Foodie post #3: Fisherman's Wharf

The daunting drive from Basavanagudi to Sarjapur Road was always a roadblock, so to speak, for me to try out this place. Today however, I was visiting family who live a hop away from Fisherman’s Wharf and I jumped at the chance. Being a Mangalorean, I face painful withdrawal symptoms when denied my seafood fix and I can therefore tack on my name to the been-there-done-that list of coastal cuisine restos in Bangalore. Funnily enough, I’ve never ever tried Goan cuisine before. Oh, I know all the wonderfully musical keywords (bebinka, recheado, sorpotel, balchao), and today was my chance to dig in!

Ah! Finally a place in Bangalore where you don’t have to drive a couple of u-turns to find a parking spot! The restaurant itself is set like a traditional coastal home, all wood and brass, Mangalore tiles and airy central courtyard. The theme is carried forward with wicker chairs, wicker accents on the ceiling fans (!) and the nautical-looking hemp wrap around the pillars. A gazebo seats a live band that plays Goan music very tunefully and is a wonderful add-on to the place.

We walked in at 3pm, almost when last lunch orders were being taken, and were promptly seated. Yay! Happy hours had just begun so we now had a 1+1 offer on beverages, and we promptly asked for the classic margaritas. They arrived chilled, tongue-curlingly tangy and just what the doctor ordered for a lazy Sunday lunch.

Their menu features everything from continental to north Indian to Chinese to Goan.  For starters, we went with a Greek salad, Goan style chilli prawn, kingfish rava fry and squid rechead.

The Greek salad was good but pretty generic, with fresh, sweaty feta that by itself tasted fantastic, but mixed into the salad imparted a slightly dairy-ish flavour to the rest of the ingredients. But these guys do know their seafood! It’s very easy to overcook fish and turn it into Goodyear, and I was thrilled that all three starters passed the test. The portions too were quite generous: good-sized prawns in a capsicum/onion spicy base that tasted vaguely Chinese, a large kingfish steak with the crispy rava casing that I’m so familiar with, and non-rubbery squid rings in the flavourful sour-spicy rechead masala.

For mains we ordered prawn balchao and Goan fish curry with kingfish, both accompanied by white rice. I had actually been looking forward to eating my meal with red boiled rice that is such an intrinsic part of coastal cuisine, and was terribly disappointed to learn that it wasn’t available. The fish curry was a delicately flavoured dish made rich with coconut milk and a large chunk of tender kingfish. Two thumbs up! In contrast the prawn balchao was an explosion of flavours, it was all out war! Spice battled the sour, sweet fought for supremacy. Never having tasted balchao before, it was an interesting experience, but I’m not sure I’m a fan.

I am yet to taste a satisfactory tiramisu in Bangalore, and though we ordered one for dessert, I kept my expectations low. I was right. The tiramisu came in a glass and was a frothy, caramel-flavored whipped cream confection that didn’t remotely resemble that famous Italian dessert. Completely avoidable.

All in all, except for the dessert, it was a great seafood meal, even if it did pinch the pocket a bit. This was one of those times where I was happy to have sand in my shoes!

Meal for 4: Rs.3800 (1 salad, 3 starters, 2 mains, 1+1 margarita)

Foodie post #2: Spiga

Sigh! It is a sad, sad day when a cherished food fantasy bites the dust. The old Spiga at Vittal Mallaya Road had captured my imagination as a budding foodie, as a go-to place for great continental food. This is what fuelled our visit tonight, a first after the shift to the current location on St. Marks Road.

The new Spiga it turns out has undergone a makeover, plonked itself on a rooftop and now seems intent on joining the teeming horde of lounges/pubs jostling for space in Bangalore’s nightlife. Spiga has a lot going for it in terms of ambience: a rooftop setting, candlelight, comfortable seating, a view of UB City lights and Bangalore’s incomparable outdoor weather. It would have been perfect if I hadn’t been blasted from the get-go by their loud and incongruously jarring house music. Honestly, I wish these in-between lounge-restaurants would just make up their mind and be done with it. I just find it so hard to drum up an appetite while being blasted by irrationally loud dinchak music. Anyway, we were promptly seated, but our happy spirits were not reflected in the dour-faced gentleman who refused to meet my eye to take our order and came over only after much signalling and outright hissing.

