Heera Panna

And after quite a few weeks of Continental stuff, we decided to break the rhythm, and reserved ourselves a table at Heera Panna, on Church Street. This is on the same building as the Nokia Experience store, UCB etc, soon as you enter Church Street from Brigade Road. No, I cannot advise you on parking on Church Street/Brigade Road. Each time is an adventure, which you have to experience for yourselves. But I think Heera Panna has some parking facilities. Maybe you could ask them when you call for the reservations.

Heera Panna serves a Mughal , Awadhi experience. Yes, its not just the food. Right from the staff at the door, who are all decked up in Mughal style, complete with turbans, to the very well done interiors, and the lighting, its not just about the food, its about the experience. The hostess said we could choose from the seating on either of the floors, but suggested the top floor. The cushions did turn out to be comfortable, and the seating spaces have glass bead curtains. The music that they were playing was Hindustani and ghazals. That, along with the way they dim/brighten the lights with red, white and green tinges really have a way of transporting you to a different realm. And if you really want to go one step more, they give you Mughal turbans and a sort of waistcoat. Some very interesting photos these make. 😀

The staff is extremely helpful and courteous. As soon as you’re seated, they ask you whether you’re comfortable. I haven’t heard that in recent times. The menu card says that the restaurant theme is a tribute to Salim and his love for Anarkali. The guy who served our table practically insisted that we tell him what we liked (chicken/mutton/seafood) and how many dishes we’d like to have, and he’d take care of the rest. So, as per his suggestions, we ordered a Tawa Bhuna Ghosht as a starter, that’s ‘pan fried lamb cooked with potli masala sauteed till brown’. We’d told him that we didn’t prefer mutton much, but he said that we’d still like this. And he was right, though very strangely, it reminded me of our Kerala version of beef roast. 🙂

For the main course, we ordered the day’s special, Murgh Awadhi, and to go with it a Lachha Paratha, and a hari mirch ka paratha – ‘crispy bread made from wheat flour and mixed with green chillies and ajwan.’ The Murgh Awadhi is a thich brown gravy, and we’d asked for it to be made spicy. (you can tell them to adjust the spiciness based on your preference) We ended up ordering one more Hari Mirch ka Paratha, which meant I consumed one and a half Hari Mirch ka Parathas, and both the spicy dishes (starter and main course) My stomach, of course, didn’t take kindly to it, and I can still feel the burn, but I enjoyed the food so much it really doesn’t matter 🙂

The quantities were just sufficient, but we ended up not having sufficient space for dessert. Meanwhile, they also serve liquor, and some nice sounding mocktails.  A 330 ml KF costs you Rs.100, hope that helps. The desserts are in range of Rs.95-135, gulab jamun, rasgulla, jalebi, ras malai, moong daal ka halwa and so on.

Once again the ambience is simply awesome, the food is excellent, and the service is splendid. I have only a couple of suggestions – the cutlery (fork, knife etc)  doesn’t quite fit the ambience, and the space between the table and the sofa is a bit too much. And inspite of the green inkstains from the quill they gave with the feedback form, (yes, a quill, that you dip in ink, and write your feedback with) the experience left us delighted, and we’ll certainly be back. The bill came to just over Rs.850, and we paid it gladly. You should drop in there too, for an absolutely unique experience.

Heera Panna, The Pavillion, Church Street, Bangalore -01. Ph.9886461108, 9845175777, 41152727, 41143737

PS. I don’t know if its a mistake, but I just realised they haven’t billed me for the mineral water 😐