Jalsa Junoon

A couple of weeks back, we had an official lunch at Jalsa, a Mughal kind of theme restaurant on outer ring road about 1-2kms from Marathalli bridge towards KR Puram. I was excited to go there since I had heard good things about the place from people and it appeared to be a really fancy place. Entering the place, I felt as if I had entered some Mughal era monument in Agra or some such place. The ambiance is quite different and very pleasant.

It was supposed to be a working lunch, but did not turn out so! People ate with total abandon and it was the fantastic food there which made people just let go and enjoy whats on offer!

Official lunch, so no alcohol. The non-alcoholic drinks seemed good as well, but we skipped it. Since we were a party of 15, the lunch had been 'pre-ordered' for us, which in a way was welcome. I am sick of eating my own choices, so its nice to have someone else order for me.

We started with Tomato Dhaniya shorba which was nice. There was a green salad ordered, am not that great a fan of salads unless am traveling and there is precious little to eat.
Among starters, Chatpati Gobi Mirch stood out, it was quite spicy and nice without it being the ubiquitous Gobi Manchuri! Paneer tikka was nice, very soft and fresh paneer with mint chutney. The third starter was a veg sheekh kabab, probably the Lahori Sabzi Seekh Kabab, this was also very good. Starters get full marks from me, they cost somewhere in the range Rs 175-250. Non veg starters were reportedly great, and sea food platters are supposedly out of this world.

Main course vegetarian dishes we tried were fried okra which was quite good, some bhutta palak methi which was a combination of corn, palak which I simply loved, paneer kurma was delicious, somewhat sweet but very good nonetheless, sabzi miloni handi which was mixed vegetables cooked in garlic flavored spinach gravy...this probably was the pick of them all. If you love spinach/palak, you're going to love this place. The curries cost around 175-250 as well. The portions are reasonably generous.My friend Muninder gave the thumbs up to all the non veg food saying it was extremely good.
Butter naans, tandoori rotis, lachha parathas and kulchas formed the bread and we were all set to eat!!! I thoroughly enjoyed all the food and ate like there was no tomorrow. It is that sort of a place, makes you feel very relaxed and comfortable. The weather was very pleasant that day as well.

When I was all done, they brought veg biriyani which looked extremely tempting, I usually dont like rice items, leave alone biriyani, but I had to try this. It was out of this world, the spice, the flavours, so subtle, so nice...you should try this, whether or not you are a biriyani fan.

Food really is terrific, starters as well as the main course are extremely good.
The menu is somewhat compact in that all the cuisines in the world(read Indian chinese) are not present, but who cares! This is after all a specialty kind of restaurant and what they have is simply fantastic!!!
For desserts, we had kulfi which was very very good. But then, considering the price,Bowring institute stall is still the king of kulfis, the kulfi there tastes as good as this but costs Rs 15!!!! But apart from Bowring Instt kulfi, this is easily the 2nd best I have ever eaten in Bangalore.

Since it was an official lunch, I have no idea of what the bill was :-)
My guess would be that it would be around Rs 500 per head without alcoholic drinks. This is on the upper side, but considering the offering, I feel it is okay.

I would definitely visit the place again given a chance and will wholeheartedly recommend it to friends, family and anyone else who cares to listen!

URL: http://jalsa.co.in/Home.php
Location: Near Doddanekundi, as you drive on the ORR from Sarjapur side to KR Puram, after you cross Marathahalli bridge, you see this after 2-3km on the left side.