Author: manuscrypts

  • Oyster Bay

    In continuing with Koramangala’s tradition of multiple options for each cuisine type, we now have a seafood restaurant called Oyster Bay on the Jyoti Nivas college road. (map) This is right next to Bhima Jewellers, another good example of how we’re slowly converting it to Keramangala, the official Bangalore #mallu outpost. Oyster Bay also has a Kerala owner, I was told. 😀 The BBMP has a free parking lot nearby, so parking shouldn’t be a problem at all.

    Now I’m one of those strange Malayalis who have an allergy for most kinds of seafood. Stop looking at me like that! Piscean that I am, I’m fishy too, okay?! So I was a bit afraid that I wouldn’t have too many options here. But I checked out the menu beforehand on Zomato and found that I did have more than a few options after all.

    I quite liked the ambiance – stylish casual dining. Bright colors, functional but elegant furniture, and excellent (dish) presentation. You also have a chance to point and prey – a  seafood live counter of sorts, though only D checked it out.  (they also serve alcohol and have a sort-of lounge space)

    Though we contemplated the veg soup option, we finally settled on two starters – “Mussels and Sausage Satay” and “Finger 3”. (cubed) As you can see, the former also has mushrooms for company. The ‘paste’ in the centre, I thought, had a peanut flavour, D wasn’t sure, but it was quite good. With each starter, you also get a complimentary veg starter portion. In this case, we asked for  a ‘Hara Bara Kebab’, which was reasonably ok. Overall, worth a try if you like mussels. The other starter has 3 kinds of breaded ‘fingers’ – fish, chicken and cuttlefish. The cuttlefish was excellent, the fish came a close second and the chicken was only average. The complimentary potato wedges were decent too. Most importantly, I added cuttlefish to my seafood gastronomic repertoire. 😀

    For the main course, D ordered a Shark Ambotik and I asked for a Country Duck Roast. For all main course dishes, you can choose from Steamed Rice, different Pulaos, Parathas etc. D asked for a Jeera Pulao and I asked for Kerala Parathas. The shark dish is a Konkan one, and is sweet and spicy, though the former dominated more than I’d have liked it to. It went well with Jeera Pulao and even the plain rice which we ordered later. Shark was, I discovered, just like any other fish. 😀 The Duck Roast, despite the bones, was spot on in terms of flavour. I told D that I could actually imagine the Syrian Christian Kottayam home where it was made. 🙂

    We skipped desserts, despite a Palada option. All of the above, including a service charge and tax cost us just over Rs.950. The service was extremely good – helpful and prompt, despite the place being almost full by the time we were on our main course. If you’re into sea food, this place is a must visit. Even if you’re not, you’ll survive and judging by my experience, thrive 😀

    Oyster Bay, 77/A, Cygnus Chambers, Jyothi Nivas College Road, Koramangala Ph: 42090000

  • Farm Vile?

    While two movies, despite not being remotely connected in terms of geography or genre, are perhaps not a trend, it did remind me of a conversation from more than a year back – something I blogged about too. An excellent conversation with S, that started with the dystopian scenario of 1984 and human farms and moved on to time travel, all in the context of advancement of society and the species.

    The movies in question are Gamer and Peepli Live, and the one thing that links them – the value of the human life. While the former is set in a word of the future, in which a new technology allows replacement of brain cells to allow full control of a body by a third party and finds application in gaming (one game in which gamers control a real person in a proxy community, a far more ‘real’ version of Second Life, and its more violent avatar, a multiplayer third person shooter game in which death row inmates fight for freedom), the latter is seemingly less complex – a farmer is ‘encouraged’ to commit suicide for the betterment of his family – more specifically, for the money they’ll get as compensation.

    And the question they make me ask – at what point in the future does mankind stop treating human life as sacrosanct? One could argue that it never has been, with the amount of killing that happens around regularly, but what I mean here is as a species. So, when someone says ‘human farms’, there won’t be gasps or expressions of horror/disgust. With population figures soaring, virtual lives competing with real ones, rise of machines, increasing gaps between the haves and have-nots, do you think it will happen? Just in case you think I’ve completely lost it, we’ve already started experiments with living beings – microorganisms in games.

    until next time, knotty question.

