Nando’s

Friday evenings, leaving office before time so that you can catch-up some lovely evening coffee at home while you see the sunset from the balcony but if you have a wife like mine then you are most likely looking at a completely poles apart plan for the Friday evening. She just did not want to go home, she wanted to go out and have dinner at an elite place, so we settled upon Nando’s.

Nando’s is located at Church St, Bangalore, Karnataka.

Nando's is a casual dining restaurant group originating from South Africa with a Portuguese/Mozambican theme. Founded in 1987, Nando's operates in 30 countries on 5 continents. Nando's specializes in chicken dishes with either lemon and herb, medium, hot or extra hot Peri-Peri marinades – Courtesy Wikipedia

We came here earlier too but it was tremendously busy and had an astonishingly extensive waiting time, we were asked to linger for 45 minutes so we discarded it. But yesterday it was all right and wasn’t crammed full. The interiors are excellent and appearance is really lovely for a fine dining experience.

We were very much looking forward for the meal in Nando’s because my wife has heard lots about it in UK and had experienced it too. She spoke much about its legendary peri-peri sauce.

Nando's Peri-Peri Sauce, Extra Hot
Nando's Peri-Peri Sauce, Hot
Nando's Peri-Peri Sauce, Garlic
Nando's Peri-Peri Sauce, Wild Herb

Shortly we grasped that we are sitting from 5-10 minutes and no member of staff serving at table has taken any care of us. After 5 more minutes I had to call one attendant and asked for the menu cards. The menu includes stuff for everyone,

We ordered the dish, “Roasted Veg” and “Medira Red” drink, the maître d' asked what brand of sauce do we want to go with it and we decided “Hot”, that’s the 2nd spiciest sauce according to them, which he also approved by saying that its not very hot for Indians. We asked for the regular water in the meantime. 5 minutes later that attendant was simply strolling from here and there, so giving him a benefit of doubt I asked him one more time to supply us some water; mind you that we have by now spent 20 minutes since we have seated down and it never occurred to them that they should at least provide water. Well as imagined again that guy was busy in serving a foreign troupe rather than brining us what we want. Finally the feast arrived and with faint expectation I asked for water one more time and like a well-known aphorism “Third Time Lucky”, we after all got some water. The food flavour was remarkable and the “Medira Red” drink had a great essence to it but I do not know whom to hold responsible for the selection of sauce because the overall meal had become very very hot, even for us, either the waiter must have suggested us by saying that this “Hot” peri-peri sauce is very hot even for Indians or at least we should have tasted the sauce prior to the order. But we did taste all the sauces later on and none of them tasted according to their reputation. So if you go next time please prefer either

Nando's Peri-Peri Sauce, Garlic
Nando's Peri-Peri Sauce, Wild Herb

Or no Sauce

And if they are not fiery for you then you can anyways add any of the 4 flavours sitting on the table. Well our experience in Nando’s wasn’t very good and for us it wasn’t a place where we would like to go back because it was the bill which made us firm up our confusion to a concluding verdict,

23.5 % Tax !!!! Seriously !!!

My report card for Nando’s, Bangalore is,

Price – 4/10

Taste – 7/10

Service – 2/10

Ambience – 8/10

Value for money – 6/10

Will I go back – No Thanks !!

Ek Khandani Parampara

 

5 kind of side dishes, 2 types of sweets, 2 varieties of rotis, 2-3 brands of starters and many additional things. A plate packed with Indian flavour and a place filled with authenticity and ethnicity, Where am i ??

I am in Rajdhani.

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Rajdhani is a pure vegetarian buffet restaurant which serves essentially ¾ Rajasthani and ¼ Gujrati food.

Rajdhani claims that they dish up to 32 items in one complete meal, sounds very fascinating right ? Well I have been to Rajdhani a couple of times and I can vouch for it that this is one place where food wins over man. You will be given so much to gobble that by the time you will conclude sampling those 32 items you will be far long gone into a sweet slumber.

