Tag: Partha Jha

  • The Great Kabab Factory

    The last time I was in the vicinity of Mantri Mall, I had some awesome food thanks to Partha Jha. The place we visited – Chandu’s Military hotel also sends lots of traffic to the other blog, thanks to a totally (food) unrelated post I wrote then. 🙂

    This time, the visit was to an eatery inside the mall, for a Bangalore Mirror review. Parking at the mall is much better than in the initial days! Our destination – The Great Kabab Factory was a franchise that has operations in many parts of India and the Middle East, including the third floor of Mantri Mall.

    The space has been utilised well, though the decor is pretty functional. The cutlery tries to lend a grand touch. The colours are also restrained except for the bright blue shades in the form of lighting, but these don’t help remove a general dimness. Interestingly, though the staff wear overalls to go with the factory idea, the theme ends there.

    On to the menu. The dinner and weekend menu offers a selection of six kababs, followed by a biriyani main course and four desserts. The weekday menu is priced lower because a couple of kababs and desserts are taken out. The combination of kababs change  daily, and you stand a chance of getting the same combination only once a fortnight. But the signature dishes are available daily and after a round of all the kababs, you get to repeat your favourites. Ditto for the desserts. They also have a a well stocked bar, and given the price of the Fresh Lime Soda, you’re definitely better off guzzling beer. The prix fixe (set menu) weekday lunch is priced at Rs 449 plus taxes and weekends and dinners are at Rs 599 plus taxes. The price is the same for veg and non veg versions. Considering the options available, this is rather steep. (check comments for update)

    Among the non vegetarian fare, the Galouti Kabab was the winner with its finely minced meat that puts it in the ‘melt in the mouth’ category. Roll it up in an ulta tawa paratha and you’re sure to ask for a repeat. The Taj Kabab with bell pepper and coriander was excellent too. The Shoolay Murgh Tikka, a mildly spicy kabab,  and the Shammi Kabab were also favourites. However, the signature Barrah Kabab was missing, and the Machhi Amritsari and the Lasooni Chooza were disappointing. The Phaldhari Chaat, roasted apple with chaat masala, was the redeeming dish in the veg menu. But charging the same rate for the veg fare seemed unfair. Especially since they were not great. The Paneer Tikka Kalimirch was bland and the Peshawari Aloo did nothing to impress either.

    The Murgh Dum Biriyani was greasy and the Murgh Qurma accompanying it couldn’t do much to salvage it. Its veg counterpart, Vadi Pulao, wasn’t great either. The Shahi Tukda was the pick among the desserts though the Gulab Jamun had some competition to offer.  The Doodhi ka Halwa, made from bottle gourd, sounded promising, but didn’t actually work out.

    The staff is well-trained and as each dish is brought to the table, give you a rapidfire tutorial on how it is to be consumed. The service is prompt and ensure you don’t feel too bad about the 10 per cent service charge.

    The Great Kabab Factory does live up to its name and manages to produce quite a few delectable kababs but unfortunately, they don’t really come at Factory Outlet prices. So, unless you have just completed a bhook hartal or are gifted with phenomenal maas consumption abilities, the price of the kababs might make you go ‘Sheesh’!

    The Great Kabab Factory, T-40, 3rd Floor, Mantri Square, #1 Sampige Road, Malleswaram, Bangalore 560003, Ph: 22667360

  • Lankan Reams – Day 0 – SriLankan Airlines and Negombo

    ..and now its tradition to have my vacations flagged off by a Partha Jha wordplay. 🙂 He didn’t disappoint this time either, and rewarded my cryptic goodbye with this.

    The road trip to our offsite airport wasn’t really adventurous, despite our driver’s best slow moving efforts. He wished us a happy journey though, that was a nice touch. In spite of the mildly irritating form factor, migration proved to be a simple business.

    The SriLankan Airlines thankfully provided more avenues for cheap fun. If Air Deccan had a poor cousin, this one would be it. They did serve a ‘standard’ meal, and we use the word ‘standard’ loosely here, and I scared D by hinting that the mounds of potato would give us a loosie in the sky, or worse, during the vacation.

    But I’m being mean, sorry, they weren’t really bad, though the craft did need some upholstery maintenance. I felt bad for the staff, and could understand their sad expression, which was mostly thanks to a raucous beer crowd, whose in-flight entertainment consisted of shooting pictures of themselves with free Carlsberg, with many retakes, all freshly canned. It also gave us a free nostalgia trip – buses to and from Kerala. There was this other guy in front of us with a hoodie – he kept looking up, I think he was apprehensive of leaks, couldn’t really blame him.

    We arrived safely, mostly because D doesn’t let me speak during flights. Wait a second, I now realise she mostly doesn’t let me speak. Hmm. Currency change was a breeze, because we had been warned by our tour organiser that the newly symbolic Rupee would be difficult to convert, and so we’d carried $.

