Category: Restaurant Reviews

  • ClayPot

    The Thippasandra version of this restaurant has been around for sometime now. But we’ve never managed to go there. So, when we saw an ad that announced the opening of a Thavarekere version, we didn’t waste much time in checking it out.

    When coming from Dairy Circle, take a right turn on to Thavarekere Main Road (this is the road opposite Prestige Acropolis -Dairy Circle side/diagonally opposite the Dairy Circle entrance of Forum/right next to the SKC outlet). Keep going down this road, soon you’ll find Prestige St.John’s Woods on your left, and after about 200 m, you’ll find a fork in the road. Take the one towards the left, and then take the first left turn, and you’ll find Claypot on the left. Yes, like a lot of Mallu things, this one is quite left oriented. 🙂

    ClayPot is the typical ‘no frills’ Mallu neighbourhood restaurant, though it serves North Indian, Chinese and Kerala cuisine. The first two are what we call Mallu versions of these cuisines, which would include things like Dall fry, Shreaded chicken with capscum, baiging chicken (sic sic sic), but then if you’re looking for perfection in such matters, you shouldn’t be here. This is the place to be when you want to gorge on Mallu stuff.

    We ordered a Malabar style Chicken Fry, a ClayPot special chicken curry, a Karimeen Pollichathu and to go with all of that, an appam, a couple of mutta appams (egg appams), and a Kerala Porotta. The Malabar chicken fry is cooked in the best cooking oil in the world (for us mallus) – yep, coconut oil, and comes adorned with crisply fried onion. There are three pieces in one portion and is quite non spicy, that, I’m guessing is a rarity here, though to be fair, they do mark the spicy stuff with a chilli icon. The ClayPot special chicken curry is a white gravy with boneless chicken in a coconut milk base and is garnished with a full boiled egg. It looks harmless but is quite spicy, and the portion is more than sufficient for two people. Karimeen (Pearl Spot) Pollichathu is fried fish with a thick masala coating which is tomato and onion based with a strong Kokum (Kodum Puli) flavor. This one is delicious, but super spicy. The appams as well as the porotta turned out good too. We wanted to try some mussel dishes, but they’d run out of the stuff.  They did have some quail dishes, but I’m sure that if we tried to squeeze that in too, it’d be our stomachs which would be quailing!!

    All of the above cost us just over Rs.350. That would tell you the story. You come here to have some excellent Mallu food without burning a hole in your pocket. While they have some North indian/Chinese veg options, I’d recommend this place only to hard core non veggies who can handle spicy stuff. There are many many more options that they offer in the Mallu cuisine part, and we’ll definitely go back for more.

    ClayPot, #1/1, 1st Cross, Thavarekere, BTM Layout. Ph: 42190344/55, 9632227355

    Update: Heard this one’s now closed

  • The Legend of Sikandar

    Sikandar is the Hindustani name of Alexander the Great, and that’s the theme of this restaurant in Garuda Mall. Theme, only in terms of the food, not the decor, though they do have a few glass paintings that depict this. The place is usually crowded on Saturdays, so we reserved, got there by about 7.45, and got one of the window seats I have a liking for. Surprisingly, it didn’t have full occupancy at any point during our dinner. Blame it on you-know-what. I wonder if that’s the same thing I should blame for them using a fan instead of the air conditioning!!

    We decided to try a non chicken starter this time, and settled on the Adana Seek, described as “Turkey’s single greatest contribution to the world of street food. Lamb mince skewered on a sword, typically spiced and enlivened with paprika flakes and made the way it has been for eons in the Turkish town of Adana”. Judging by the taste, and the awesome flavoring, it definitely is a great contribution. Highly recommended, the only disappointment being that I expected to see the sword..and didn’t. The mint chutney provided with it wasn’t great though, so skip it.