The base location for Rajdhani is in UB city but you may find its branches in different malls like Forum, Mantri square, Bangalore central JP Nagar, and Infosys

The finest among all is UB City because of its neighbouring ambience in addition to the truth that the quality is much higher in UB city. At UB City, Rajdhani feast is around 325/- which is way more in contrast to its different minor outlets, around 115/- to 125/- (Mantri Mall and Bangalore Central outlets are also bigger but I have no info on prices about them).

I will mainly talk about UB City here. The look and feel of Rajdhani is pretty average and it’s very congested with a very small seating capacity which makes this place not so easy to get. There is no concept of advanced booking which I like, equal opportunity to everyone. This also results in lengthy queues and an excellent business to the adjoining restaurants. If you wanna grab food here then you better be here before they open.

This buffet is served on your table, even your hand wash …..

A well traditionally dressed up server greets you by putting Tikka to you.

All servers are from Rajasthan (As far as I have seen) and they serve with lots of love and affection. They sometimes will come to you and will keep extra serving in your plate even if you say no; they will say “Aray sir aap to kuch kha hi nahi rahey hai, ye extra lijiye chota sa hai” (You are not eating at all, please eat this extra, it’s a very small portion). They will keep coming and asking about what you want. When you tell them what you need then you will see a very innovative and a very unique style of calling the precise item. 

They hand signal (Do you spot it ?), everything has its specific gesture, no one shouts and calls for the certain item therefore you can anticipate ample peace while you eat.

I love the food here and a rocking place for vegetarians,

P.S – They have different prices for weekends and weekdays.

My score card for Rajdhani UB City, Bangalore

Price – 5/10

Taste – 9/10

Service – 10/10

Ambience – 8/10 (UB City)

Value for money – 8/10

Will I go back – Ooooohhh yaa

Manchester United Cafe, Bangalore

 

A cricket or football fan constantly desires to have just about every match to be played on weekend. If there are loads of buddies sharing the identical interest then it cannot get any better. But typically either you don’t have place to accommodate all your friends or home is just not the correct place to enjoy to the match.

What if you get to watch your desired matches on a massive display with your friends and with uninterrupted supply of beer ? The answer is the fresh and dazzling “Manchester United Pub”.

 

Manchester united pub opened recently in Kormangala,

 

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Address

Manchester United Café
No. 1 Kira Layout, Hosur Main Road
Opp. Prestige Acropolis
Bangalore 560029

The pub is located opposite to the Prestige Acropolis apartments on the KFC side of the Forum mall. This is Bangalore’s outlet of the famous trademark “Manchester united Bar & Restaurant”, therefore excellence comes by default. The place is nice with a sparkling atmosphere but I will not say that its cozy because this pub tries to present itself more as a restaurant then a pub. It does not have sufficient settees and sofas where you can sit for hours if you are watching a match.

They have placed a gigantic screen which can be seen both from ground floor and 1^st floor. Apart from that they have screens placed everywhere it’s required. It has around 7 sections,

Ground Floor

1. Outside the main the bar, there is seating spot which is right opposite to the huge screen

2. There are number of ordinary dining tables

3. There are 3 couches presented for a group of 4 each

4. You can hangout by the bar

First Floor

5. 1^st Floor has an alike dining area with slight superior dining tables and chairs than ground floor

6. It also has 2 sofas for a group of around 6-8 members

7. They also have 4 separate royal chairs together with a dedicated screens for them

I outlined this is because I decided to go to this place 3 days in advance and for the same reason I booked the seats for 4 in advance but since I knew nothing about the place I just assumed that it will have regular pub atmosphere but when we arrived we were given dining area seats which does not set any pub feel. So next time you choose to visit here, make sure you advance book proper seats.

Pricing here is little loud but not awfully pricey. They do not provide any tap Beer; they serve only bottled beer and liquor with roughly all distinguished brands. A small kingfisher premium bottle is 150/- and Corona is around 250/- but I was interested in tap beer so I was little dissatisfied but the server swiftly offered me a separate menu card which had American and Belgian bottled beers, each priced at 325/-, I tried out one of them and it was just exceptional, the flavour, the after taste and the smell, everything was incredible about that beer. It purely outshined every Indian beer, therefore I went on with another one and yet again it was simply marvelous. The non-alcoholic drinks are very limited, 3-4, and each of them is approximately 200/- but according to my friends these drinks were absolute value for money because of the flavor and the size.