  • Zingron

    Zingron serves Naga (and some Manipuri) cuisine and is almost opposite Corner House in Koramangala.(map) The trend of climbing required to reach restaurants serving North East cuisine continues. Remember NE Diner? In Zingron’s case though, there is a midway stop in the form of Coorg.

    Unlike NE Diner, which is purely functional, Zingron is tastefully done in what seemed (in artificial lighting) a cherry red dominated ambiance. The wicker chairs-and-low table options, and the road facing views I am a sucker for, all added to the peace that comes after a good climb. 🙂

    But hungry hogs we were, and thus, dived straight into the menu. You can too, virtually, below (dim lighting didn’t help, and I am bullheaded about using flash)

    As you might notice, choice is abundant, and thus it required complicated rounds of delicate discussions before we decided on the exact food path.

    Since we weren’t foodsure, our first foodhold (last one, promise :D) was in familiar territory – chicken momos. We also ordered a ‘Pork sausage in Tangkhul style’ and a Chicken and dry rice powder soup. The pork came first, and though quite unique and different from the regular fare, was a bit bland. Maybe we should’ve asked for a Bhoot Jholokia chutney. Next time, I’ll try the pork ribs. Meanwhile, the food is served in those nice Manipuri earthenware plates. (we’d seen earlier in a shop in BDA complex, Koramangala, and were told that it actually contributes to the taste) The soup turned up next, and was quite decent, reminded us of sweet corn though it did. The momos turned out to be great, but it was actually the chutney that accompanied it that made the dish fantastic.

    We’d also ordered a Gooseberry juice and a Banana juice. The former was just okay, I liked the one I had at Ants Cafe better, but the fermented banana juice was simply awesome. It would also play a major role later in the dinner.

    For the main course, I ordered a Luira pork and D ordered a Fish fillet with peppered sauce. I was tempted to order a Beef dish too, but decided to figure that out later. We were told that plain rice would work best with what we’d ordered.

    The food takes a while to arrive, but the service more than makes up for it by being very helpful. That pork dish, cooked with red chilly powder in Raphei style, has to be one of the spiciest things ever, and had D crying in seconds. So potent was it that, the fish, which had its own dose of pepper power paled in comparison. Thankfully. The rice managed to temper things a bit, but it was the banana juice that actually saved the tongue from total annihilation. Both dishes are highly recommended, but don’t attempt the pork if you have a problem with chillies or pork fat. The only downside was that we just didn’t have space enough for the beef. But the good part is that D has taken her baby steps towards accepting North Eastern cuisine (at least at Zingron) as a viable repeat-visit place. 😀

    On the cost front, all of this cost us just less than Rs.950, and was completely worth it. Drop in once, and I’m sure you’ll go gaga over Naga too. 🙂

    Zingron, Solitaire Cascade, #62, 2nd Floor, 1st A Main, 7th Block, Koramangala Ph: 40997506

  • Armchair travel plans

    If I discount Pico Iyer, the travelogues of Pankaj Mishra, and Mishi Saran’s Chasing the Monk’s Shadow, I hardly read travel books. But I picked up Rahul Jacob’s ‘Right of Passage’ on a whim (influenced by Pico Iyer’s comment on the jacket) and quite liked it, mostly because its really not just a travelogue. Shall publish a more detailed post on that later.

    I was hooked on early enough thanks to the last lines of the preface

    Still, there is this final paradox of travel: time and again, these memories come back unbidden with the clarity of something that happened yesterday, long after we have returned to the rhythm of our lives

    Later in the book, he compares flight travels with train journeys – that he can remember his first flight journey but the rest are a blur. In contrast, however, he remembers most of his train journeys. Though I’m not really the most frequent of fliers, I can relate to that.

    I wonder if its to do with memories of childhood, in which train journeys played a very important part (for me), and that affinity meant that later journeys would also be cataloged better by the brain. Or is it the entire set of experiences – from ‘uniform’ airports to passengers consciously avoiding each other even if it means staring resolutely at the seat in front compared to colorful railway stations that seem to be oozing character to seats facing each other and almost forcing conversations?