Since it was pretty late, we ordered for starters and mains all at once. They have a pretty diverse menu, ranging from American burgers, to English fish n chips to Mediterranean to Thai. We went with Satay prawns to begin with followed by veg chimichangas for myself and rosemary lamb chops with mushrooms and mashed potatoes for the husband. We were promptly given a little tray of garlic bread: hot, buttery and crusty, it went down well and set a good tone for the meal. I also asked for a lemon basil soda, which although refreshing, had no hint of basil whatsoever, although I detected a bit of ginger…unexpected and unasked for.

The prawns when they arrived were good for a loud, long belly laugh. They were MINISCULE!! They looked so damn lost and sad and forlorn as they sat in the plate skewered by the wicked wood picks. When we finally stopped pointing and laughing and got around to eating them, we found them pretty unremarkable. A standard sweet peanut marinade crowded out the flavour of the mini-prawns. Sigh!

It’s practically impossible to go wrong with a chimichanga. Take a burrito, stuff it with cheese and whatever’s at hand and dump it in the fryer. Indeed, there was nothing very wrong about my chimichanga, but it was just the little things that rubbed me the wrong way. The burrito casing was terribly hard, a saw would have been helpful in place of a dinner knife. As I worked my way though the dish, the measly dabs of sour cream and salsa sauce lasted for only the first few bites, and I was left to finish my dry, chewy chimichanga with congealed, unappetizing refried beans. I saw no sign of the guacamole the menu had promised. I finally gave up when I was three-quarters done. Sigh!

The husband was terribly disappointed with his dish of rosemary lamb chops. The cuts of meat were just AWFUL, the ribs all running together, and required gnawing like a caveman rather than using the steak knife they offered. We had pictured a delicate dish of grilled lamb chops flavoured with rosemary and other herbs. What arrived was a plate piled high with bad cuts smothered in a standard pepper sauce with shallots, no hair nor hide to be found of mushrooms or rosemary. I no idea pepper and rosemary could be used in the same sentence. The mashed potatoes were grainy and contained onions….eeks! The icing on the cake was the aged, fibrous beans they had added as an afterthought to the plate. Sigh!

We couldn’t leave the place fast enough, never even considered dessert. Such a sad end to a long-looked-forward-to meal.

Meal for 2 without alcohol: Rs. 1400

Foodie post #1: Smokehouse Deli

Boy! Winning a bet this time around paid big time!

I' m a small and insignificant member of a Bangalore foodie group on Facebook, and the name Smoke House Deli filtered through a couple times above all the usual chatter. So, yet another bet won against hubby and I picked Smoke House Deli to rub his nose in it and get a dekko at the oft mentioned place.

We picked a Friday night to do the honours and the place was packed with Bangalore’s beautiful people. It might sound a bit perverse, but a filled to capacity restaurant usually gets my juices flowing. It doesn’t necessarily follow that a packed place guarantees great food, but hope springs eternal! On a Friday night, table for two usually gets us seated pretty quickly, this time was no exception. The brightly lit and cheerful interiors made it easy for me to do my bobble-headed who’s-here-wearing-what ogle. The restaurant had the cheerful off-white-cream-beige thing going with very imaginative pen drawing on the walls, flowing onto the furniture and sideboards and, hats off to their consistency, even peeking through from the wait staff shirt cuffs!

