Restaurant review: China Pearl

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(pic courtesy: link)

This cosy little restaurant is in 60 feet road, Koramangala, Bangalore. I had always seen this restaurant when I had passed by it, but had never been to it. One of my colleagues recently told me that, his family likes the restaurant so much that, they lug it all the way from Whitefield to her, once in a few months.

Ambience: Very nice ambience. Lots of Eastern relics in the decor. Swords. Chinese porcelain dolls. Oriental wall hangings etc. They could with some lesser focus lights – some times, these give you a headache. Music is passable chinese background music – nothing fancy.

Menu: Very clear. Something that pleased me immensely was a note at the bottom of the first page – “For our vegetarian patrons, please turn to page 7”. Most vegetarians are inherently skeptical of what they would get in a Chinese restaurant, since they have this predisposition that it would mostly be non vegetarians. So this note and a few pages of pure vegetarian menu goodness, was a welcome change.

Food: Fairly authentic. Slightly high on the oil, but tasty. We had the crispy fried vegetables, veg ball in Hunan sauce, and Five treasure chowmein. Noodles were hakka type, well cooked, but just the right amount. Quantity of the starter was generous.

Service: A restaurants acid test with respect to service, is how well they respond on a busy saturday night. It was saturday night, and huge crowds. Service was slow. It tends to irritate customers when it takes 10 minutes for the bill to come, and another 15 minutes to get back the change. One nice touch on the service, I should mention though. My kid (who is 4 year old) got his own kiddie melamine plate (cartoon characters and all), and a small plastic fork and spoon. That is a first that I have seen.

Cost: Overall damage was around 700 bucks. It is on the slightly pricier side, but it is worth it.

Overall: Enjoyed the meal and the ambience. Perhaps, if it was not a saturday night, and if service had been better, we would have enjoyed it even more.

 

Misc Majestic Photos – April 2014

WAM 4/6 Twins – lounging near PF-6 Majestic Station Bangalore.

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WAP4 Chilling near PF-8 – Majestic Station – Bangalore.

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Diesel Mania. Count the number of Diesel locomotives in this picture. Majestic Station. Bangalore.

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All images were shot using a Samsung Galaxy Grand and post processed using SnapSeed app. Common filters were drama and hdrscape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Restaurant Review: Mezzeh Lebanese Lounge

Location: Great location – 80 ft Road Indiranagar, Bangalore. Between spencers and BSNL.

Ambience:  This is the terrace. There is minimal ambience. Few nice tables on the terrace. Nothing fancy at all here.

Crowd: It looks like original restaurant (World Cuisine Network) has been bought over by someone else, and the whole place is under renovation. There used to be 3 restaurants here. Now only the Mezzeh place remains.We went on friday afternoon, and there was nobody, and when I say nobody, I mean it. The 6 of us in our team were the only people who were there in the restaurant.

Food: The food was pretty good. Fairly authentic in taste. The hummus was good. The Baba ghanoush was passable (but that was probably because I am not a big fan of brinjal). The sambousik was very good stuff. The falafel rolls were pretty good too. The baklava was not that good. The biggest problem was the portion size. They have super small size portions. I mean, the sambousik’s were gone in a minute. The hummus came with 2 pieces of pita bread. And when we asked for more, we were charged, and two more small pieces came !

Price: Too steep. Just not worth the small portions or the ambience.

Overall: The valet guy said that they are renovating and should open big again soon. My 2 cents – they retain the same chef/kitchen staff. They cut the prices and increase the portion sizes. Make the ambience a little more livelier. With the great location in Indiranagar, they could be doing great business.

[Zomato link]

99 Variety Dosa – Koramangala – Food Truck

Oh boy, this is good stuff. This is a food truck – an articulated auto. Good quality ingredients used (all amul stuff). We tried this on friday and last friday. Both experiences were very good. Tried different types of dosa. There are basically 4 different varieties – chinese base, pav bhaji base, potato base, and cheese base.

The chinese base has a smattering of chilli, garlic, and soya sauces. Some have cooked noodles and shredded cabbage tossed in.

The pav bhaji base has the pav bhaji masala as the base. A smattering of all kinds of vegetables, cheese and paneer are toppings based on your choice.

The potato base or the mysore masala as it is called has the traditional “aloo palya” base and a smattering of vegetables, cheese, or paneer as toppings based on your choice.

The cheese base has veggies and cheese. period. Each dosa with cheese in its name gets a grated cheese cube (oh yeah, one full cheese cube grated fully!).

All in all, good stuff. Do check this out. This is on the road that joins the NGV gate and the forum road – also called 80 ft road. When you head from the NGV gate, there are two positions that this food truck takes. It is either on the left, right outside the Laxmi Devi Park ; or further down the road on the right hand side right opposite to the Ganpati temple.

Worlds Best Masala Dosa – Part Deux

We covered the trip to CTR (Central Tiffin Rooms), Malleswaram and spoke about the Worlds Best Masala Dosa here. Now is the time to go behind the scenes. Watch how the Benne Masala Dosa is made at CTR. Kudos to the guy who was able to get permission and go inside the kitchen.

Health Alert: You might get increased cholesterol levels by just watching some parts of this video (such as around 2:40).

 

Birds eye view ~ MG Road ~ Bangalore

A few months ago, when I was fighting my ‘Duplicate Number Case’, I had to visit the Traffic Enforcement Center on the 13th floor of the Public Utility Building. From the elevator lobby of the 13th floor, there is a fantastic view of the MG Road area of Bangalore – also called the Central Business District.

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If you want to get your geographical bearings exactly right, this is where it is:


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