    I juxtaposed this with cities and their culture too. Recently, when I went to Cochin, and dropped in at its most ‘happening’ mall, I wondered how much of homogeneity was being created by malls. The same brands, almost the same store experiences, familiar multiplex chains that somehow give you an air of familiarity even in an unknown town (not Cochin for me, but otherwise). How much of a city’s original hangouts and culture will survive this  onslaught? In fact, I even told D that I could already see landmarks of my days in Cochin  (local shops famous for some particular item) disappearing and the new ones (like a Nilgiris store) being unfamiliar to me. Would most people prefer familiarity over serendipity? Or would a middle ground be found – carefully packaged serendipity?

    Going beyond the things to be seen in a place, every travel experience is also about the  discovery of the character of the place you visit. Will we end up creating a homogeneous world, in our constant quest for convenience, and change travel from the train journeys they should be (opinion) to controlled fancy flights?

    Fortunately for this generation, this is perhaps not a reality we’ll live to see, and even in the sunset years we will have our memories and photographs and be thankful that not all journeys need travel.

    until next time, planed travel

  • Phobidden Fruit

    This review was originally published in Bangalore Mirror. Have made  Vietnaam ke vaaste changes to this edition of the Phobidden Fruit review. 🙂

    Phobidden Fruit is on 12th Main Indiranagar and is less than 50m from the Sony junction (with 100 ft Road), going towards Daddy’s Deli. Parking shouldn’t be too much of a problem, there is 12th Main itself and enough smaller side lanes.

    Since the cuisine was specialist, I had the Pho sight to go prepared, and was accompanied by a few Nam ‘veterans’ – Madman, and Prateek and Nithya Dayal. 🙂

    The place is a sort of glorified garage space. But though the ground floor is relatively uninspiring, negotiate the spiral staircase and you’re transported to a cheerful casual dining ambiance with wooden seating and pretty cushions. We got to hear some 80s pop and with the occasional creaking of the dumb waiter, this seemed just the right setting for a relaxed meal.

    The menu offers a bunch of appetisers, and has quite a few options for vegetarians and non vegetarians. In fact, the latter would be spoilt for choice – chicken, beef, clams, pork, prawn, fish, squid, lamb…see? You can take a look at the menu below

    We started quite well. The Banh Xeo, crispy rice crepes with a filling of button mushrooms, onion and sprouts accompanied by a spicy sauce ended up  the favourite, as did the Fresh Spring Roll (Chicken), though Madhu did mention that it might have worked better with rice noodles inside instead of rice, and could have done with some more herb flavour. The Viet Spare Ribs were fairly good too, despite the ribs being stingy on meat.

    After the starters, it was time for the Pho play. The Pho (we tried Beef and Chicken) shared a common broth and the meat was added later, but it’s still a Saigon pick, as is the Viet Red Prawn Curry.

    The Saigon kick was delivered in the form of the Kho that I ordered, salmon cooked in a rich, sweet and spicy caramel sauce. There was notthing to counter the overly sugary sauce. The desserts were also bit of a disappointment. The Coconut Sorbet, while not lacking in flavour, missed out on the texture of a sorbet. The Lemongrass Ice Cream again got the flavour right, but was more like a custard. The Che too seemed to stray from its original version. We tried a Vietnamese Iced Coffee, but instead of the condensed milk and strong coffee that was expected, this turned out to be a much diluted version.

    The service is quite prompt and despite all the tables being full, managed to do a good job without any major trouble.

    All things considered – a catchy name, a relaxed setting, and the possibilities of a unique cuisine, this place deserves a visit. So, if you’re feeling blue, and would like to ginger up your appetite with a new cuisine, but without an astronomic bill, you could try out this Vietnamese gastronomic experience.

    Phobidden Fruit, #965, 12th Main, HAL II Stage, Indiranagar.  Ph: 41255175

    PS: If you’d also like an advanced user review, do read this. (HT: Madman) 🙂