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Saturday, 8 October 2011

Bristo's @ Lunkad Skymax mall, Viman Nagar

Bristo's is a small restaurant located in Skymax mall in Viman Nagar. You get primarily Chinese and Indian food here. There are also a couple of Goan dishes.

[Ambience]
The restaurant is rather small and looks more like a snack joint.
Half the restaurant is enclosed and the other half is 2 sides open, like a terrace, with about waist height( 4 ft) glass and railings.
I would suggest sitting in the enclosed section as the outside section is only 100 feet away from the road and the traffic noise can be a bit disturbing.
On the particular day that I went, there was a Durga pooja procession passing with loud blaring music and alot of fire crackers. Painful. I had to relocate to the enclosed section.
The chairs and tables were of very light wood and would move with the slightest amount of force.

The restaurant does not have it's own washroom. You have to use the common washroom of the mall.


[Dinner]

-- Manchow soup - Not spicy like it is generally made in most restaurants. Crispy noodles should have been separate and not already mixed into the soup.Not bad overall but not the way it should be. Enjoyable even then.

-- Chicken starter goan style - Very spicy. Very oily. It burnt my oesophagus on the way down. I can;t say this was good. It also had too much turmeric in it. I am pretty sure this was not goan style. The chicken pieces in it were a bit chewy. I suggest you avoid this one.

-- Chicken Kheema - Nice and tasty, but also very oily. Not sure why everything they made so oily!?

-- Chicken Biryani - The biryani was the minty flavour type of biryani. There needed to be more chicken pieces and also the pieces needed to be a bit softer.

-- Onion Naan - This one was rather buttery. Something about the stuffed onions was not great. I can't put my finger on it. It is not bad, just a little different.

[Pricing]

Chicken Manchow Soup - Rs. 80.
Chicken Chilli - Rs. 110.
Chicken Kheema - Rs. 110.
Onion Naan - Rs. 40.
Naan Plain - Rs. 15.
Chicken Biryani - Rs. 130.
Soft drink - Rs. 20.
Total :- Rs. 595.

Above meal was shared between 3 people.

All prices inclusive of taxes. All prices are per unit of order.
Not an expensive place. Some improvements in preparation is required.

The dishes that I have mentioned as very oily, you should think before ordering.
Please feel free to leave a comment / feedback!


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Thursday, 6 October 2011

Arthur's theme @ Koregaon park, lane 6

Arthur's Theme is a nice small French food restaurant in Koregaon park.
I quite liked this place. You get only continental/French food over here. How authentic is the French food? Good question. I have no comparison at the moment.
But none the less, you will not be disappointed here.

[Ambience / Experience]
Arthur's Theme is a small restaurant with not many tables (I did however notice there was a "downstairs" basement like section but did not actually see it, so all in all it is a nice cozy place. It usually is not very crowded which is very good at times when you want to have a nice quiet dinner. This works for you when are on a date.

Where you sit is rather important because  the placements of the large standing air conditioners  can give a direct jet blast to your face.
You can of course just ask the staff to also switch it off or point it away.
There is very little parking available at the restaurant so one needs to find parking in the lane which it is located in. That is not usually too difficult. The restaurant itself has parking for one car and 3 two-wheelers.

All the served dishes have the name of a past King/Queen/Royalty of some sort.

Service time is pretty standard, not surprisingly fast and not slow.

[Dinner]

All main course dishes are standalone dishes.
1) Leopold II. Soup -- This is a clear non-veg chicken soup. I was expecting a little better. It was more like boiled water, with boiled carrots, cauliflower and chicken. I was was not too impressed.

2) Cleopatra - A chicken starter. A piece of chicken cube on a stick stacked on a square piece of bread. I liked this but I found the flavouring to be not string enough. What would happen is that the bread and the chicken piece would dilute out the coated flavouring. A slight improvement here would make this have a great taste.

3) Herbed rice - Nicely herbed rice. So good that I liked eating it without any gravy as well.

4) Markus - A large patti of fillet of fish with a light brown cheesy sauce dressed all over the patti, with three pieces of smokes vegetables and accompanied by mashed potato. This was awesome. The best dish that night. I usually do not like fish because of the smell but when the fillet is this good, it really makes me feel good. The only issue with the dish was that after eating it for a while, the taste felt more sweet. Recommended none the less.

5) Heidi -  Chicken breasts with a brown sauce (and a bit of mustard) with french fries. Nice. Me is not a fan of mustard sauce at all but this dish is till good. Second best dish that night

6) William III  - Chicken breasts in a brown sauce with vegetables. A more detailed description escapes me at the moment. Okay tasting. What I liked was that sometimes, restaurants make the same brown sauce for more than one dish with just a minor difference, and thus two different dishes with brown sauces almost end up tasting the same; this was not the case here.