The camel in me went straight to the bar menu and I ordered the very first thing I saw on it! To be honest, I did go through it in its entirety, and to my untrained eye it did look like a pretty satisfying list of cocktails, coolers and white and red wines. I zeroed in on the cucumber, basil, lavender and vladivar infusion. It was the word infusion that got to me; it gave an almost therapeutic righteousness to my drink and immediately offset the guilt of the vladivar! In a word YUM! It was one cool tall fragrant drink, redolent with the cucumber and lavender and I could feel my toes curl up in pleasure.

For starters, we went with chicken and ordered the coriander grilled chicken skewers. The portion size was generous and the chicken was succulent and beautifully cooked. BUT I chastised myself for playing it so safe and going ahead and ordering what was essentially a glorified hariyali tikka. The dip, what tasted like a sweet roasted red pepper sauce redeemed the dish and snatched it away from the jaws of pedestrian dhaba-ness.

For mains I ordered the spaghetti with field mushrooms and red onion and hubby went with the chermoula spiced grilled chicken. Now, my gold standard for spaghetti with wild mushrooms is this little bistro called the Minganelli at the Spanish steps in Rome that I ate some eons ago. That I haven’t forgotten the flavours of the place is a testament to its awesomeness. I’m not saying that the spaghetti at smoke house took me back to Rome, but it was buttery, garlicky without being overpowering, and made me grin with the very first bite. BUT, I could count the pieces of mushroom on one hand, why oh why?? Hubby was quite satisfied with his chermoula spiced grilled chicken. A bite revealed beautifully cooked chicken with a very balanced pepper-cumin-lemon flavour, ho-hum, all things everyday-home-Indian that I’d been trying to forget.

Dessert picking time is gut wrenching, I just find it so hard to let go of all those choices and pick just one. What if I made the wrong choice and the ones that got away paved the stairway to heaven? Anyway I played it safe, tore my eyes away from the tiramisu, Philly cheesecake and roasted almond torte and ordered the raspberry and Oreo cheesecake. The cheesecake was light on the palate and raspberry and chocolate is always a winning combination. The tart raspberry compote did manage to save it from complete boredom.

It was altogether a new and unexpectedly lively gastronomic experience, what with the mix of flavours and cuisines on the menu. They have a whole selection of interesting burgers and sandwiches and I am sure to visit on my next cant-live-without-burger day.

meal for two: Rs.2400 (2drinks, 1starter, 2mains, 1dessert)

Monochrome Musings

In the Garden

We took the scenic route to KRS through Pandavpura, which basically meant that we stopped for directions every couple kilometres. Scenic it definitely was: paddy and sugarcane fields as far as the eye could see, with low blooms of cabbage and greens, long rows of gauzy greenhouses busy with young growth. We came to the turn-off for KRS at a bridge over a hurried and rather musty smelling canal. The KRS dam loomed ahead a long, long wall ahead, cocooning the Brindavan garden.

The Royal Orchid hotel sits a square colonial bungalow on a bluff overlooking the garden, and was built by Kishnarajendra Wodeyar as a guest house. The colonial splendour remains untouched with the original wood panelling, teak staircases and the antique floor tiles evoking memories of a bygone, more elegant era. As I walked the hallway, I was struck with the inexplicable urge to whisper, as if not to disturb residing royalty. It was all very swish and sophisticated, what with all the Belgian glass and the martyred animals on the wall. The lobby was a large airy space with cane couches and an ornate silver jhula that we had to plonk into the minute we set eyes on it! We were led to our room on foot up two flights of stairs, no bland impersonal elevators to mar the ambience. Our room, a Queen suite, was lush with gold and jewel tones all around. But the pièce de résistance we discovered after the bellhop with a subtle dramatic flair, threw open the balcony doors. There lay before us the Brindavan Gardens in all its afternoon splendour! The emerald lawns were almost painfully bright in the noonday sun, the spray from the fountains and sprinklers caught the sun in a thousand dazzling rainbows. The hush-hush of the fountains and the twittering of a few birds was the only ambient noise in this disciplined and pruned Eden. The dull granite façade of KRS dam wall encompassed our entire western view, setting off a lovely contrast to the garden.