For food we ordered a vegan platter (425/- this was the top priced dish) which had assorted fried stuff like Onion rings, spring rolls and cheesy tops etc which sufficed for 3 of us, of course accompanied with drinks. Later we ordered a Penne Pasta which was wonderful for 195/-. [Update] But on my 2nd visit I realized that they charge 22.5% tax, which is waayyyyy to high.

 

I would unquestionably suggest you to go here even if there is a cricket/soccer game or not that day.

My score card for Manchester united Pub, Bangalore

Price – 5/10

Taste – 9/10

Service – 8/10

Ambience – 8/10

Value for money – 8/10

Will I go back – Hell ya

Real Punjabi Dhaba

 

I guess only few of us have ever seen and eaten at an authentic Dhaba and we know what it feels like. Gravy served with loads of butter melting on its top, Parathas with a pool of butter in the middle and butter drenched chapatis . You may get this either in your own house made by charming mother but more often in a Dhaba. People these days do not prefer Dhaba because Dhaba’s are considered shabby, dirty and un-hygienic, let me tell you, looks can be deceiving .

We usually do not get the Punjabi tang here in Bangalore easily and as I stated before that we usually hunt for different and extraordinary places. And yet again we ended up to a place which is very worn out in appearance but nevertheless very very well-known among people of Bangalore. We went to “Bobby da Dhaba”, well in fact “Bobby Dhaba”,

And that’s the set of choices you can order from, I told you that it’s a real Dhaba, so don’t go by manifestation, it’s supposed to look like this

Bobby Dhaba is positioned beside the Ulsoor Gurudwara,

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We heard about the place from a lot of individuals, people who have appeared here many times and people who come here every single day. The concept is straight forward. The Dhaba opens approximately at 12:30 till 11 pm I guess, so you wanna be here at just about 11:45 at least because then you can write your order down and hand it over to the person in charge and you will get a number. That number decides when you are going to get food. Dhaba has 5 tables meaning 5 groups can sit at a time. Typically waiting time here is approximately 1 hr!!! Believe it,

Can you see that large crowd ? Those folks are waiting for their turn to get in. This was the waiting queue when we got out. I have not seen people more fanatical about north Indian food anywhere. This is a sign towards the fan following of the Dhaba.

We arrived at about 11:45 and ordered not many items but you have to be very patient about the food because it takes ages to get the food here but once provided then there is no looking back.

There are few things you should to be acquainted with about this place in which the primary is coming early which I have already cited. Second, One plate Parathas means 2 Parathas, so you have to be cautious while placing the order because the food here is totally a dieter’s nightmare, take a look,

Can you spot the puddle of butter there …. Yes that one, looks lip-smacking right . The superior thing about this Dhaba was that it was neat and clean and it uses all disposables, Glasses, Curry bowls and plates. The drinking water accessible here is only Bisleri which is very much appreciated. The food smelled and tasted fresh . They served us with a massive glass of chhach (Butter milk) which is called as mattha. Look at the dimension of it and to give the idea I placed the water bottle next to it,

But I had some problems which I usually have . You might find yourself suffocated and sweating a little while eating which is a turn-off. The curd they serve is packet curd. The butter milk in that huge glass is also packet butter milk. The essence of Punjabi Dhaba food is that everything is made from scratch. Everything is made in the morning and consumed by evening which is not the case here. I and my wife are not massive fan of oily, buttery and greasy food but we pardoned that and even after that the food did not taste that great how people represented it . It was featureless and everything roughly felt the same. We ordered Aloo, Gobhi and Onion Parathas which all tasted same, Kadi pakoda had heavy butter coating and it was as thick as any heavy gravy which does not certify it as kadi at all. Rajma was good and the most excellent thing was the kheer. For 8 Parathas, 2 side dishes, 2 butter milk, 2 Kheer, 1 Rice bowl, 1 Packet Curd and 1 Bisleri bottle we had to spit out 400/- which I felt little high-priced, going by the overall experience. I am not making any conclusions for any of you and even if we did not like the food but the crowd waiting to get in tells the complete story.

