Category: Central Bangalore

  • The Only Place

    This is only our second visit, and that’s all thanks to a rare mistake I made about 4 years back. No, I’m not claiming to be otherwise flawless, its just that on our previous visit, I forgot to mention that I wanted the steak well done, and they gave me a rare one!! The immense strength my jawbone displays now, is thanks to that incident.  And the memory made sure I kept away from the place.

    This time too, the original choice was Spiga, but Spiga, I was told, is no longer open??!! So, I thought the time had come for another shot. The Only Place is in the central part of  Bangalore, but the location and the ambience would deceive you. Its on Museum Road – from Church Street, take a left at Empire, just before you reach the next junction, you’ll see it on your left. Parking might be made easier, thanks to the (parking space of the) neighbouring office building.

    We did reserve a table, but didn’t prove necessary at 8pm. It was  a Sunday, I’m sure it would be more crowded on Saturday, and anyway the place was almost full by 8.30. We started with a cream of mushroom soup. While the soup was definitely thick, the cream was not very evident. For the main course, there’s quite a lot of steaks to choose from, with some baked items, spaghetti, burgers etc also thrown in. There’s enough choice for the veggies as well. Though I simply love the Chateaubriand steak (thanks to an official lunch, where the ‘well done’ was amply communicated) I decided to try something different, and ordered a Chicken Cacciatore. The wife ordered an OP’s special fish. The chicken dish is “ tender cubes of chicken, served in a red spicy sauce with celery and mushroom on a bed of noodles (there’s also an option of rice), onions and assorted vegetables” The sauce is simply amazing, its spicy without making you all teary, the noodles is soft and absorbs the flavours fast, and overall, the dish is very tasty. If you’re not into beef and can’t order the Chateaubriand, go for this one. The Op special fish is “fillets of fish topped with herbs and spices charbroiled, served with vegetables and mash potato” Though the fish is somewhat bland, the topping and the sauce ensure that the dish is tasty enough.

    There was a chocolate fudge cake that was eyeing me from the display all through my dinner, and I succumbed finally. Thank God! Awesme, and they pour enough chocolate sauce s that its practically dripping. Pure evil!! And there are other options too, including a trifle pudding. Some other time, maybe 😀

    The quantities are just right. It leaves you full but not bloated. All of the above cost us just over Rs.600, including a mineral water for Rs.25 😉

    The Only Place, No: 13, Museum Road. Ph: 32718989

    Photos at Zomato

  • Indijoe

    Indijoe opened an outlet on Church street a few weeks back, and we’ve been guilty of ignoring it for sometime now. That has been assuaged, as we reserved in advance and landed up there yesterday. It was fairly crowded by around 8pm, so it’d would be good to book in advance. This is housed in the place where Bombay House used to be, coming from Brigade Road, just before the Museum Road junction.

    While the regular strategy in Indijoe is a starter, followed by a single sizzler, and then dessert, because it just fills the tummy, and we get to eat dessert, hunger overrode logic on this occasion, and we decided to go for a soup/starter (starter if we didn’t like the soup of the day) , and two sizzlers. Dessert was a decision left for later, if space permitted. The mind is always willing. 😀

    The menu seems to be a trimmed down version of the one at Airport Road, but larger than the one on Old Madras Road. But we didn’t miss anything much, except for a couple of desserts, and this menu offers enough selection. So, we ordered the Non veg soup of the day, which turned out to be Cream of Chicken and Mushroom, the favourite. The starter plan plan failed before it got started. 😀 The soup was just about as good as that pun, which means it could definitely have been better. While it was thick, and creamy, the flavors just weren’t strong enough, and I was forced to try a salt + pepper+ sauces combo.

