The Rogue Elephant Terrace Bistro - A hidden treasure in the shady glades of Koramangala's 4th block

I was researching a new dinner hotspot, someplace on the way home, where I could get my gastronomic fill of fine food, avoid a pretentious atmosphere, and most of all, have the experience be affordable. The Rogue Elephant Terrace Bistro really hit the spot, as I wrangled with my conscience about eating out the day after I had just visited the Olive Beach for A's birthday.

I guess I was trying to seek solace in the fact that finally I had come across a place where one could find bistro quality food, but not have it cartooned by poorly chosen ostentatious looking interiors, by restaurant owners who lacked good taste. The gigantic sized fountain, in the form of a natural waterfall at the bistro's entrance, looked lush and inviting, wooing me inside the premises. I entered what seemed like a craft store or gift shop, filled with ornamental water features. Two entrances to the actual "terrace" which served as the main dining room, were provided to guests visiting the restaurant.

Once seated, I began my light 3-course dinner with an appetizer of smoken salmon toasts with cream cheese and capers. Deliciously light and refreshing, proceeded to my second entree course from the restaurant's lauded specials list - the fish in lemon butter sauce, served with rice and freshly steamed veggies. The main dish was not at all overwhelming, and had just the right amount of sauce to go with the fish! The fish itself was succulent and hadn't dried out, a mistake most rookie chefs make, when they try and overimpress their hosts. The sweet ending to my meal came when I was presented the Rum Vahua - a special that the Rogue is apparently famous for, which is their dessert adaptation of a B52 shooter! All in all, a great meal, surrounded by a great ambience, decent selection of domestic wines and wine cocktails and for a change, pleasant and friendly customer service shown by their wait staff.

My debut visit was probably the best I had had. Each subsequent visit made, tended to render dining experiences that were a bit tired, with the food impressing me less and less. I would still go back here though, if I were in the area and would probably stick to their classic recommended entrees: the fish (as described above), the smoked salmon crostinis, the fig and pannacotta salad (really yummy and light salad) and of course, their Rum Vahua, paired with a glass of sparkling sula!

[This post was originally started almost 9 months before the time of its posting! The latter part of the post reflects my present opinion of the RETB and the former two paragraphs, my past opinion and experience]

How to be good at food and not break the bank...

My sister and I were conversing about some of the restaurants we had sampled recently, and she kept going on and on about how she did not like to indulge herself on expensive and out-of-reach gastronomical adventures. I felt pity for her, rather than despair, and realized that for some people, eating out at some of the finest restaurants the city has to offer, is not that important.

Further, our discussion led to the subject of food education and how one can keep ahead of the latest food trends, culinary offerings, and most of all, new restaurants/cafes/bars and other exotic food locales to frequent. I started thinking about how one could keep abreast of culinary topics without having to break the bank and came up with the following suggestions:

Subscribe to some food blogs
It's amazing how informed one can be about the world of haute cuisine (or any food related topic) when wafting through the musings of another foodie.
Sample blog types include:
- Recipe collections by an individual
- Restaurant reviews and eating out
- Wine and food pairing blogs which highlight new combinations of food and wine to experiment with

Watching shows like Iron Chef America
The Food network is every foodie's best friend. A heavenly mix of flavors, techniques and demonstrations - one can almost smell and taste the vivid culinary concoctions right from their very own living room! My favorite types of food shows are the food travelogues such as Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and all the episodes of Jamie Oliver's Great Italian Escape series. Those guys are brilliant!

Check out the menus of famous restaurants around the world
A really good way of staying up to date on what's hot and in vogue is to visit the websites of really famous restaurants and check out the items on their online .pdf menus. Most good places will be seen to change their menus 2 or 3 times a year, with slight twists on what they used to offer in the first place, without diluting their signature dishes. This is a good chance to pick up on new gastronomy terms so that you are able to impress your boss, your significant other or even your parents!

Food Exhibitions and Cooking demonstrations
Last but not least, definitely take advantage of the free or relatively inexpensive entrance fees to food exhibitions, cooking demonstrations or trade shows that take place in your city, where the aim is to generate publicity for new food vendors, products and operators entering the 'glocal' market. You'd be surprised at how many delicious freebies you can score at one of those events. Not only can you squeeze in "dinner and a show" (aka sampling offerings from various stalls and getting to see a live cooking demonstration),the best part is, you usually almost get to leave with a goodie bag!

those are my two cents on the subject...more free food tips and foodie news to come soon!

blogging off @ 11:13pm IST
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Top 10 places to go for Breakfast in Blore

So I've been in Bangalore for about a year and a half now, and can safely say that there are some pretty decent breakfast places around town. Here's my top ten list:

- The Egg Factory [St. Marks Road]
- Sunny's [Lavelle Road]
- The Hole in the Wall Cafe [Koramangala]
- Citrus [Leela Palace]
- Le Jardin [The Oberoi]
- Don't Tell Mama for their "wake-up" sunday brunch
- The Olive Beach [Ashoknagar] for sunday brunch
- Lido @ the Ista [Ulsoor] for sunday brunch
- Poolside sunday brunch at the Windsor Manor
- Brunch at the Taj West End

** the above list is not ranked in any particular order, it's just a compilation of a few places I've been that offer a pretty decent spread on weekend mornings.

