Author: manuscrypts

  • Coastaal Express

    Hmm, while you could be pardoned for thinking about a special coastal train with piped music, its actually a restaurant and judging from the piped music, I don’t think a love for music had anything to do with that being the name. I’m guessing numerology.Don’t even think Ekkspress, evil soul!! :p

    So, this place is a bit away from  our regular haunts but since we had to go to that part of town for some other purpose, we thought we might as well drop in at Shivananda Circle, especially since my previous experience there was wonderfully fishy 🙂 . Here’s the map, and if that is confusing, lets make it simple. MG Road- Raj Bhavan Road-Race Course Road (Taj West End), take a right when you see Petals on your right, as soon as you turn, you’ll see the Solitaire Hotel on your left. Keep going straight and you’ll hit Shivananda Circle (its the next traffic signal) and see Coastaal Express on your left, but the other side of the road. So, don’t take a left turn at the junction, just go straight and turn left at the next bylane and another left, where you can park. Then just walk up the road, and you’ll have the place on the left. (Why do I get this feeling that these directions turned out more confusing, just like the erm, Left?) The first floor has the a/c section, and that’s where we went.

    The ambience is quite good – they have this quaint display of old cooking utensils as soon as you enter, and the  seating is quite comfortable. We reached there around 8.15 and quite surprisingly, found only one table occupied, though by the time we feft an hour later, most of the tables were full. The menu starts with coastal food, but I also found an extensive Chinese section, complete with about 8 veg and non veg soups each, and a huge selection of starters and main course dishes. Ditto for the North Indian section (without the soups though) While you might wonder about the intelligence of this, i have seen enough people eating chow mein and dal makhani at such places for its presence to be justified. No, not that combination, thank God.

    In the sea food section, there are different versions of squid, prawn and crab, even chinese and tandoor versions. Choices of fish too – anjal, kane, pomfret, silverfish, bangda. Mussels are not available, you could try a marvai sukka though. And to go with that – kori roti, moode, appam, pundi (rice balls) or if you’re a larger group, a coastal basket which has all these. And there are quite a few veg dishes too. There are thali options for lunch – veg, fish and chicken at Rs. 55, 80, 85 respectively.

    We started with an anjal (king fish) masala fry – a single piece, we thought would be enough, a half portion of chicken ghee roast, and to go along with that, a plate each of moode and appam (2). Serving time will be at least 30 mins, the menu says. Bingo, and when the food got to us – we asked for it to be brought together, we realised that we would need one more plate of appam and also ordered a kane rava fry. The anjal fry would’ve been great if not for the all pervasiveness of salt, ditto for the chicken, in which you have six pieces with a pasty ‘gravy’. It went well enough with the appam and moode. The kane rava fry was excellent though – crisp and crunchy. The appam was made very well, and so was the moode. Moode tastes similar to sannas, but is  smaller and more cylindrical.

    One word of caution here – the kane and anjal are priced according to size, so you might want to ask the price beforehand. We actually didn’t bother, and realised that one anjal piece cost us Rs.180, which was really not worth it. The kane rava fry (2 pieces) cost us Rs.160, over priced, we felt, but was at least worth it.

    The dessert section had the usual suspects, from fruit sald and ice cream to gajar ka halwa and gulab jamun and caramel custard. For those who are wondering, they serve liquor too.

    The total bill came to just over Rs.700. I’d say Something Fishy is a much better bet.

    Coastaal Express, 6/4, Shivananda Complex, Sivananda Circle, Ph: 22355094/95

    Menu at Zomato

  • Power play

    He felt it was below his dignity to ask his team member for the solution. After all he was the manager.
    The team member, who had just gotten the solution, froze as he felt a hand on his shoulder, but relaxed when the manager asked, “Level 7, huh? But how did you cross Level 6?

    until next time, bench warm up games..

  • Register Now!!

    They hated the archaic process of signing in an attendance register. In spite of several mails to HR for a swipe card mechanism, nothing was done. They protested by refusing to sign. HR sent a mail warning them of dire consequences, including loss of pay. No one was surprised when the attendance register disappeared suddenly.

    until next time, attendance deficit disorders 🙂

  • The Esplanade

    Koramangala meets Calcutta at  The Esplanade, a restaurant serving Bengali (traditional and Anglo Indian contributions) and Continental cuisine. This lies between China Pearl and Vicky’s, on the one way connecting Inner Ring Road with the road from Forum to National Games Village. (refer either of the two links for a detailed route) You’ll find it on the right, a few buildings after the Unilet showroom. Parking shouldn’t be too difficult to find. Don’t be misled by the dark, vacant ground floor, the restaurant is on the first floor, and the entrance is through a small door that you might miss at first glance. Check out some great posters of the Calcutta that was, on your way up.

