High Note, Indiranagar

We were looking for a nice restaurant with a good ambiance since a couple of friends wanted to catch up, hang out and have a good time. I have not been in touch with the Indiranagar restaurant scene ever since my work place moved out of Jeevanbima Nagar, so when one of my friends suggested High Note, I was quite excited.

The restaurant has an amazing ambiance, it is located on the third floor and is open on all sides, so you get a good view and the whole place generally feels open, airy and nice. They have a bar on the 2nd floor I think.

The cocktails menu is huge, though I settled for a mocktail, quite forgotten the name but it was something with a lot of watermelon, was quite good and most importantly reasonably priced (Rs 125).

The starters menu is also huge (veg/nonveg). Chilly baby corn that I had yesterday is easily almost the best ever I have had, it was hot, spicy and crispy with real green chillies and not just capsicum! I absolutely loved it, and this is a must try for anyone who visits the place. Paneer Tikka was decent, nothing out of the world but quite good, importantly, the paneer quality was very good. Then, we also had a Hummus kind of appetizer and dip, that was...well...interesting, but I'll stick to the baby corn, thank you!

For the main course, you have Indian, Contienental, Thai, Chinese..., we ordered the vegetable stewed rice and chinese hakka noodles. The stewed rice is basically steamed rice with lots of veggies like broccoli etc which am not too fond of. I dont go to a restaurant to slim down, the gym is meant for that :-)
The noodles was very good, and I liked it a lot, not sure if the stewed rice made me like the noodles all the more, but the noodles was actually nice. We had also ordered another 'healthy' vegetable, which was okay (again, not a fan of healthy food).
Considering how good the chilly baby corn was, am sure the North Indian stuff might have been very promising, thats for next time.(note, there will be a next time => good restaurant!)

For desserts, I had sticky toffee with vanilla ice cream, was very good. I simply loved the toffee part, desserts are priced around Rs 100. My friends had rabdi, chocolate mousse and all of them were quite good.

Overall, definitely a good restaurant, wide variety of choices in terms of cuisine and a huge menu, great ambiance, somewhat decently priced. Average works out to be 500 per head without any serious drinking.

Location: Indiranagar 100 feet road, opposite to East Cultural Association(opp footpath), 3rd floor. It is near the 10th main I think.

Dosa Express is closed!

I'd written about this place called Dosa express some months back, well, it did not last!!! The competition in this part of town for South Indian food, that too dosas is unbelievable, it is like being a wildebeest calf amidst a pack of hungry lions in the Serengeti.

Check out who else is in the somewhat close neighborhood:
MTR, Maiya's, Vidyarthi Bhavan, Upahara Darshini(the original darshini), Aditya Veg, Dwarka, Ganesh Darshan, the cart near Sri Rama temple near Madhavan park...

If any wannabe entrepreneur wants to open a dosa eating joint in our neighborhood, he/she has to be confident of taking on all these people, no easy task!

Since am not one of them, I am happy to be in this neighborhood, eating at all these places :)

Vada Pav in JP Nagar

Earlier this week, we had left office early planning to return by BMTC Volvo bus and as we neared the Jayanagar 5th block stop on inner ring road, Satish asked us if we were interested in eating vada pav. I have not eaten particularly good ones in Bangalore, and hearing so many praises of this street side eatery, I was naturally drawn to it.

As you go from Jayanagar 5th block Raghavendra swamy matha/temple towards JP Nagar(SSMRV), take a left turn after Mayura bakery, go down a hundred feet and so, and in the evenings, you should see a big crowd around a small push cart named "Jhakaas Pav Bhaaji"!!! This was it! There is a vacant site where one can sit on plastic chairs, so its quite luxurious for a push cart :)

We had to wait a good 30 min since he was still setting up the stuff as it was quite early in the evening, say 5:30pm. The first order was vada pav ofcourse!!! This is easily the best I have tasted thus far in Bangalore (admittedly not tasted many), but I usually know good food when I eat it, and this is really good. Not too spicy, but just a tad more than required spicy so that the tingling taste remains...hot hot vadas, straight from the tava into the pav, and this is really good.

We then had a pav bhaaji, I was torn between whether to eat a second vada pav or get a pav bhaaji, since it was my first time there, I wanted to sample as many dishes as possible. Pav Bhaaji was also very good, but the vada pav was a hard act to follow. For some reason, I hate it when I get pieces of cinnamon when I eat, and the bhaaji was full of that...no complaints though since the taste was quite good.

Am not sure what else is available, I do plan to check it out again sometime soon. It is mainly a vada pav place, it is really good, and is definitely worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood. Three of us had a vada pav and pav bhaaji each, and it cost us Rs 140 or so, which is not bad.

Directions: From inner ring road, J'nagar 5th block Raghavendraswamy temple, go towards JP Nagar and take the left after Mayura bakery, go down for a hundred feet and you will find the push cart in the evenings (6pm onwards).

Must eat: Vada Pav definitely!

Cost: Not more than Rs 50 per head no matter what you eat.