    For the main course, we ordered a Stacked Chicken Valdostana, which is “sliced chicken layered with cheese and stacked, served with white wine and emmenthal sauce and accompanied with sphagetti, vegetables and spiced with green tabasco sauce” and a Jack Daniels double barrel chicken and stake (sic) combo, which is ‘grilled chicken and cheese placed between two slices of steak with smoky Jack daniels sauce served with tangy cheddar cheese, mashed potatoes and mexican salad’. The tabasco sauce and the mexican salad were served separate, respectively. The sauce is necessary because the dish is slightly bland, but I thought the worcestershire sauce was a much better add on. Though I was apprehensive on the spaghetti, because I’m not a big fan, the dish was actually done very well, and I enjoyed it. It also has a lot of french fries, not mentioned in the description, not that I had a problem with it.  We were asked how we wanted the steak, and asked for ‘well done’, and it was 🙂 , though I’m not very sure of the Mexican Salad. Now you might say, I don’t recognise Mexican when i see it, but then, I do recognise Indian. Oh well, maybe they are similar 😀

    The snag with ordering two sizzlers is that you might require external help to take you to your vehicle, it leaves you stuffed, with absolutely no room for dessert 🙁 . All of the above cost us Rs.800. It must be mentioned that the service was excellent. They took care to give extra inputs on the dish, so you know exactly what you can expect. I’ve always maintained that among all of the BJN Group properties, Indijoe is the most ‘user friendly’, and this one just reinforces the belief. Great, and will be definitely visited again.

    Indijoe, Kalpak arcade, Church Street Ph: 41113311

    Menu and Photos at Zomato

  • Mocha

    And, at long last, we finally landed up at Mocha on Lavelle Road. Keep going down Lavelle Road (from MG Road) and this is about 50 m after the Walton/Lavelle/Vittal Mallya junction, just before Java City. We got in by about 7.45, and the place was already fairly crowded. We sat indoors, but there’re also some very good outdoor seating options.

    Disclaimer: There’s a bit of anarchy in the ordering sequence.  At this place, we order the shake first, and then decide what to eat. It has nothing to do with The Joker. Blame it on the chocolate.:)

    So, we first ordered a Dutch truffle cake shake. The menu said it was a chocolate shake so sinful you might want to go for a confession. I confess they were right. The quality and the quantity. It must be said that we arrived on this particular choice after much debate all thanks to the exhaustive options available.

    To fill up the rest of our collective tummies, we ordered a Country Roast Chicken Panino and a Blackened Balti Chicken Crustini. The former is wildfire roasted chicken and slaw served with fresh basil presto, and the latter is chicken and peppers cooked in balti spice. While we were slightly concerned about Balti, it turned out to be just fine. 🙂 However, we found that these two, while not lacking in taste or flavours, we e not sufficient to leave us satiated. So, again, afer much debate, we decided against having dessert (thanks to familiarity with the humongous portions that are served here) and ordered one more snack – Pollo con Aioli, which is marinated chicken with Aioli. No, we had no clue on who (er, what) Aioli was. 🙂 It tasted a bit like corn, and a bit like the soggy peanuts we sometimes have, but overall was a bit bland. The saving grace was the sauce they gave with it. On hindsight, we really should’ve been gluttonous and gone for that ‘That Chocolate Thing’. For now, all we’re left with is its description – rich gooey flourless chocolate cake layered with dark chocolate ganache served with chocolate ice cream. Sigh, next time, definitely.

    All of this cost us just below Rs.600. Thats one of the good things about Mocha. It allows you to sample a lot of things, and still leaves enough room and dough for chocolate 😉

    Mocha 080 65357111 , 080 65357222

    PS. You can also check out the review of the other Mocha in Bangalore, here.

    Menu and Photos at Zomato

  • Fresco’s

    Fresco’s gets very close to a chocaholic’s version of heaven, so we make up excuses to go there, even though its on Cunningham Road, and not so close to home. Its on Cunningham Road, within 100m of entering it, a couple of buildings after the Foodworld (?), and its not visible from the road. But there’s lots of parking available outside and some space inside too.

    Fresco’s is a semi-outdoor kind of space, quite cosy and is always buzzing during dinner time (at least weekends, when we go). And this time was no exception. So you might want to reserve before going. We didn’t and were asked to wait for a few minutes. Fair, but what was quite dumb was giving us a seating that was uncovered, especially when there were intermittent showers happening all through the day. So we asked for a different table. We should have taken this as a premonition. We didn’t, since we’d never been given any reason to complain from our previous visits.