    We reached at half past seven and easily managed to get a cosy table, that gave a nice road view, but you might want to reserve if you’re planning to go after 8.30.

    “Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French; sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek; soy sauce makes it Chinese; love and divinity make it Bengali.” so said Pandit Ravi Shankar, according to the menu. Also as per the menu, The Esplanade tries to amalgamate the indigenous Bengali cuisine with the European influence that was acquired during the pre independence days. A modest tribute to famous restaurants, like Peliti’s and Firpo’s, that dotted the original Esplanade.

    The place doesn’t serve alcohol but has quite a few mocktail choices, including a Regent Rave, their version of an aampora sharbat. But the chilly Bangalore weather made us skip that. We’d have liked a soup but there seemed to be only a couple of options (veg, non veg soups of the day) so we decided to go for a starter – Paddo Pataye Kasundi Murgi, which is “a perfect mixture of chicken and raw mango mustard steamed in a lotus leaf parcel” Unless you have a huge problem with the mustard flavor, you’ll love this spicy, tangy mix. A plate has six portions, perfect for a group of 2-3. The Chicken Kabiraji, meanwhile, is in my watchlist. There are quite a few veg options and even some salad options. They give you papads while you’re waiting.

    For the main course, you could choose from a range of Continental stuff, with plenty of veg and non veg options – chicken, lamb and sea food. We, however, decided to explore the Bengali dishes. The beginning of that section rivals the Bay of Bengal in terms of the aquatic life represented – at least about 25 sea food dishes!! From this humongous set of options, we chose the Elish Machher Roast , “boneless hilsa roasted in grill topped with spicy tomato gravy and served with steamed rice” From the relatively small selection of chicken and mutton dishes (4 each) we selected the Esplanade chicken curry, “a contribution by the Anglo Indian community to Bengali cuisine”  Thanks men 😉 Ok, before you grass eaters mutter, you have over a dozen choices too.

    To go along with that, you could choose rice (steamed or two veg options or the elish pulao, which I have earmarked for later use) or bread options. We ordered a basket of loochi (poori for our limited consumption purposes 🙂 ) which had 3 of them, so we also ordered a Tinkona Paratha, “whole wheat bread roasted in ghee”. You could also try a hinger kachori or a hathh roti.

    We began with the loochi, the chicken curry was quite good, but the fish stole the show, its combination with the steamed rice is finga lickin good. Yes, I did do that. If you’re calorie conscious, leave your consciousness at home, that fish dish had an entire container of ghee devoted to it. If I hadn’t seen the desserts beforehand, I might have placed a repeat order. They also gave us amshotwer(sweet mango) chutney, which offset the effects of the chillies i had munched.

    And thus we reach the last (but never the least important) page in the menu. In addition to the regular Bengali desserts – rasgulla, rasmalai and mishti doi, there’s also chhanar jilipi, fried natun gruer ice cream, tia maria mousse (though the last two weren’t available) and Mishti Chaanar Paturi, “sweetened and flavoured homemade cheese roasted in grill”, which I ordered. D ordered a Baked Rashogolla, “tiny rasgullas baked with thickened milk and topped with dry fruits”. It actually turned out to be one big rasgulla. Unfortunately, though the desserts weren’t too bad, they didn’t live up to our expectations, especially after our experience in Koramangala’s other bengali restaurant – Kolkata.

    All of the above cost us just over Rs.1000. I’d recommend a trip to the place, preferably after skipping a meal, since you’d be tempted to eat a lot. You could also try the weekday lunch buffet priced at Rs.215, and get a valid excuse for sleeping in office. 🙂

    The Esplanade, #151, KHB Colony, 1st Floor, Koramangala 5th Block. Ph: 40927878/7888

    Menu and Photos at Zomato

  • The Axe effect

    It happened exactly a week back. D got to know about it first. I was surprised, especially since I was the one really affected and should’ve known first. I had to share this since you shouldn’t wonder if this site should disappear suddenly at some point. You should know that it could happen to anyone.

    It was a rude shock, especially having worked hard for over six years. Forget the long stint, it’s as though all that you’ve done has suddenly been reduced to nothing. I wondered if it was because of my recent online activity splurge, but got to know that it wasn’t personal, other people were affected too.

    And it’s thanks to those friends that the nightmare didn’t last long. Help started pouring in. After a few checks, I realised that though the site had been hacked, it was a relatively simple hack, and thanks to some help and some great virtual hand holding, I got the site back on in an hour.

    until next time, the great escape 🙂