All posts tagged: VFM

What’s for lunch? – EatFresh (Bangalore)

Online ordering portals that promise a great, well packaged meal, for a competitive price are a dime a dozen these days. The food startup business has spawned many me-too’s and has given an already lazy populace more excuses to stop cooking and just order in. If earlier the fear of preservatives, MSG and unhealthy food deterred most people from ordering in, the current trend of food startups offering Fresh, Homemade, Healthy meals is changed that paradigm. EatFresh seems to have taken a page (or two) out of its immediate competitor’s business model and hopes to get a leg up by offering meals cooked by a network of five-star chefs with an emphasis on Indian Cuisine.

Grab your forks – DineFest debuts in Bangalore this February

Curated three course dining experiences at a fraction of the a la carte rates across 10 exciting restaurants in Bangalore – now we’re talking! Taking off on the popular concept of Restaurant Week and Chef’s Table Week by its parent group, DineFest hopes to open up gourmet experiences to a wider audience. You won’t find the usual suspects here and that’s what makes it interesting. At INR 500++ per person, I hardly feel the need to elaborate on the deal!

Meet, Eat, Drink – Cafe Mezzuna

For those of you who walked by Oh! Calcutta, on St.Marks Road and wondered where it went – Café Mezzuna has taken the spot. The much loved Bengali restaurant has moved to the same building that houses Mainland China on Church Street. Café Mezzuna is the youngest brand of the Specialty Restaurants Ltd. The third in line, after Pune and Kolkata, Café Mezzuna brings Mediterranean Flavous and wholesome food at honest-to-goodness prices to Bangalore. The all-day dining restaurant also offers an extensive bar menu. When you get a pint of Kingfisher at INR 110 and a Long Island Ice Tea at INR 295, it’s time to get the party started.

Weekday Hunger Pangs @ Dalma

My blog might be replete with posts of eating out at fancy places but trust me that’s restricted to once or twice a week. The rest of the times (ok, I do eat out a lot) are confined to no-frills places with simple but satisfying meals. A restaurant that sees me going back a couple of times every month, ever since I moved to Koramangala, is the Odiya restaurant called Dalma. I was first introduced to the secrets of this place by an Odiya colleague who insisted I try their absolutely scrumptious Rasagullas. After listening to (in length) the story of how the rosagulla actually originated in Odisha and how the Bengali’s usurped this sweet, made it whiter and more spongy and popularized it as their own, I was more than intrigued to taste the original one. And so one fine day, a couple of years ago I stepped into the building at the Titan Eye signal that declares in bold red font – Dalma, tasteful Odishan cuisine. Orissa and West Bengal are located next …

Breakfast and Gossip @ Church Street Social

I hate having to get up at unearthly hours on a weekend (10 AM of course) to catch breakfast at a decent joint. Church Street Social serves Breakfast throughout the day. That’s reason enough for me to like them. I also like their industrial design, quirky prints, funky trays and fun drinks, but we’re not focusing on that today. We are paying homage to bacon and sausages and pancakes and eggs and French toast and sugar and spice and everything nice. Just like God intended. Word. They don’t have valet parking in the morning, but they also don’t have the mad crowds that throng this place every hour of the day post 12 PM. So you win some and you lose some. Shimmy in and you have a variety of seating options. I always like the big tables next to the windows, although if it’s just two of you, the leather couches are way more comfortable. The menu is a newspaper style roll shoved casually in a box made of wooden rulers with a toilet …

There’s a Dragon in your Cafe – Coffee on Canvas (ST Bed Layout, Koramangala)

Prost is not open at 10 AM in the morning, apparently. So we walked across the street to Coffee On Canvas. This was not my first visit to the place and the last one did not go down well with my finicky friend. The Toast, you see, was not warm and the Honey Chilli Chicken acted all dicey and only spicy with me – so there goes. So my second visit was more out of circumstance than choice. But the dragon turned it around and so I decided to sing.   The last visit was at night and I must say mornings compliment this place a lot more. Airy and filled with light, the potted plants and creeping vines give the impression of a large, fun balcony in an old friends house. And then there is the Dragon. You don’t notice him at first – sly and shy that he is, hiding behind the windmill bookcase. And then you notice a tail, then a claw and then finally his face. I think I have a …

Surprise at Linx (Premier Inn, Whitefield, Bangalore)

I work in Whitefield. And I can’t wait to get away from it and rush home for dinner. So it goes without saying, that the only places I’ve tried in Whitefield are lunchtime escapades. Even lunch is generally in my office food-court, except for those Friday team lunch days where we venture out into the vicinity, to check out the overpriced, overrated buffets that most restaurants offer! Me heading out to Premier Inn, for a Friday night dinner, surprised most of my colleagues. But I have to admit, that the person most surprised at the end of the meal was me! Honest, down-to-earth good food at a great price point. Can’t really fault that now can we? I was supposed to meet the CaL table members at 7:30 pm at Linx – their multi cuisine restaurant. My office is exactly 1.5 km away. So even calculating the worst possible traffic jam, I estimated 15 mins to get there. It’s amazing how the universe conspired against me – It took me half hour to get there! …