One of the biggest contributors to Koramangala’s food-and-mouth epidemic is the 80 ft Road, which has more than a dozen (underdone estimate) outlets that cater to all sorts of tastes and wallet sizes. This week, we decided to drop in at Magnolia, whose earlier version existed in a quaint house very near to its current location. When coming from Sony World junction towards Sarjapur Road, cross Wipro Park, and you’ll find Reliance Fresh on your right. Magnolia is on the top floor of the same building. Here’s a map. Parking shouldn’t be a problem at all. We reached by about 7.30 and in half an hour the place was almost full.
Magnolia has indoor as well as terrace/semi outdoor seating options. The latter is rather dim, but with the kind of weather Bangalore’s been having, its an awesome place to be. The only snag was that the photos turned out to be quite like those ‘paranormal activity’ photos. See. (that’s the soup!!) 🙁 We could’ve maybe got it right with some tinkering, but since the focus was on eating and the required material was right in front of us, being photo-foppish wasn’t a priority. Magnolia serves Thai and Chinese cuisine, (menu 1, 2 – this is the last printed one, the prices are higher by about Rs.10-20 now) These days, we devoutly devour the former cuisine, thanks to Aroy for the Thai-in.
We started with the ‘Thai Chicken & Lemon Grass Coconut soup’. Even considering the Mallu bias towards anything remotely coconut, this is a great soup. Its almost the Tom Kha soup, but slightly thinner and without the Galangal. The lemon grass flavour was just right, and not overpowering, and except for the rare chilli, not very spicy either. Definitely recommended.
Next, we resisted the dim sum call and moved on to “Leg Mai Kai”. Even Google didn’t help me figure the name out completely. The closest is Loh Mai Kai. I thought it must be the iron-rich version of our dish but it turned out to be rice based. The ‘leg mai kai’ is roasted chicken with red and green pepper and turned out to be a reasonably good choice. The red and green pepper actually complemented the tending-towards-bland chicken instead of performing their regular role as space fillers. Maybe you could try the Crispy Chicken Chilly Honey, it does sound good. 🙂
For the main course, Chicken Pad Thai with cashew nuts and as per their suggestion, Thai Chicken and Bamboo Shoot Red curry. The Pad Thai was quite good, though the cashews were conspicuous by their absence and the tamarind flavour was really subdued. The Red curry was awesome, mostly because the coconut overruled every other flavour that might have been there, except for the spiciness. The quantity of lemon grass was slightly overwhelming though. While it goes best with rice, this is a reasonably good combination too.
The dessert options aren’t much. The service is great, and very prompt. All of the above cost us just over Rs.700. Definitely worth a visit when you need to go beyond the regular Chinese options around Koramangala.
Magnolia, #37, above Reliance Fresh, near Wipro Park, 80 ft Road, 3rd Block Koramangala. Ph: 41102222
This review happens to be the 50th one in Koramangala. It is also the 100th restaurant review on the blog. There is a reason why we chose Magnolia. More than 7 years back, when a newly married couple made Koramangala their home, and relied on Mars Chicken Delight, Lazeez and some others like Szechuan Garden, which don’t exist anymore, for their gastro-adventures, they saw Magnolia, the big cars parked outside, and wondered how many of their dine outs would have to be sacrificed to afford a visit.
They picked up enough courage one day in June, and though were quite intimidated by the place, and the chopsticks presented to them, managed to have a good meal for about Rs.350, which they still considered costly. A lot of things have changed since then – they now have a blog that has a hundred restaurant reviews, for starters. They have changed too, as has the locality they once lived in. But its heartening to note that some things haven’t – despite many halfhearted attempts, chopsticks remain a strict no-no. 😀 The post is for that couple, and for the life and times then. Thanks for reading. 🙂
PS. A new design. Much thanks to Arun and especially Mayank for the help against cruel Microsoft 😉
Yummy!
Again, your reviews are getting better and better. 🙂 How come there are all these new places since I quit bangalore? Hmmph!
thanks 🙂 New places all over, hyper local reviewers are the future 😀
Been there once. Quite liked it.
Nice review. Congratulations for the 50th, the 100th and, most importantly the 7th 🙂
Cheers!
thanks 🙂
been here…liked it to…its walking distance from where we stay…wife is in india now and she gets her tips on which restaurant to visit from your blogs….thnks..
haha. nice. Meanwhile bon South has shifted. 🙂
been there couple of times, and I like the place.
The new Central near woodys / ragigudde temple have an Arabic eatery @ the food court – superb food.
Don’t frequent that area much, but have been wanting to for quite a while now. thanks for the tip 🙂
Congratulations!
BTW, you took away all the attention from the 50th and 100th with that receipt from a meal eaten 7 years ago.
I am going a little awww over that now 😛
haha. 100 might have got awe, but aww is good enough, i say 🙂
100th restaurant review! This is awesome..
After reading your reviews, sometimes I wish I was in B’lore, other times I wish you were in Hyderabad to review the restaurants here 😀
😀 thanks. why don’t you review the places in Hyderabad? 🙂
Verry Nicely Written!
I love Magnolia too.. Infact I loved it even more when it was at it’s previous location (yes, as you said: 7 years ago): Down the road from the Koramangala BDA complex, that awesome tree shaded sprawling place.. Shame that they had to move.
Vinod
that had a more cosy feel to it, but this one is okay too 🙂
Manu,
I have to agree with Radha there… truly, the image of the receipt paid 7 yrs ago steals the show here… 🙂
It was just a few days back after reading a review on Mylai Masala on TOI (/BM I guess not sure..) we had such a bad disappointment visiting it and I planned to quit reading restaurant reviews altogether but after reading this review now and also having read some of the other reviews earlier, I felt wrong about stopping to read reviews 🙂
Keep writing & let you catch many more milestones in this wonderful blog!
thanks Gayathri. 🙂
and also check out burrp, you get some good reviews there too 🙂
Congrats…maybe now’s the time to move up a notch and start reviewing 5 star hotels, or ‘spiritual’ places, if you catch my drift 🙂
hahaha. i need a revenue model first 😀
We went there the other day and had Fish basil, Lemon Grass Coconut soup, Bamboo Shoot Red curry & Rice and Dessert. No, I was not copying the items you ordered – I swear (well, almost 😉 ). And I should tell you that soup was super awesome with the sweet and spicy mix.
If you are ordering Sizzling Dessert, get ready to receive the attention even from the tables far-far away with the sound and smoke. Make sure you carefully deal with the burning hot iron plate and the vanilla ball on top of the browny. Or you’ll end up on floor running around chasing your icecream scoop in that darkness. Thank god such desserts are served after the food when you get familiar with the darkness.
The waiters almost read my mind on when to serve and clear. Also, most of the spicy stuff like chillies in the main course ended up in my plate instead of the lady’s. That type of devil’s-in-the-details category serving was nice. But the waiter didn’t know that mallus are very gender equal people especially in the matter of consuming hot spices.
Like you said, the bill was surprising (even with your warning and an extremely full stomach) =D. It was <750 and I think it is a good deal for such a restaurant (Guess it is a bar).
BTW, What you are writing here is not a review but ANALYSIS. Restaurant Analysis – a cool new niche actually. Congrats for writing 100 restaurant
reviewsanalyses.