Early evening was spent lounging around the pool and terraces of the hotel, and as the sun crossed over from scalding to merely hot, we climbed down a small fleet of stairs and stepped right into Brindavan. We took a walk along the little paths and trails between the lawns and fountains, while the variety of plants and shrubs stretched the limits of my botanical knowledge. As twilight approached, we crossed a bridge over an unfortunately cluttered canal to enter the musical fountain arena. As the show started, I felt with a sinking traitorous heart that the musical fountain that awed and thrilled us as kids now merely seemed jaded and sadly outdated. A jarringly loud Usha Uthup fought with our barely restrained sniggers, and we gave up after the omnipresent Saare Jahan Se Acchha. Brindavan is extremely photogenic at night. The hotel had conveniently placed benches on a walkway overlooking the garden, and we spend a serene but mosquito-ridden hour admiring the view below and constellations overhead. Returning to our room, we encountered the shyly chatty receptionist who regaled us with Sir MV anecdotes (Sir MV being the one who designed and build the KRS Dam). Apparently, Sir MV had the curious habit of including in his constructions one particular stone upon which the whole structural integrity rested. He was commissioned to design and build a bridge in England, and he did so, including this one important stone. But what galled our stiff-upper-lip Brits was that Sir MV had the stone inscribed “Made in India”. Asked to remove the stone, he said he gladly would, but it would bring the bridge down too. And so as legend goes, there’s still a bridge in England that says “Made in India”. And so we retired for the day with this story warming the cockles of our hearts.

Breakfast was served on the enclosed terrace overlooking the dam gates and pool, and a lovely mellow light permeated through the antique glass windows. Though we still had a couple of hours till we checked out, they were heavy with the knowledge that our lovely two day break was almost done! To my delight, the hotel offered bicycles to any guest wanting to take a turn around the garden. And so it came that after a gap of 16 years, I perched precariously on one and started off, rather shakily. But you know what they say about learning to ride, and half the ride was a breeze. The other half we burned our breakfast calories pushing the bicycles back up the hill.

And so our little break came to pass, and we find ourselves back in dusty Bangalore, though I like to think I’ve left a little bit of myself back there at KRS!

Part 1: With piety for the Deity

In an earlier life, repetitive tourism (in whatever guise: temples, tirth yatra or just a getaway) would be good cause for loud and insistent protests, to my parents lasting aggravation. Post marriage has resulted in a surprising complacency and tolerance that I would not have believed myself of conjuring (though there might be differing opinions on this!). Ergo, we found ourselves cruising along on Mysore road for the second time in as many months. Though its been a couple of years now, we cannot get over our luck at being blessed with this highway: shiny clean and even enough to eat off. As battered as we were by our road trips to South Kanara, we treated this one with the normal emotions Indians reserve when treated to a motorable highway: unselfconscious delight and surprise.
This trip was hastily planned with frantic calls to resorts and plenty of second guessing and rethinking to boot. With a friend’s recommendation, we settled on the Royal Orchid otel Hotel ckhoHotel at Brindavan Garden KRS. Brindavan gardens that provided the colour to a hundred tacky wet-sari songs in all possible vernacular tongues. We had an early start, and the road was a dream as promised. We cruised along at a good clip, particularly relishing the signs that invited and bid us goodbye with all passing towns: “welcome to Silk City Ramnagaram”, “Thank you visit again-Sugar City Mandya” and “Gombegala Ooru Channapatna”.
As one leaves Mandya, a pointy little sign modestly directs the diffident driver - Melkote. We’ve seen the sign on our many trips to Mangalore, longingly craning our necks to follow the road as far as the eye could see; and reluctantly put it off for other vacations. This time as the sign approached, the same though raced through our heads and we joyfully took the turn the sign obligingly pointed toward. It’s a picturesque drive, with fantastically shaped rocks and boulders precariously balanced end on end. The rampart of neat hillocks has its rugged beauty, even as the treeless baked brown slopes indicated a systematic deforestation.
Melkote rests on a hill, one of many that stand sentinel beside it. As we entered the town, we were immediately struck by how clean everything was! There was none of the rubble that is a sad artefact of other busy overcrowded temple towns. For a little bit of background history, the town was established in the 10th century by the Vaishnava saint Ramanujacharya. However, it is said that the temple predates the saint, with lithic records proposing a Tamil influence and Vaishnava worship in this area. Ramanujacharya’s disciples followed the saint, and soon the town became an important centre of Srivaishnavism. The main temple dedicated to Lord Cheluvanarayana Swami stands right in the town centre: a square low building propped up by a legion of pillars. It was modest and altogether much simpler that I had imagined, although going by the era and history I suppose this is consistent. For prayers before the deity, we were pushed into an orderly queue by thick hemp ropes, and the formalities were completed quickly enough. We took a walk around the temple and in sharp contrast to the unadorned functional pillars outside, the ones in here took our breath away. Chariots, voluptuous apsaras, soldiers with bows and arrows poised, battle scenes and deities narrated stories of a bygone era. Intricately carved with painstaking detail, we marvelled at the stonemasons of the time. A thousand years ago, they must have been privy to only the most rudimentary tools, and yet to masterfully create such a thing of beauty completely awed us. I did sneak a photo, though it invited a sharp rebuke from one of the priests. Our noses lead us to the

