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)
No comments:
Post a Comment