Christmas in Nueva York

Christmas in New York was definetely well spent. Arriving a couple of days in advance, to sort out various visa issues for the many trips I was planning on going on, my stomach was well prepared for the different meals I'd be indulging in for the days to come.

This time I had to keep a check on how much cash I spent, due to the majority of my funds being reserved for Malta and China/Japan. Quick lunches with A and Pt around the financial district gave me a flavor for the immense variety of coffee shops, patisseries and sandwich places scattered around downtown.

Niko Niko's quick bento special, moderately priced, featured some seaweed salad, shrimp with soy sauce and sushi. Not amazingly delicious, the food was fresh, so I could not complain to a great extent.

Financier's quiche with salmon with dill was refreshingly tasty, and something I hadn't tried in a long time. I was a bit disappointed with the frittata prepared vegetarian sandwich, but when A purchased a cup of their hot chocolate, I was silenced by it's rich, but not overwhelming, taste of frothy chocolate cream. I mean this cup of hot chocolate is probably one of the best cups of cocoa I've ever tried. It was so delicious I though about it almost every day. Too bad, stuff on wall street isn't open at night.

Once P got into the city, the weekend of home cooked dinners started. Friday night at one of A's friends, came with 6 bottles of red wine, chicken topped with mozzarella and basil served with green salad with cherry tomatoes. As well as wine with dinner, we also indulged in some decadent mini pastries and dessert wine. all in all, a great evening.

Strawberries, tiramisu, a mini strawberry shortcake, chocolate truffle cake and a chocolate raspberry ganache served with dessert wine

Christmas Eve was spent at one of A's really good friends place. She had initiated the idea of having a grand potluck, where we contributed by making a salmon entree with roasted vegetables and indian-chinese style vermicelli noodles. The food was food, the wine better and the company the best. As we retold old jokes, poked fun at each other and partied the night away, the event ended when we went to the neighborhood's italian parish church's midnight mass.


Food we cooked for the christmas eve potluck

Places I have to go to

Need to go to the following:

- The Green Mango
- Eleven
- Tasca Navarre
- Umi
- Red Room cafe
- Typhoon
- Dish Osteria
- Le Pommier
- Angkor
- Bona Terra
- Lydia's
- Pizzuti
- Asiago (oxford centre -dntwn)
- Bravo Franco

Places to revisit:

- Kaya! They have a new menu!
- Korean Garden

Baked Egg Souffles

So Panera's newest endeavor has been to introduce a quaint new concoction called the "Baked Egg Souffle". You can get it in two flavors: Spinach with Bacon or Spinach with Asparagus. These "flaky puffed pastries with hearts of gold" (as quoted on their website) are filled with soft and warm ingredients such as savory egg, spinach, cheddar cheese, bacon or asparagus, livened with a dash of tabasco, a hint of garlic, a squeeze of lemon juice, baked in sweet French pastry dough and topped with Asiago cheese.

Baked Egg Souffle

Plate 376

Plate 376, or what was formerly know as Bikki, is the hottest new "upscale dining establishment" in shadyside. The waiter explained that the "376" is from the address of the restaurant which is located on 376 Bellafonte Street in Shadyside.

We had initially decided that we'd just get entrees and be done with the meal, but our waiter was so persuasive in his smart black uniform that we proceeded to order wine, an appetizer, entrees and dessert! Two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and a lobster pizza appetizer really set the mood. It's crusty base and tender lobster topping with chives, cheese and roasted garlic felt crunchy as well as giving a melting sensation in my mouth.

For my entree I ordered the soft shell crab with rice and toasted almonds which was absoultely fabulous. I had avoided ordering the shrimp that came with fettucini, since I felt like getting rice, and the soft shell crab complemented the wine and lobster pizza perfectly. The best part about soft shell crab is that you can eat the whole thing and not worry about biting into something too unpleasant. It's crispy exterior, once mixed with the basmati rice, and spooned with almonds was a gastronomic ephiphany.

Soft shell crab served with Basmati rice and toasted almonds

Pour en fin, dessert came in the form of a chocolate ganache stack, with caramelized twists and fresh cream. Cocoa-heavy, the stack did indeed sweeten our palate, as we tried to wash it down with the remains of our white wine.