puliyogare stall outside the temple and we just had to dig into Melkote’s most famous export! Spicy, tangy and delicious, we gorged on a big bowl each and it was everything promised by puliyogare connoisseurs! Not sated by that, we armed ourselves with packets more of the mix to carry home and replicate.

A short climb up the road from the temple, we came across the “Akka-tangiyara Kola”. These are built along the lines of ‘kalyanis’ or temple tanks with water all year round. Legend goes that the older of the sisters wanted to build the tanks and enlisted her younger sister’s help. However the younger one was reluctant about the scheme, for reasons lost in time. Therefore of the two tanks, one is filled with clear water and the other brackish, testament to the younger sister’s reluctance.
Down the hill from the temple is the immensely huge kalyani of the Cheluvanarayana Swami and Yoga Narasimha temples. The kalyani is surrounded by mantaps supported by intricately carved pillars which have hosted a dozen romantic song-and-dance silver screen routines. The day we visited was no exception. Tinny music and the choreographer’s megaphone echoed across the water as Shivrajkumar and his tireless extras gyrated incongruously, breaking the solitude and serenity of the place.
The Yoganarasimha temple overlooks the kalyani from its lofty perch and beckoned us for a good hearty climb up the steps. We started off enthusiastically enough, extolling the virtues of a good weekend hike while furtively assessing each other’s energy levels. The granite steps along the way are carved off-and-on with figurines of men and women with their arms raised in pious surrender as they trudged up the hill. I guess these were meant to infuse the weary traveller with renewed vigour as he lost heart gazing up at the temple that seemed just a little bit further with each step! The monkeys along the way provided a bit of comic relief, as did the goats that pranced nonchalantly up the steps and bleated sneeringly at us. Once we did reach the top the view was breathtaking, although the barrenness of the surrounding hills disturbed me not a little. The temple itself was simple, small, with a wraparound terrace and view that encompassed the whole district. Not surprisingly, the Prasad was what else, puliyogare! Peering inside a small stone built room off the temple, we saw an old man in a dhoti toiling away at a grinding stone. I suppose this is where this heavenly mix came from with its perfect blend of spice, tang, a slight hint of sweet and the crunchy roast peanuts. We gorged on handfuls of the stuff and the price (Rs. 10/handful) for weird reasons I don’t want to probe, had to be left on the doorstep of the room. We descended.
Tick for Melkote, and I take back with me a little piety and a half year’s supply of puliyogare!