bhaturas; you will feel that you have eaten so much that now nothing can go in anymore. Taste wise no doubt; I would say that it maybe is marginally ahead of Rajdhani but at the same time you do not get all that huge range of variety in here as you get in Rajdhani.

Another problem that I found was, as soon as I entered here I saw chat stalls and all of us were quite excited. Without noticing much we ordered for thali but then we came to know that the main Thali on which the restaurant’s name is based does not include chats!!! What a waste!! The menu does not make any sense at all if you are not taking their good old thali.

above pics, courtesy Zomoto

It’s a great place for people who do not eat rich north Indian food on a regular basis like my in-laws, they just loved the food here but I and my wife were not very impressed.

My Report Card for The Great Indian Thali based on my only visit,

Price – 6/10

Taste – 8/10

Service – 8/10

Ambience – 8/10

Value for money – 7/10

Will I go back – Not Sure.