The Chocolate Ganache "Stack" with fresh cream and caramel twists

New York City: Brunch, Lunch and More

Two weekends after memorial day weekend, I decided it was time to revisit NYC and really dig into some good food with the ultimate restaurant conoisseurs themselves. The occasion was P's b-day, and A had planned out a fun-filled friday night with a birthday brunch on Saturday! I was initially having tremendous difficulty finding a ride to the city and back, but the food gods finally answered my prayer, and inundated me with rideshare requests two days before I was supposed to leave. I ended up riding with three desi (indian) grad students (i know, i know) and a twenty-two year old musician who secretly worked as a window cleaner.

We got off to a late start and got stuck in traffic so many times I lost count. We even got pulled over by the cops in New Jersey (damn those jersey cops). By the time I got to A's apartment, I had missed P's b-day dinner at Wild Ginger but was still in time for clubbing, which was fun anyways...I met up with Nka, her friend JW and some of P's folks from BW. I had some really good cocktails though, so I didn't feel too bad about missing out on the food.

Saturday brunch, however, made up for my lack of a meal on friday night. B met us in Alphabet city at 11am, and was originally going to take us to the Clinton Street Bakery, but judging on how many people I had brought with me, we decided to stick to a local favorite, and settled on Cafe Orlin. Cafe Orlin, situated on St Marks Place between 1st and 2nd Avenue can only be described as a wonderfully casual brunch/lunch place with an outdoor patio. The waiters were friendly and patient, and seated our six person group without going to much trouble. I ordered a Sweet Cocoa to begin which was generously topped off with double whipped cream. It tasted delicious and gently soothed my tastebuds before my brunch special arrived.

Sweet Cocoa with double whipped cream

My main plate consisted of the Salmon Omelette mixed with dill and cream cheese served with the Orlin salad of mixed greens and hashed potatoes. It tasted terrific, with the plain cream cheese mixing in well with the smooth taste of the salmon and omelette. I refused to taint the omelette with ketchup, and broke off sizeable portions and layed them on top of crusted toast spread with light cornflower oil. Although, feeling a bit heavy after having all that egg, I still relished the dill flavor in my mouth, and couldn't help reflecting on how perfect salmon and dill always complemented each other. The rest of my friends had also finished enjoying their late breakfasts and we split off in different directions after the meal was over.


Salmon omelette with dill, cucumber and cream cheese served with the orlin salad and potatoes

Several hours later, once I had gotten back to A's apartment with Kj (who had come back with me) A and P decided that it was time for them to finally wake up and get sometime to eat. We decided to visit one of their favorite ethnic haunts: an ethiopian place that went by the name Meskerem. For an appetizer, we ordered the "Avocado" - a mini platter of chopped avocado mixed with tomatoes, green peppers and onions, that was served on top of injera. The injera, much to my surprise, was untraditionally thin, yet soft, and so the meal in general was quite light. For our main platters we ordered a Meskerem meat combo and a Vegetarian combo. The meat platter included the "Tibs Wat" - prime beef cooked sauteed with berbere, "Gomen Besaega" - a special cut of prime beef seasoned with garlic, onions, ginger and boiled collard greens, "Yebeg Alecha" - tender pieces of lamb marinated with butter and sauteed with a ginger-garlic curry, and "Doro Wat" - which was chicken pieces seasoned with ginger and garlic and sauteed with butter, berbere and red wine. The vegetarian platter contained the equivalent of the meat platter in vegetables, spicy lentils in a garlic curry sauce, ground chickpea paste in berbere sauce, sauteed fresh string beans with carrots and onions in tomato sauce, and fresh cabbage and potato in tomato sauce. This was probably one of the more lighter ethiopian meals I had had, the injera had mostly to do with it, which was why we were able to enjoy more of the meat and vegetables part of the entree.


The "Avocado" appetizer with Injera

As my last meal for the weekend, we went to an amazingly authentic chinese dimsum place in chinatown, Oriental Garden. I had been craving dimsum for the last two months, not having found ANY place to go to get quality chinese dimsum in Pittsburgh or DC, but my time had finally come, as P took us to the restaurant that was quite highly valued as one of the best chinatown eats. The entire meal was composed of starters (dimsum) and we ordered so many different varieties, that I lost track of all the names. However some of my favorites included the Chicken Shrimp dumpling with thick soy sauce, Shark Fin sui-mai, shrimp and pork dimsum and the pork ribs with garlic oil.


The Dimsum brunch

We ordered a noodle dish at the end just to try something different. We realized no matter how much dimsum came out, we needed something a little more filling, and when our Asparagus and chicken lo mein arrived, we appreciated the variety of flavor. It was unbelievable how much food we got compared to the price we paid. I would rank Oriental Garden a good value-for-money eating place, with a comfortable and airconditioned atomosphere!


Asparagus and Chicken Lo Mein