Buraq - Sasthamangalam - Trivandrum

Buraq serves Mappilla cuisine. Mappilla cuisine is typically cuisine influenced by the Muslims of Kerala (North Kerala).

The decor is very basic and has a number of 4 seater tables. It has both A/c and non A/c Sections. The service is pretty poor as is to expected in a small 50 seater restaurant like this.

However, the food is quite tasty. I would say, the signature dish is the pathiri (rice pancake) with any beef gravy.

Meal for two would come to around INR 175 in the non A/C section and around 50% more in the A/c section.

Definitely worth a try!

National Lodge - Sowcarpet - Chennai

Walking through the busy streets of Sowcarpet, Parrys, you reach a nondescript three storey building with an equally nondescript name board.

On entering, you are surrounded by people waiting in queue for a table to be seated. There is both A/C and Non A/c seating available.

Signature food is the meals they serve for lunch. It is a typical vegetarian, Andhra meals.

For less than INR 50/- the meals is really worth it. Starts off with lentil powder (parupu podi) and sour greens pickle (gongura) with rice and ghee. There are three other gravies to mix with rice, including rasam, sambar and mor kolumbu (majjiga pulusu). Thre are papads (appalam), dried chilli(mor molaga vathal) and a couple of dry veg side dishes. To complete the fare there is curd, butter milk and a sweet.

Reco - Must Visit (especially if you like South Indian Veg fare, even otherwise try it out, you'll like it!)

Aromas of China, Eva Mall, Bangalore

The ambience is pleasant with a classy setting. There is a rooftop outdoor and an indoor air conditioned area.

The alcohol is a tad expensive as in any 5 star restaurant - with a pint @ 130 and a small whisky @ around 150.

Food is great - I had a roast mutton in pepper sauce with pot boiled veg rice and a lemongrass spicy soup - all were very tasty - especially the mutton dish which had thin slices of roasted mutton in black pepper sauce. Hot date pancake with vanilla icecream was also very tasty - only problem was that the pancake was a very small portion.

Service was great!

Meal for 2 with a drink to accompany the food would come to around INR 1600

One of the better Chinese restaurants in Bangalore

Hot Wok - IndiraNagar - Bangalore

This place serves Chinese cuisine. The menu was impressive and the waiters polite and the ambience was also quite pleasant.

I ordered some dumplings (dim sum), a fried rice and a side dish. 

The dimsums, being starters, were served in a bamboo basket.  Lo and behold, was I surprised to see small cockroaches crawling out of the basket. 

It was a Friday night and I was in no mood to spoil the evening. I just cancelled the order and left after showing the "little visitors" to the waiter and leaving the food entirely to them.

If I want to eat roaches, I'll order them myself!!!  

6 Ballygunge Place, Indiranagar, Bangalore

To start with, although we were told the place opens at 12.30pm, when we went there the waiters were being breifed by their captian and we were let in only after 12.50pm.

The batter fried pomfret that we had for starter had a rather thick batter..so much so that it had to be leterally broken before one could reach the fish.  The fish was tasty but the dish was a inconvenient due to the batter... probably, dipped in some cold batter that was kept in the fridge for ease of cooking.

The rohu in mustard gravy was also a let down..it seemed to be a fried piece of rohu put in some mustard gravy, made in bulk, just before serving, rather than being cooked in it.

The mutton dish had pieces that were very hard although it was tasty. Probably the mutton had not thawed enough!  Rubbery mutton in however tasty a gravy is unacceptable.

And to top it all, the manager or owner has his smokes in an airconditioned restaurant and reviews comments of guests..the smell of cigarettes not quite stirring the apetite.  Thank God for small mercies, now with a ban on smoking in restaurants, the guests who dare to eat in 6bally..would at least be spared the 'aroma' of cigarettes.

Avoidable!

Sterling Holiday Resorts, Munnar

This place really sucks...

I had been there between 3rd and 5th October, 2008.

The Room

The cot is a plain wooden cot with an ordinary 2 inch mattress.

There are no fans in the rooms...Thankfully the weather was great and did not require fans..but God help those who land up here during their summer vacations.

The Food

The food is horrible...there is a buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner...although my package included food vouchers that would cover most of my requirements for the day, I ended up going to Club Mahindra next door for some of my meals.  

The Service

Room Service...well they take their own sweet time to serve you.  Any number of reminders does not help.  Finally, when the food does manage to reach your room, what needs to be served hot is cold and vice versa.

If you call for a manager to sort out things in the evening (around 7.30pm), you are told that he would be available only the next day.  Neither does any one else bothers to attend to the problem, nor is the manager informed that some of the guests had a problem the previous night.

The pluses

1. The service @ the reception was good.

2. The view from the room was great, overlooking a valley and a water body.

3. We were not there in the room for most of the day and only landed back in the evenings when we wanted to rest.

4. It was a 2 nights, 3 days trip and nothing more!!!

Sunnys - Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore

Fantastic continental cuisine - entre', main course and desserts are all nice. The Norwegian Salmon dish was done to perfection.  The Baklava was like having it in a middle eastern restaurant.  It is one of the best European restaurants I have been to in India.  Drinks come expensive and a meal for 4 with a couple of drinks comes to around 6k.