    It took us quite sometime and a reminder to get hold of a menu card. And though it took a long while for our soup to be created, the Chicken and Coriander soup we ordered was excellent and succeeded in putting our fears to rest..to an extent. It comes a close second to the soup at Tangerine I’d written about earlier.

    For the main course, we ordered a couple of sizzlers, a Chicken Parmigiana and a Chicken Cordon Blue (Bleu, i thought ?), chose the latter by voting out a Parsi Chicken 🙂 We’d chosen the rice option for the former and pasta for the latter, and they succeded in reversing that. I got them to give us Rice for the Parmigiana, but didn’t insist on the pasta. I was too hungry!!

    The Parmigiana is chicken breast with herbs, crumb fried served with pomadoro sauce and Parmesan cheese grattinated. The wife says it tasted a bit like pizza, and was reasonably good. The Cordon blue  is chicken salami and cheese wrapped with chicken breast, grilled, and topped with mushroom and concasse. It was good in patches, burnt at some places, but perfectly well made in others. The rice was good too, wonder if the pasta would’ve been better. And both were sizzling hot, good for a rainy night if only they had been done well.

    The dessert choice here is always difficult, and there is always a lot of heartburn when we can’t test out new talent 🙂 We chose the Chocolate Demise, and as always didn’t have any reason to complain.

    The experience can be summed up best with the bill we got for all the above – Rs. 911. The service this time was extremely poor, and except for the soup and the dessert, the food was only reasonably good. I think a visit now would happen only when desserts warrant, and only for that.

    Hatworks Boulevard, 32, cunningham Road, Ph: 41327551/5

  • 3 Storys

    I used to visit the place quite regularly when my workplace was around the area, but those were for the executive lunch. Its located off Lavelle road – when coming from MG Road, take the left on to Lavelle Road, and take the right just before the turning towards Airlines Hotel/Corner House.

    3 Storys offers three stories of seating options and specilaises in Goan/Mangalorean/Coorgi/Kerala cuisine. The best thing about this place is that its almost ‘Empirical’ in terms of being able to hog multiple dishes, thanks to the adequate portions and value for money.

    The top floor is a good option if its not raining, but since it was, we opted for the second floor. The seating is very comfortable on all the floors and has options for largish groups as well as cosy couples 🙂

    We started with a Caldo Verde soup, perhaps the only veg soup I don’t mind having. They make it quite well here and the by-two portion is almost as large as a normal full portion. We wanted to have the Sear Peri Peri but unfortunately, they didn’t have any fish available. That also meant no Kana Rava fry. Inspite of that, there were still plenty of starter options, so we finally settled for a Coorg Fried Chicken, and I’ve bookmarked the Goan Sausages for next time. The Coorgi chicken was delicious and had a distinctive flavor. Now I’m no expert on Coorgi cuisine so i dont know if it was a Coorgi flavor, but whatever it was, it was awesome.

    For the main course, we ordered Malabar Erachi Chops and Brown Chicken Stew and to go with it one plate of Idiappam and one plate of Appam. There are lots of options for seafood lovers. even if you aren’t (like me), phikar not, because the options available, that too from multiple cusines will make you wish you had a larger appetite. We also ordered one Malabar Porotta (yup, we spell it that way there 🙂 ) and a plate of Sannas. We’ve always liked the brown stew here, but this time, the Eratchi chops was just leagues ahead. Except for the Sannas (which were a little harder than usual) everything else was just great. I would also recommend the Mutta Porotta (thats Kerala porotta with an egg bullseye on top). There aren’t too many dessert options available though you could try the Bibinca, if you haven’t tasted it before. Anyways, there’s Corner House nearby, and now Mocha too.

    Meanwhile, 3 Storys is the place to come to, when you’re in the mood for a different, but value-for -money food experience. All of the above cost us about Rs.600, and thus ends this story. 🙂