    Meanwhile, our guide was waiting for us, and I identified parts of my name from several others. He took us to the parking lot, which had a retro feel to it. For instance, ours was a full fledged Toyota which could seat about a dozen people, and reminded me of the ‘kidnap’ cars Amjad Khan used in 80s Bollywood.

    On the way to Negombo, where we were to stay the night, it was  like a surreal India – Hutch saying ‘Hi’ alongside a Samsung Corby, and an Airtel fighting for attention. That reminded me of the Uniconnect card I got, thanks to booking through Cleartrip. Sorry Cleartrip, we both did what was expected of us, no controversy here. 😉

    The Camelot Beach Hotel at Negombo was neat enough, and though we sensed a fish smell near the reception, the long corridor was free of it. The room was quite good, and once we had cracked the plug point secrets, all was well. Meanwhile, instead of a television, we had a radio with good old fashioned knobs, and we rocked ourselves to sleep listening to the roar of the sea and “I’m gonna live forever“.

    More pics here, and coming soon Part 2 🙂

  • Andamanned – Part 1 – The Chennai conditioning

    I could say “No man is an island, yet Andaman is” or I could say “No man is an island, nor is Andaman, it is a group of islands”. Bwahaha. Forgive me, all that time in the water must’ve diluted the brevity of this twit. Either that, or the brewed stuff that was also consumed occasionally. Really cheap stuff, that’s apparently made in AP – light Gult stuff that won’t make you feel guilty.

    As per the status message across platforms,  I was off to Havelock, away from keys, I wouldn’t get bored, though I wouldn’t be surfing, because I’d be watching surf, and waves (of the non-Google kind). Ironically, the first notable event was meeting a fellow Twitterer. 6AM finds me groggy, if awake, flight or no flight. Anyway, since my display picture across networks is an initial, I’m usually saddled with the responsibility of initiating conversations with people I recognise. I remembered this person because of his awesome puns (like this gem), so it was good fun to suddenly turn and ask him ‘Are you Partha?’, and to see him looking at me curiously. If he wasn’t Partha, I was prepared to give the 6AM excuse. But he handled it pretty well when I introduced myself as the handle he knows on Twitter. So, at the high altitudes where birds usually tweet each other, two Twitterers ended up having a normal chat. It turned out that he was off to AP, and as his profile states, he is into ‘consumer research to help sell beer’. Beery eyed and bleary eyed, we landed in Chennai.

    Chennai usually gives me a warm welcome, okay, that’s an understatement, it’s a bloody hot one. So its kind of insulting to insinuate that Chennai gave me a cold, but my sinuses are proof that the Chennai airport, which seemed to be making a desperate attempt to get rid of the ‘bloody hot’ (no, that doesn’t make it anti Channel V)  tag, was on freezer mode, almost did. Every time I found a relatively warm corner, it did a Sub Zero (from Mortal Kombat) move on me.  It didn’t help that our flight was delayed. On the board, the time never changed to the new time. From an earlier adventure, I had my doubts and I finally asked the KF Help Desk what time the flight was expected.

    “You can go for the security check, sir”, she said, “the flight will take off in less than half an hour”

    “So, why don’t you change the status on that board”

    “If there is a delay, we don’t change it, sir”

    It was only about 9.45 (during vacations, sleep-wake patterns are deferred by about 2.30 hours), so I didn’t trust myself to have heard correctly. Anyway, it was a welcome break from the real time status updates on Twitter and FB. So, we made the flight, and though we didn’t expect a meal on the flight, we actually got breakfast. The only disclaimer is that when they announced ‘alpaahar’, they really meant it literally. After they served the meal, I thought I’d ask the air hostess for the main course, but D played spoilsport again. Oh, okay, I couldn’t be mean to anyone who gives me a chocolate mousse anyway. 😀

    Andaman didn’t quite hit it off with us in the beginning. I was quite worried. After our sulk with Goa, we’d planned Andaman last year, but that’s when D reacted violently to the idea. I was afraid if there was some jinx involved. There was a driver from our resort at Havelock, he was holding a placard that displayed the resort name, the snag was that he was looking for a single foreigner, and I failed on both counts. Obviously D was partly to blame. After all the passengers had left, we were left looking at each other, and he finally took us to the ferry. Mis-communication, we were told, but fortunately, we didn’t miss the ferry to Havelock, they had tickets. There are only 2-3 that ply daily, and even boats worked like a well oiled machinery only when palms were greased. The rishwat ka rishta with the mainland, I was touched. Apparently, getting tickets was a real pain, and that was what had prevented Havelock from becoming like Goa.

    I, India

    The boat had a a/c and non a/c options (within the latter, there were even a couple of 7 seater rooms, with what seemed like lounge chairs). We couldn’t see outside from the a/c section (which was at a lower level) but realized its worth only on the return trip. Moreover, we could move around the deck with no restrictions. A vast ocean, dark, angry, choppy, an awesome contrast to the equally vast, light blue, calm sky. The journey takes two and a half hours, and somewhere in between, D wondered if she should try these instructions on me.

    overboard

    To be continued……