Tai Tai

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If you are a foodie who loves Asian food, particularly Thai, this restaurant is guaranteed to satiate all your senses. My summary of the place – superbly presented food that tastes as good as it looks!

I had the lunch buffet and it was fabulous. The meal started off with a very wide range of starters and salads. I pretty much tasted everything – it looked so good. Vegetarian options that blew my socks off included the grilled noodle salad, the green papaya salad and the banana stem salad. Light yet luscious! For the bird and meat-eaters, the grilled beef salad was exquisite, so was the chicken satay. The prawn tom yum soup – the best I have ever had.

Main course options were three – pad thai or rice with green or red curry. All three came with either vegetables, chicken or prawn. We chose the chicken pad thai and the steamed rice with chicken red curry. While the emphasis on the starters is exquisite blending and balance of different ingredients and flavours, the main course scored highly with me for its very basic, back to the roots taste. While I feasted on the red curry and rice, I could imagine myself sitting in a Thai farmer’s kitchen. The dish had a wholesome, country flavour to it.

The dessert options did not look too exciting – I picked the chocolate mud pie and decided to skip it after two bites. Not bad – but not worth wasting calories on.

Décor at Tai Tai is bright and cheery – lots of light, rattan chairs, cheerful walls. You can choose to sit inside or dine at the open air terrace area.

The lunch buffet is priced at Rs.250 per head excluding taxes and includes soup, salad, starters, main course and dessert. Valet parking is available at the basement (it is located above Bombay Store in MG Road).

For location and phone number, click here.

Svad

 

This review is also available on burrp!

Svad is a North Indian restaurant in Koramangala and serves Rajasthani food only in the weekends. Went to this place based on India Today’s Simply Bangalore recommendation for authentic regional cuisine (Rajasthani)– and well, I am not so impressed.

The décor here is very functional. The downstairs area has sweets, chaats and a ton of quick eats while the upstairs consists of the sit-down restaurant section. The décor in the restaurant reminded me of Indian restaurants in the US – the $6.99 buffet in places with names like Taj something or Taste of some city in India. Pink and green muslin curtains separated the hookah (yes, they have hookahs available – though I did not see anyone ask for it) section from the dining area and Rajasthani handicrafts with mirrors hung from the ceiling. Artificial plants placed strategically in corners finished the picture – sort of a North Indian Shanti Sagar!

We decided to order the Rajasthani thali. Priced at Rs.105, it comes with three varities of rotis/breads – the bajra and makai rotis and the bafla batis. The sides included gatte ke saag, qwarfali ka saag and dal. Also some kichri, papad, garlic chutney and very delicious mango pickle (thums up – I wanted to buy a bottle of it). All the rotis were so so dry – it was like eating a meal in a desert and thankfully the buttermilk that came with the thali saved the day. Now, don’t tell me that Rajasthani food is supposed to taste like that – I have eaten authentic homemade Rajasthani food at my friends homes and in Rajasthani weddings as well as in restaurants – and while they use a lot of dried pulses and legumes in their cooking, you definitely are not left with a terribly parched throat and a compelling craving for a jug of liquid. The dal and vegetables were passable.

This restaurant is ok to visit if you are in the Koramangala area, but definitely not worth trekking to from other parts of the city. The service at Svad is excellent – the waiters were extremely courteous. Parking is available on the street. A meal for two will be approximately Rs.300.

Svad is located at 140, 60 Feet Main Road, 5th Block Koramangala, Bangalore, ph:25503267.

Naked Desserts

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Malini Suryanarayanan, a budding entrepreneur and baker, has launched an online business – Naked Desserts – to cater to chocolate-lovers in Traffic City. All you have to do is log on to www.nakeddesserts.com and place an order. It will be delivered to your doorstep or you can pick it up.

Currently, they have only seven items on their menu list – chocolate brownies, flourless chocolate cookies, chocolate chip cookies, strawberry squares, chocolate sampler box (a combo box with some of the above items), banana nut bread and date nut bread. I expect this list will grow as their clientele expands.

I wanted to order the brownies, a box of the flourless chocolate cookies and a loaf of each of the breads, but unfortunately Malini was leaving on vacation the next day. She said she could get me the brownies and the chocolate chip cookies and deliver it to my house the next day. And she did. The cookies were crisp and fresh – but I found them a bit too sweet. Good but not fantastic. The brownies, on the other hand, were awesome – chewy, moist, chocolatey and perfect!!

I am going to try out their other products – and will let you know. On the price front, I think they are really expensive – the cookies are, in any case. A pack of 13 of the brownies or the cookies cost Rs.125 each. Delivery charges were Rs.50 which I thought were reasonable considering she had to trek all the way to South Bangalore. I hope that with time, Malini is able to come up with more choices and more competitive prices.

Shake it up, baby!

Want to learn how to mix a martini or a Moscow Mule? Then head over to the Smirnoff Tastemaker Session where bartenders and mixologists will teach you how to make exotic cocktails and help you create your own as well! The event is on at Spinn, Residency Road.

Time: 3 pm – 6 pm on Saturday, January 20, 2007 (Mini Session)

11 am – 5 pm on Sunday, January 21, 2007

Rates: Saturday – Rs.500 per person

Sunday – Rs.900 per head. For groups of 4 or more – Rs.700 per head.

Make sure you call ahead to reserve – ph: 25581555, 25590901. Or you can log on to tulleeho and register.

Moscow Mule recipe (courtesy: Drinkboy)

• 2 ounces vodka
• 3 ounces ginger beer
• 1 ounce lime juice

Build in an ice filled highball glass (or copper mug). Garnish with a lime wedge.

Food from small town India

The January 15, 2007 issue of Outlook magazine features an ode to food from small town India. “From Karaikudi to Kohima, Bikaner to Burdwan”, an inside peek at specialties such as Almora’s baal-mithai, spicy sausages from the Mapusa Friday bazaar and Allahabad’s famous masala (or aloo-less) samosa, this issue is a food-lover’s delight and brought back memories of the best coffee I ever had from a roadside stall in Coorg, Ceylon parotas from a little cart in Chettinad and fluffy dosas from Mylari in Mysore (at that time, Mysore was a small town).

Happy Sankranthi/Pongal!