Arrow Devices follows a philosophy of tackling the hardest problems in its domain and is now working on hardware solutions
for the next generation USB standard – 3.0. In conversation with founder Aditya Mittal….
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The original Spanish work was first published in Bangalore Mirror, this is a version translated for the blog. 😉 In a fortnight, the more popular namesake does battle with the Spanish in the Champions League final, but this a slightly more peaceful affair.
So, if ever, depending on your interests and inclinations, a Salvador Dali or Penelope Cruz or Enrique Iglesias or Fernando Alonso has set your heart racing, and you would like to go beyond that and reintroduce Spain to your heart via your stomach, El Tablao, specialising in Spanish cuisine, is a place to be considered.
El Tablao is on the road from Sony World junction to 1st Block Koramangala, above Reliance Jewels (on your right) . Here’s a map. There are enough side roads for parking to be a non issue. I was also told that valet parking was coming soon.
Though food is our focus, the ambiance is worth a note. The only way you’ll realise that you’re still in the concrete clutches of Koramangala is if you’re sitting on the glass-ed side of the restaurant that overlooks the 80-feet road. Tastefully done, the restaurant’s interior is stylish and has a colonial tone that complements the theme. Under the shadows of chandeliers and torches, you can catch glimpses of matadors, bull fighting and the paintings of Spanish masters as you listen to the Gypsy Kings, lounging on benches whose hardness is mercifully minimised by the usage of cushions.
Despite the starters, with many vegetarian options and a smaller ‘Charcuterie’ section, the menu clearly focuses on tapas. There are more than 30 dishes on that front, spread over seafood, chicken, meat and vegetarian options. There are a few salads to choose from, and then there’s Paella. In addition, there is also a ‘South of Border’ section consisting of Mexican dishes. The clear numbering ensures that you don’t have to wrestle with the Spanish pronunciations. You can take a look at the menu on Zomato. El Tablao also boasts of a wine bar with red and white wines, champagne and, of course, there’s Sangria.
We began well with the slightly spicy Piri Piri potato wedges, served with garlic mayonnaise and tomato salsa dips. Rafael, my Spanish guest, was completely in love with the Seleccion de Embutidos Curados — slices of Serrano ham, salami and chorizo., though I felt the typical Indian palate might find it a tad too uni-flavoured. The Brocheta de Pollo con Pimientos y Cebolla — marinated chicken breast served on skewers was delicious too.
In the main course, the fluffy Tortilla Espanola — Spanish omelette with potato and onion was a favourite. But the hit of the day was the Paella de Mariscos, the seafood paella with squid, king prawn, mussels, fish, green beans, asparagus, peas, red peppers, made extra special with the rice that seemed to have been cooked in fish stock. You’re informed beforehand that the Paella takes a minimum of two to tango and requires about 40 minutes of waiting, but it’s worth it. Rafael said the only thing it lacked was a squeeze of lime, but that was quickly remedied. The Paella de Carne, however, could not match up to its illustrious seafood counterpart, and proved to be a bit bland. The dessert section was also quite a disappointment, especially since most of the options were among the commonly available set.
The service was a tad careless to begin with, but they soon redeemed themselves with their promptness. We dined on a lean weekday evening, and Sachin, the owner, could be found visiting every table and graciously enquiring about the service.Though not exactly wallet friendly, the uniqueness of the cuisine and the ambiance do justify it.
In summation, a distinct cuisine set in a wonderful ambiance ensures that you’ll have a great dining experience. Buen provecho!
El Tablao, Lotus, 612/1, 80 Feet road, Koramangala, Bangalore – 560034 Phone: 41410124
Click here for Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4
Harvest house served a decent breakfast as part of the deal, and we waited for the pickup. We also got ourselves a Krabi + surrounding areas set of maps from the hotel. We’d arranged our Krabi tours through Patty, who was extremely helpful on mail and whose execution was flawless. The pickup arrived on time, and stopped at a couple of other hotels to pick up other passengers before arriving at the Nopparat Thara ferry and depositing us near the toilet. Yes, unfortunately that was the standard meeting point. :O
We’d chosen a speedboat option for Phi Phi and set out from the pier at close to 9. After about 45 minutes, the first stop was Bamboo Island. The schedule then underwent a rejig and lunched at Maya Bay after we had visited Phi Pi Don and the Viking Cave.
Maya Bay made quite a pretty picture and the ‘buffet meal’ (about 6 items with a drastic cut if you’re vegetarian) probably felt tastier thanks to all the snorkeling that happened before we got there.
We halted there for close to 2 hours and then made our way to Monkey Bay for more snorkeling. There aren’t many corals to look at, but the fishes were pretty decent. Meanwhile, unless you’re terribly icky if you get wet by salt water or are extra fashion conscious, just wear your swimming trunks, take off the tee and jump in. We had brought an extra set of clothes, but it proved unnecessary.
We got back by about 3.30 and after some back and forth got ourselves a taxi to take us to Krabi town. That set us back by 1000 baht. Now, if you have time, a bus would be much cheaper and if you get delayed on the way back, you could still catch a tuk tuk or even a taxi, and still make some savings. It takes close to half an hour to get to the town, and we started at 5.30. Krabi’s market is more active on weekends, so we could only see a small sample, but the food did seem exciting. I only held back because I was hoping for an awesome dinner.