    For the main course, we ordered a Murgh Siyali Kalimirch. The description in the menu reads ” Housewives in Siyalkot, Pakistan, take fierce pride in preparing their own versions of this dish of tender chicken cooked in sealed clay pots with lashings of freshly ground peppercorn”. We also ordered a Kadaiwala Machchi, “the best example of robust food made from simple earthy ingredients that’s the essence of Punjab’s cuisine. Fish tossed with fresh tomatoes, peppers and pounded spices”.  To go along with it, we ordered an Ulta Tawa ka Paratha – “the copper mahi tawa lends its special flavour ro these griddle roasted saffron flavoured parathas” , a Paneer aur Pudina Bharwan Kulcha, and when that proved insufficient, a roti too. What hasn’t been mentioned in the menu is that the chicken dish is a white gravy one, but that really didn’t matter. Its one of the best chicken dishes I’ve tasted in a long time. Whatever version this one is, I think they should stick to it!! The fish was good, but not in the same league as the other. The paratha was good too, and the only thing that was disappointing was the bharwan kulcha ( I think that has something to do with it not having a descriptor line..hmm)

    D felt that the choice of dishes has been reduced. I am not sure, but yes, there are about 4 chicken gravy dishes only now, so she could be right. The portions are quite large and more than sufficient for two people. They also serve liquor. The service this time was quite tardy though, in spite of the cold looks we gave the staff when they delayed in serving/refilling the water/bringing the bill. All of the above cost us just less than Rs.900. If you haven’t tried the place, you should, at least once. We chose this place specifically for this weekend because its one of our favourite places in Bangalore, and deserved to be the 50th Bangalore restaurant to be reviewed on this blog. 🙂

    The Legend of Sikandar, 4th Floor, Garuda Mall, Magrath Road. Ph: 41252333

    Menu and Photos at Zomato

  • Kaayal

    Kaayal has been on our radar for some time now. And when they announced a Malabar Biriyani festival from Feb 26th – Mar 1st, we decided there couldn’t be a better time.

    When coming from Koramangala take a right turn at the 12th main junction, at the every end, take a right and then, a left at the next junction. (where you see a ‘Fresh’ outlet) You’ll see Kayal on the right after about a 100 metres. Its opposite Miranda High School, and on the second floor. Parking is a lil bit of a bother.

    Kaayal, which means ‘backwaters’  is the quintessential Mallu restaurant, with a few props thrown in for good measure. While you get all the regular Kerala dishes here, the Biriyanis were the highlight. So we ordered a Chicken Biriyani and a Fish Biriyani and a sambhaaram (buttermilk) while we waited. The sambhaaram was about as spicy as it could get, but good.

    The Chicken biriyani was very much like the ones we Mallus get in restaurants at home, complete with the egg, thats conspicuously missing in the versions usually found in Bangalore. D was quite miffed that her fish biriyani didn’t have one, but I guess it did make sense – limiting eggs to chicken biriyanis 😀 The problem with both was that the masala hasdn’t really seeped into the chicken/fish pieces. We also ordered a Beef fry, which we had been warned about earlier – that it usually was a bit rubbery. Unfortunately for us, it was quite a correct warning. All the stuff could’ve been better. :|Might go back some other time for checking out the regular Mallu stuff.

    All of the above cost us a bit over Rs.250. Value-for-money as most Mallu restaurants go. (no we don’t consider Coconut Grove mallu on that parameter)

    Kaayal, 1647/1 , 2nd Floor, Jeevan Bhima Nagar. Ph: 25205578

  • The Egg Factory

    The name’s an attention grabber. And so it was that we decided to drop in on a lazy Sunday. You can find it off St.Marks Road – the part that goes towards Residency Road. Soon after you take a left from Museum Road, you can see it on the right, packed inside a tiny lane. (after the petrol pump, and a ramshackle plot).