[Pricing]

1) Coke - Rs. 40
2) Cleopatra - Rs. 180
3) Heidi - Rs. 290
4) Leopold II - Rs. 160 (expensive for soup!)
5) Markus - Rs. 300
6) William II - Rs. 300
7) Herbed rice - Rs. 125

A nice place to go for Continental and on a date.

[Inside Scoop]
I have found out from unofficial, inside sources of the way Arthur's Theme source their fishes. Details are a bit scarce.
Arthur's theme apparently source their fish from an importer who imports them from Vietnam. I am working to get more details.


Dishes I have made a mental note of to try next time are, Czar and Alexander the great.

Their website here [Not loading properly when I tried last].


Address : Shop No. 2, Vrindavan Apartment, Lane No. 6, North Main Road, Koregaon Park, Pune 
Telephone :  020-26152710, 020-66032710 
Timings : 11:30 AM to 3:30 PM, 7 PM to 11:30 PM 


Alternate reviews at Zomato.com


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Guru Nanak dairy and sweets @ Kalyani nagar

One of THE WORST sweet marts and places for pani puri, kachori, dhokla and samosa that I have ever been to in my life.


I also had paani-puri there. I went around 7:30-8:00 pm, a time at which the paani-puri was almost over, but instead of not selling me any paani-puri, what they did was water down the paani, so much so that it did tasted like water and almost no flavour.

I do not know if they realise this, but this is called food adultery and cheating.

Up next was the Kachori. Also one the worst kachori's I have had in my life time.

Lastly, we bought about 250 grams of Gulab Jamun from them, the sugar coated kind.
One of the Gulab Jamuns had a strand of hair in them.

What annoys me even more is that the lady at the counter is completely arrogant.
So arrogant that she completely flares your  temper.

I seriously don't know how they plan to survive as a business with this kind of service, arrogance, ignorance, and violations of the law.

Go there at your own peril!


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Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Barbeque Nation @ Nagar road

If you are planning to go to Barbeque Nation on Nagar road for dinner, I suggest that you stop reading this, phone ahead to make a booking and plan on reaching there.

I went there recently and had quite a pleasurable evening.

This one is a long one so be prepared to read.

[Ambience / Experience ]
The restaurant is well decorated like most other restaurants in the same league. It is quite well and brightly lit; I mean that in a good way.

All the tables have a cavity at the center of the table where a mini-barbeque grill with fresh embers of coal are placed. Your barbeque skewers are placed on top of these mini-barbeques. There is a small brass-rod like stand with a joint half way up it's length and a flag on top. When you would like them to stop serving starters, the flag needs to be turned down, until which time they would keep serving you starters.

Also on the table are two groups of 3 sauces each. There are flavoured sauces, some sweet some a bit ketchup like, and to apply the sauces, brushes are provided for one group and spoons for the other group, which has thicker sauces.

I went in the week when they had their 3rd year anniversary, so, there was even more decoration around the place, mainly balloons.

The restaurant is divided into two halves, the separator is a rectangle which encloses the kitchen. On the longer side of the rectangle are the two buffet counters and on the shorter side is the Bar.

The waiters are pretty good and courteous too. Every waiter is dressed in a black T-shirt and has his/her name on the back. (One guy's name is Sudan! Reminds me of Africa).

For entertainment there is a live band too. They were pretty good. Two guys playing the guitars, one electric the other one acoustic, and singing slow soft English numbers. Not that I am a fan of pop music (Ronan Keating and the like, I like Metal/Heavy Metal & METALLICA), but these guys made it enjoyable. They were just the right volume and not disturbing at all, in fact enjoyable. (Some day I hope to be good enough at the guitar to play in  Barbeque Nation!). Kudos to them

Some time later, the waiters put up a dance show for all the customers. I am not sure if this is a regular feature or was a special feature for the anniversary week.  None-the-less, they danced pretty well, some good steps,  some slightly girlie, but delightful to watch. So much so that I was compelled to watch and video shoot the second performance! The second performance was for the second half of the restaurant as both halves can almost not see each other.

One potential disappointment was that the speakers in the exterior half of the restaurant were not working. If I had sat in this section and later found out I missed hearing the live band, I would have been very, very disappointed. I hope they fix this soon.

A new feature in Barbeque Nation, something I have only seen on t.v. on the travel and living channel and no other restaurant in Pune, was a dude, wearing a cowboy hat, carrying a neck hanging tray filled with shot glasses and walking around to make people have Tequila shots. A nice touch for people who would like to have shots and also a smart way to rake up the cash too.