My report card for “Bobby Dhaba”

Price – 7/10

Taste – 7/10

Service – 7/10

Ambience – 3/10

Value for money – 7/10

Will I go back – Nope

Ada Hind Ki

 

We have a lovely circle of friends and we keep finding reasons to treat each other but at the same time we ensure that wherever we are going is not repeated (Unless it was an exceptional place) and for the same reason we keep having parties at new eating places. This time it was “Ada Hind ki”, the restaurant was launched I think a year before. I first heard about it on one of the FM radio channels where they were gifting out its buffet invitations. From the portrayal heard on Radio, the restaurant sounded mouth-watering and classy. Ada hind ki is located close to Church Street near Empire hotel.

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Sorry I have no images to offer of the restaurant, in fact I deliberately did not take any picture of it. As soon as you will enter in the restaurant you will get a feeling of luxury and sophistication but that was all it puts forward. We were 15 and because it was Sunday it was completely booked. They have an array of,

# 2 Starters – Veg and Non Veg

# 1 Soup – Veg and Non Veg

# 3 Dishes – Veg and Non Veg

# Biryani – Veg and Non Veg

# 3-4 Desserts

They have a seating arrangement for no less than 50 people and they just have single serving bowls for each dish in a very compact area.

The area is so compact that if 5-10 people come simultaneously to get something it can really become annoying which in fact can happen without doubt and did occur to us but that wasn’t the most frustrating part. With every meal a beer was on the house, many of us did not take that and for non-alcoholics the sole selection was Sweet/Salt lime in a shooter glass holding barely 100 ml of beverage!!!

We began eating and then the actual pain started. Even upon constant demand to serve starters (On the contrary that they should supply it before we could even ask for) no one took interest in us and shortly we dropped the expectation of receiving any starters, so we thought ok fine let’s get underway with the main course.

The assortment of chats was excellent and had a quiet good flavour. The curries were not great and were pretty average, below average to be very specific. After some time few more people joined and it became chaos at the buffet counter. And as if that wasn’t enough, few moments’ later bowls were out of stock, Salad was unavailable, Biryani was absconding and a curry was no more!!! Even after waiting for 20 agonizing minutes in the middle of the meal there wasn’t any indication of any reinforcements for the bowls which went empty. My disappointment turned into rage. I asked for the supervisor, the person who was presented to me did not appear more than a head waiter so I asked for his superior who also did not seem as a person who could be of any help but I did complained to him. He at the same second pushed his panic button, he ran here and there and within 2 minutes he came up to me and declared that everything is back and I can take anything I want. I got up from my seat and went to the buffet; I could not believe that those same things were still missing. By then I understood that these hard skinned people are not concerned about anything. The reason for hold-up was Sunday and that’s why there are more people!!! What does that even mean!! If you can’t run a place for 50 people then why the hell have you opened a place for 50 people? I somehow completed my lunch with the help of just 3 side dishes. I asked for Roti and waiter never came back. Can you believe that even if you pay 300/- plus taxes and you could not even get rotis and Rice!!!

Thank god desserts were in ample quantity and were above standards in taste. Being a sweet tooth I managed to load my tummy with that. Terrible Terrible Terrible experience. I do not even wanna take the street where this restaurant is located. I in fact was in a VERY BAD MOOD after I came out of “Ada Hind Ki”. Go to Barbecue nation and there you will know the genuine meaning of “Service”. 

My report card for “Ada Hind Ki”

Price – 5/10

(Over priced for what they offered)

Taste – 6/10

Service – 0/10

Ambience – 7/10

(I think they believed in spending all the money on ambiance)

Value for money – 1/10

Will I go back – Dint you read the blog ??