    The ambience has a wooden-metallic grunge look that goes well with the factory name.  The  “Damp Wall. Please do not lean” is a good touch. “The logo is inspired by the Maori symbol “Koru”, which represents renewed energy and new beginnings. The name and the logo is a symbolic adaptation of the meaning, and that of the humble egg.”  The menu is a great piece of work, and shows that that they take the egg part of their name (and positioning) very seriously. Its a spoof on the foldable user manuals that come with consumer durables (including the multiple languages). It is an absolute pun fest with eggxpectations, egghilarative snacks, eggxotica, eggsamplers. eggciting combos all making appearances. So you can see why I didn’t need any egging on to take an instant liking to the place. 😉

    We started with an Egg Pasta Frittata and an Eggs Florentine. The frittata is a “hearty meal of penne in frittata and baked with cream and parmesan”, and is served with garlic bread. I’d read reviews that it was awesome, but it was just about okay. The Florentine, which is “soft boiled eggs on a bed of spinach and a creamy sauce and topped with parmesan” was a much better dish. Both are served with garlic bread (which they didn’t have, so we were given  bread toast, and they used sweet bread, hmm)  If you’re not really hungry, the portions are quite sufficient, and make a good snack, but if you’re out to gorge, then you’d want a second course, like us 😀

    I wanted an Arroz Con Huevos, a mexican dish, which looked spicy (from the menu) but it wasn’t available. So we went for an Egg Cannelloni Alforno, a “tube pasta stuffed with eggs, mushroom and red pepper” and a Polish omelette. The Alforno is excellent and had a distinct tangy flavor that was a welcome relief. They seem to have a slight geography problem since we got an Irish omellete – has potatoes flavoured with chives and lemon juice. The latter is served with toast, butter and jam. We ended with a bread custard, that was one of the desserts of the day, and was quite okay. (the ones who came in earlier finished the caramel custard).

    They seem to have discontinued several of the menu items – paratha curry, rice curry and chinese combos, wraps, subs and crostinis, wonder why. There is a ‘Manipal connection’ part of the menu which reminded me of college life. 🙂 Meanwhile, for the health conscious, you can have all the stuff, with only the egg white, for an extra Rs.10 per item. All of the above cost us Rs.450, an absolute value for money outing, and one that we thoroughly enjoyed.

    The Egg factory, Ground Floor, White House, St.Marks Road. Ph:42110041

    Menu and Photos at Zomato

  • The French Quarter bistro

    Flanked by music (Planet M) and coffee (Barista), The French Quarter bistro is located on the 100 ft Road in Indiranagar. When coming from the Koramangala side, this is immediately after the CMH Road-100 ft Road junction on the left.

    We called to reserve in advance, done smoothly, with a casual “see you in the evening, manu” thrown it at the end. There went the stereotype of French snobbery I had in mind.

    The flyover construction has left the area in a bit of a mess, but parking for two wheelers, thankfully, is not a problem. Though we didn’t find a maitre’d like the one in Spiderman 3, we were allowed to choose a table that we found comfortable. Nice. The ambience is very relaxing, high ceilings with a couple of palm trees, soft music, and bistro style comfortable seating. One is bound to linger here for longer than the food warrants. And while we waited for the food, they served bread and butter, and replenished it a few times too.

    We started with a French Onion soup , which is “beef consomme with cheese croutons”. Its a thin soup and a milder flavour than I’d anticipated, but still good enough. For the main course, in addition to the items on the menu, there’s also the Plat du jour, that you can find on the blackboard. Though all reviews stated that it was a salad + entree combination, there wasn’t a salad to be found. I’m still curious.

    So, D ordered a “Pan seared red snapper in lemon butter sauce served with herb rice” (regular menu) and I ordered a “Chicken a’la King, with herb rice”. We experimented a bit with Tabasco sauce and thankfully it turned out fine. They serve moderate portions and despite appearances, they’re quite filling. I was hoping to have some chocolate crepes, but unfortunately they didn’t have it, and strangely, I wasn’t tempted by the chocolate mousse cake. I confess I’m a bit worried about that.

    Before the billing, they ask you if they can include Rs.10 – to be given to Akshaya Patra (a cause for underprivileged children), a very good initiative. All of the above (no mineral water) cost us just over Rs.800, including a service charge of 10%. Extremely pleasant service, great setting and decent food. Definitely worth a visit.

    The French Quarter bistro, 298, 100 ft Road, Indiranagar. Ph: 080 42171998

    Menu at Zomato