We then walked to the Vogue department store which proved to be a happy hunting ground for bargaining, brands included. We had arranged for our cab driver to meet us nearby and take us to Ruen Mai. This restaurant provided one of the best meals during the trip. Our earlier research as well as the flight magazine had pointed to this as a great place and it didn’t disappoint. We tried our favourite Tom Kha Kai, Pad Ped – chicken, Choo Chi Pla (fish) and a pork fried rice. They also had this strange flavoured iced tea which got better as the ice melted. In a show of high spirits, helped by Chang, we asked for everything to be spicy. A fantastic meal, but which also saw us hanging our tongues out of the taxi like dogs, because cool air could do wonders to a tormented tongue!!
We got back to Ao Nang and asked to be dropped off near the beach. Thanks to the dinner being well below the planned budget, decided to treat ourselves to some ice cream and some shopping 😉 Haagen Dazs would’ve cost us as much as the dinner, so we decided to try out Dream Cones. Presented with many options, we finally chose the Chocolate Brownie and the Chocolate Banana waffle cones. Both were awesome. On the way back to the hotel, we clicked the Krabi version of the tuk tuk and another Bangkok style one on sale!
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Click here for Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3
This day was reserved for the malls of Bangkok. Though we had initially thought we would scout MBK in the morning, grab a quick lunch and then spend an hour at Pratunam and get back just in time to catch the last flight to Krabi, better sense prevailed and we decided to concentrate on MBK. The lady at the Tango reception was extremely helpful. We were allowed to keep our bags in the hotel (checkout was at noon), and she also gave us directions on where to catch the BTS Skytrain. We had initially thought of taking a tuk tuk to Siam, and catching the train to National Stadium. But as per the new directions, we were asked to set off for Chit Lom station. As soon as we got out of the hotel, a tuk tuk driver approached us and I asked him how much it would cost to get us to Siam. Only 20 baht he said, because he had a sponsor who would take care of his bills for the day, and then proceeded to explain the catch. We would have to visit his sponsor’s factory on the way. We skipped the deal and began what turned out to be a rather lengthy walk to Chit Lom.
The ticketing system is pretty user friendly, but we still managed a slight embarrassment. We had taken a ticket to Siam, from where, depending on the time taken, we planned to figure out whether to use a tuk tuk or cab to National Stadium. So we took tickets to Siam. At Siam, we got out and decided to board the train to National Stadium. We were about to take tickets when we were told that the same tickets would be enough. Nice, we thought, until we got out at National Stadium and the damn gates wouldn’t swing for us. So we paid the ticket charge and walked right into MBK Centre, the train practically leaves you inside the mall!
We began looking around in right earnest and realised we had reached a ‘branded’ floor. Though there were heavy discounts, we proceeded downstairs to where we hoped we would get more bang for our baht. It took a long while to drag D away from that floor which had apparel, footwear, food and so on, but I had a sneaking suspicion we were missing something on the floors above. We managed a quick tour of those floors before we went for lunch and realised we should have timed ourselves better.
Lunch for the day was at the Black Canyon Coffee, selected after we realised that in general, only the pizzas had survived the Japanese restaurant invasion. The dishes were reasonably good, though the quantities were typically cafe-size. We had just over an hour to complete our shopping and in a mad rush we shopped more in that hour than we had in the 3 hours preceding it, and across floors. Our behaviour then vaguely reminded me of Arunachalam’s plot. I wished I had spent more time in the electronics floor and found a cover for the mobile. There were some awesome ones there, including Angry Birds, but in the only shop I managed to check in, they had pretty boring options for my phone.
We took the train back to Chit Lom and an awesome driver landed us at the hotel just in time. The hotel security called a cab for us and it took us to the airport at 1/3 rd the price we had paid for the first journey. Despite the baggage being 7 kgs over the 20 kg we had paid for (shopping indicator right there) Air Asia didn’t make us pay. Yay! On to Krabi!
There was quite some turbulence as we neared Krabi and some after we landed too – the driver who had come to pick us up waved the placard with D’s name at a rather large African American lady, and I couldn’t help bugging her. 😀
We reached Ao Nang in half an hour and in the last stretch, laughed at the grandiose names given to apartment like accommodations. Harvest House turned out to be in that lot!! But a helpful staff and a decent room was enough to dispel our crabbiness. The beach was just less than a km away and we dined at Eden, where an awesomely enthusiastic waiter ensured we had a good meal. Though the restaurant faced the sea, all we could see was a massive darkness. Our scouting revealed plenty of shopping options and we slept, all set for the sea trips on the days ahead.
Bangkok Notes and Budget
Currency: Baht. Do only a minimal conversion inside the airport. Rates seemed much better outside. eg. in the grand Palace complex.
Travel: Flight deals are many so you can probably check out the different ‘trip’ sites. Within the city, tuk tuks and whenever you can manage, BTS. There are detailed BTS maps on the web and it’s pretty easy to navigate. Also helps that they are faster and cheaper.
Food: Plenty of options, especially street food – you can fill your tummy for 200-300 baht. Restaurants would cost you (very generally) upwards of 350 baht.
Tour: We used Absolute Bangkok Tours who also gave us options of hotels to suit various budgets, and tour plans. They also made the booking for the river cruise. Our cost for the tour services came to 7300 baht (inclusive of hotel, driver, guide, entry fees, cruise) The service was reasonably good.
Shopping: There are malls and malls. We chose MBK basis our needs of the things we were shopping for and our budgets. 🙂
Resources: Wiki Travel, Travelfish
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