Ranga Shankara

I expect many of us would have heard the name of Ranga Shankara and lots of of us might not recognize it,

Ranga Shankara is a performance space in Bangalore that proffers itself as a premier place for theatre performances. The auditorium was envisioned by Arundathi Nag, in remembrance of her late husband, Shankar Nag, who was a renowned actor in the Kannada film industry (Text from Wikipedia)

This is a one stop destination for all theatre enthusiasts. Ranga Shankara stages theatre almost in each language. You just need to keep a track of the calendar presented on the main page of their website.

 

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But I am intended to talk about its small cafeteria. I and my wife regularly look out for a tranquil and an uncomplicated restaurant where good quality food is served, place which particularly offer value for money. Other day we were hunting for the similar coffee bar on a rainy late afternoon. We required few good coffee sips with a lovely conversation in straightforward yet welcoming ambience. We went to Barista and then to Coffee day but these places are just for show off. I by no means like anything in both the places except for 1 or 2 things. I never appreciated the fact that, why they have to trade a cup of coffee for 100/- in the region where there is an abundance of coffee and coffee drinkers!! Neither both the outlets present anything excellent to eat nor whatever they offer is value for money.

The same evening my wife got struck by the thought of Ranga Shankara’s self-service restaurant and we considered giving it a try. I must tell you that I certainly not expected the place to be so decent, fresh, inviting, peaceful and different.

We ordered for 2 Coffees, 1 Bhel Puri and 1 portion of Chilli Pakodas. In any place up till now, these 3 things might straightforwardly turn into 150-200 rupees but here, it was sheer 75 rupees !!! I was astonished to perceive that how on one hand a flavourless Coffee from CCD or Barista is sold for more then 100/- and on the other hand a much superior coffee and belly full of snacks can be bought for much less than 100/-. We did not try anything else but they have an ample selection of food and drink, from Pasta to Vada Pav till Akki Roti. The place was extraordinary for us and would recommend you all to try it out.

My report card for Ranga Shankara Cafeteria

Price – 9/10

Taste – 9/10

Service – Self Service

Ambience – 9/10

Value for money – 10/10

Will I go back – Definitely

Kamath Lokaruchi

If you are fond of North Karnataka food which to some extent bears a resemblance to the mixture of north Indian and South Indian cuisine then “Kamat Lokaruchi” is the place for you. It’s away from City’s chaos and hence is just right place for a weekend retreat. It’s a kind of place where you would like to stay for hours. People travel from close by cities just to eat Breakfast, Lunch or dinner here. I have also heard that they serve buffet breakfast which is out of this world, will try it in the next visit. “Kamat Lokaruchi” is situated about 50 km from Bangalore city on Bangalore Mysore Highway.

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You will discover classic north Karnataka cuisine, Jawar Roti accompanied with aubergine curry and limitless butter milk is the prime attraction. Other than regular meal, they also serve mini meals which are good for kids and individuals who are not looking for unlimited food. You can also find fresh fruit juices, hot and cold beverages and freshly made sweets straight from the oven. Price tag is what makes this place extraordinary. Full meal is priced highest with a meagre 110/- rupees which is quiet remarkable.

The place has got an open kitchen at the centre, so you can park yourself and spot your food being cooked right in front of you and then comes to your plate right from the hot pan.

It has a lovely ambience which will make you feel like at home and hence you can hang around for long and as a result trip no longer remains just for the food.

Price – 9/10

Taste – 9/10

Service – 7/10

Ambience – 8/10

Value for money – 10/10

Will I go back – Definitely

It’s just a right weekend escape for 4-5 hours and can be extended up to the “Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary” which is just 75-80 km ahead.

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At Ranganthittu sanctuary, don’t forget to purchase the tickets for the boat ride at the entrance itself because they do not put up the tickets for sale inside.

The boat trip in fact divulges the true magnificence of the sanctuary. The water is filled with over 100 crocodiles which will give you a chilling sense of an Australian outback. Do visit it.