Dosa Express

Last week, while returning from office, we wanted to eat the usual masala puri but forgot at the moment we were passing Madhavan park...turning back in that peak traffic is out of question...that is when Ravi suggested we try out the "new" place Dosa Express.
It looks like a hep south Indian darshini (standing and eating, yes). They have about 10-12 varieties of dosas on the menu, but on that day, 5-6 were available. Some dosas available include Mysore Masala, Open, Palak, Vegetable, Khali/Plain, etc. I tried the Mysore Masala, the dosa was very nicely done, golden brown to perfection, crisp on the outside, soft and thick on the inside, just as a masala dosa should be! The difference compared to ordinary masala dosa was that the chutney inside was not red, not sure what chutney was smeared on the dosa, but it sure did taste good! Coconut chutney and some other chutney are the accompaniments, no sambar!
Since the mysore masala dosa was good, I tried an open dosa as well..this is a thicker than normal dosa on which they sprinkle chutney powder liberally, and then serve it with a dollop of butter, potato curry and the two chutneys...this is spicy and nice. I tasted the palak dosa which Chethan had ordered, it was good...I got vegetable dosa packed for my parents, it was decent as well(best veg dosa to date is at the Outpost, Marathahalli).

Idli, khara bath and other snacks are available there. The coffee was really good...not had this good coffee outside of India Coffee House, strong, really strong!

The dosas are priced around Rs 18-30, considering the hygiene, ghee, etc, it is worth it. Since it is located on Patalamma temple street(the road joining Armugam circle/Gunasheela Nursing home/Krishna Rao park to South End Circle), parking etc is not a problem.

Overall, if we consider CTR, Vidyarthi Bhavan as an 8-8.5 on 10, I will give this place a 6.5-7. It is a very good place but would like to see how he maintains the initial josh over time. Definitely worth a visit...especially for a change, considering the extremely convenient location.

Higher Taste

When I was offered chakli, kodbale and nippattu at Sesha's place which he very highly rated, I was eager and curious to see what it was about them that Sesha was praising them so much. These were bought from Higher Taste, the ISKCON shop in Jayanagar 4th Block.

These are really great, the moment I tasted them, I was hooked! The nippattu and small kodbale were particularly good., the difference with all other equally wonderful nippattu and kodbale was that the color was greenish, they had probably added ground green chillis to it, it gave a nice spicy kick to the whole thing!

Samsoa chaat, etc is supposedly good as well. I had chaats at Bangalore ISKCON, and they were really good...dont know how they had substituted the non-saatvic ingredients so well...
Pastries supposedly are very delicious..each costing upwards of Rs 45 per piece. And the added attraction for lot of people is that all the food there is strictly saatvic! It does not matter to me personally...but there are people who are fussy about such things, and for them, it is a God-send.

I need to go and check out the place myself, but my first impression of eating the kodbale and nippattu has been so good that I want to go see the place asap. I have been warned that it is really expensive, but then my logic is that if you are ready to pay Rs 80 for a coke at a movie, how can you crib about paying for any 'real' food item?

Subbammana Angadi (Subbamma's shop)

Subbammana angadi (means shop in Kannada) is an iconic landmark in Gandhi Bazar, Basavanagudi. The official name of the place is something else, no one ever refers to it by its official name, its always Subbammana Angadi (Subbamma's shop).

This place is a treasure trove when it comes to South Indian traditional eatables. Be it holige, obbattu, sanDige, koDbaLe,etc or festival specials like sakkare acchu, antina unDe, etc, this is the place!
I started going to this place a couple of years back when we started trekking seriously, the holige is an excellent eatable to carry on a trek, it is tasty, has good calories content and is not messy, and when it is from this place, it becomes a favorite among the gang. There are several varieties of hoLige, the first classification is based on the filling/stuffing, jaggery/gram (hurNa), coconut (obbattu) and sugar (sakkre hoLige). For each of these varieties you get different levels of sweetness, very sweet and normal. The very sweet one is the way to go! This has more stuffing and hence is tastier...

Another thing that is very good there is the khara stuff like chakkli, koDbaLe, etc. All kinds of pickles are also available, powders that go with rice etc are popular. This place is full of people who are getting kgs of stuff packed for the US, etc.

Chutney puDi is available in several varieties and the sweet one is simply out of this world!
Sandige of all kinds are available, and are pretty good.

All in all, it is an excellent place to check out if you have not seen it already...be warned that its more of a place where you can buy lots of traditional good-to-eat stuff/condiments rather than a restaurant kind of place.

Location: HB Samaja road, Near Gandhi Bazar circle, Basavanagudi

Badam burfi from VB Bakery

Just terrific, if I had just two words to describe them. The best ever badam burfi, the conventional ones I had tasted were from Bombay Tiffanys in Mysore, and the best badam halwa, needless to say was at MTR.

The VB bakery badam burfi is different from the ones you get in normal sweet shops like AAB, Asha Sweets, etc. It is made differently, with some kind of a base flour(not sure, it tastes like that) unlike those shops where it is just badam and sugar. This actually tastes better, or so I feel currently. They are quite filling and are sprinkled with dry fruits like grated pistas etc on top.

The badam burfi itself is very very nice, and is quite expensive...last I heard some years back, it was approx Rs 10 per piece I think. It is available in Butter Sponge on Vani Vilas road in addition to VB Bakery on Sajjan Rao Circle, VV Puram.

While at Butter Sponge, try out the kodbale and avalakki, both are extremely good.