On the table were these table mat sized print outs which mentioned that the bill included a 4% service charge and that waiters were not to be tipped, and any waiter that accepted tips would be discharged of duty. Now the reason I like this is because they mention it clearly up front, not leaving you at the end to decide how much to tip. I am also not a big fan of the tipping system ( maybe someday I will mention why).

The place was rather crowded, and always is very crowded, so, please always go there as early as possible, or you may have to wait a while to be seated. The wait time can be killer. Ideally reach there by 7:00 - 7:15.


[Dinner]
The food at  Barbeque Nation is really good. In fact the variety and the range of dishes is phenomenal. There are a few small disappointments but nothing enough to put you off completely or not enjoy the evening.
It was impossible for me try all of the served dishes. So, I will list down the entire menu for that night and then mention a small note against the things which I actually had, leaving others with no note against them.

Their menu changes weekly, so by the time you read this, the menu may have changed.

One thing to remember: their starters are so good that you might actually end up eating too many starters and then end up having very little main course and very little dessert. It might make sense to go planning to have starters and desserts only! The desserts are unmissable.

Barbeque grilled starters on the table:
Veg.
-- Schezwan grill veg.- I can't seem to remember even seeing this!.
-- Paneer kali mirch - Okay I have had better Paneer at Cream Centre.
-- Italian mushroom - Avoid this one. I did not like it and found the mushrooms to have a weird taste.
-- Falafal with Humus - If you like middle easter food then you will definitely like this one.
-- Cajun spiced potato -  This was really good. A bit tough and crispy. Just the way it should be.

Non-Veg.
-- Coastal BBQ chicken - I was not thoroughly impressed with this one.
-- Parsley Fish - I am not a big fan of fish, especially if it has the strong fish odour, but this starter is really very good. a must have. The fish was soft and did not smelly fishy!
-- Chilly Garlic Prawns - This was a bit of  a disappointment. Medium sized tandoori prawns. Room for improvement.
-- Mutton Hyderabadi seekh Kebab - Good.
-- Angara Tangdi - Foil wrapped tender tandoori chicken drumstick with pepper corns. Yummy. Do not miss this one.

MAIN COURSE :-

Soups
Spicy coriander Veg. soup.
Chicken sweet corn soup.

Non-Veg
Kadhai Murgh
Fish in Oyster sauce
Achari Gosht
Chicken Dum biryani

Veg.
Paneer Lababdar
Corn Palak
Aloo Capsicum dry
Butter Chilli noodles
Plain rice
Veg Biryani
Veg, in hot basil sauce
Dal Tadka
Dal makahani
Baby corn mushroom matter masala

Desserts
Ras malai - Nice. Not very praise worthy since my moms makes 'em better.
Vanilla ice cream
Angoori Gulab jamun - WAY TOO sweet. My teeth tingling just thinking about it again.
Fresh fruits
Apple Strudle
Italian coffee mousse - Very nice coffee flavoured mousse.
Double chocolate slice
Butter scotch pastry - Awesome, brilliant. A must have . Perfect right amount of sweet.

THAT IS ALOT OF FOOD!!!

I would suggest you go over as soon as possible, for dinner rather than lunch.

[Price]

Rs. 649 - Non veg.
Rs. 549 Veg.

Well worth it, especially for the sheer variety and the fact that it is unlimited.


There is a  Barbeque Nation at the Sayaji hotel in Wakad as well. I have found that the Nagar road one is better than the Sayaji hotel outlet.

Overall my verdict is the  Barbeque Nation is well worth it.

Barbeque Nation website
Address:  Solitaire Building, Behind Dass Showroom, 
                 Nagar road, near Kalyani Nagar, Yerawada ,  
                 in line with Near Aga Khan Palace, Pune                
Phone number :  +91-20-32327788, +91-20-32327799.
Timings : 12:30 PM to 3:15 PM, 5 PM to 11:15 PM

 Feel free to drop me a line, or leave a comment of your experience at  Barbeque Nation
Have a great evening.


Alternate reviews at Zomato.com



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Sunday, 2 October 2011

Home delivery from any restaurant

I just recently came across this website called Yum King.
They take your order based on your location and delivery feasibility. They show you entire menu options.
You can then order your food online and they deliver it to your doorstep after picking it up from the restaurant that you choose.

Pretty neat idea. There used to be a similar service in Pune years ago called dial-a-meal.

If you have tried Yum King, please let me know how your experience was in the comments section.
I will review it soon enough and link to it.

Email:  team@yumking.com
Contact Number: 020-2446 2447
Timings : 11 am to 11 pm.

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