The Mirage

I like trying out new places to eat and I'm particularly interested in newly opened restaurants to check out how they fare in the first few months of the place being opened. So when a friend wanted to catch up over dinner, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try out The Mirage.

The Mirage is a multicuisine restaurant in Koramangala serving Chinese, Italian, Mexican and American food. The main course menu tends to leans towards serving Pan Asian food largely though. We walked in on Saturday night at 9pm to find the entire restaurant completely empty. It was a little surprising but we wanted to focus on having a good conversation, so we didn't mind all that much.

We decided to order a couple of starters and ventured with the BLT Crostini and Thai Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce. I could add that communicating with the servers from time to time was a problem as they didn't quite understand when we asked them for recommendations and they were a little confused when we asked them to explain some of the dishes (this happens very often with new places).

Our BLT Crostini soon arrived, and I took one bite of it to reach bacon heaven. The bread was perfectly crunchy, topped with lettuce and tomatoes tossed in mayo and a slice of perfectly crispy bacon. This was such a genius creation that I kept wondering how I had missed serving this as an appetizer for when I have parties at home. The Chicken Satay was well cooked, and tasted good but it wasn't served with the authentic  Asian style Peanut Sauce. It tasted something like a curry paste, but we were too hungry, so we downed it immediately. The cabbage that accompanied it had this lovely sweet chilli vinaigrette dressing that went really well with the meat.

BLT Crostini

Chicken Satay

Their menus are broken down into separate pull out pages of different sections - Burgers, Pizzas, Appetizers, Mains, etc. This was honestly very frustrating as whenever we wanted to explore something else to order, we had to keep fishing out and hiding one menu page under the other. It looked like I was playing Solitaire with menu cards on my table.

The various menu pages

My friend and I being Asian food lovers that we are, ordered a Vietnamese Chilli Prawn with Sticky Rice and a Hong Kong Fried Rice with 5 Spices. The Chilli Prawn tasted good except that it didn't taste of 'chilli', but honey instead. The sauce was excessively sweet. But somehow it didn't taste all that bad to us and we polished it clean anyway. The sticky rice was perfect and had  that lovely balance of salt, sugar and vinegar (they take 20 minutes to make this).

Vietnamese Chilli Prawn with Sticky Rice

Hong Kong Style Fried Rice

My fried rice soon came, and I first noticed some meat pieces in it, and was puzzled (there was no meat alternative to this, it was supposed to be a veg fried rice). I had ordered a vegetarian fried rice and I pointed it out to the server who looked equally confused. He finally clarified with the chef, who apparently claimed to be confused. I could still deal with it, but this could have been a serious faux pas if a pure vegetarian were in my place.

The fried rice was nice and spicy and the accompanying gravy was sweet and sour and I loved all the flavours coming together. The fried rice was also loaded with assorted meats - prawns, crab stick, chicken and bacon, and that added wonderful dimensions of flavour to the fried rice. The quantity was quite large, and we ended up packing some of it to take home.

I'd also like to add that I had ordered 4 other items on the menu for my main course, but none seemed to be available. The Caesar Salad on their Facebook page looked divine, but I couldn't find any salad section on their menu. Upon asking the server, he told me that they did serve salads, but he'd have to check with the chef instead. He returned saying that there was an Asian Salad available. I promptly got excited and ordered it, only to be told five minutes later that it wasn't available. That really ticked me off.

I asked the servers for a feedback card, and they said that they didn't have any. And they said if I really wanted to write, I could write on their Specials Board instead. I figured that there really was no point talking to them and asked to speak to the manager/owner, who also, unsurprisingly, wasn't available.

Overall, while I liked the food, the service and the chaos that came with it didn't make me too happy. I think the management should really invest in training their staff about the menu and should try sticking around (especially on busy nights) for the first couple of months to take care of service and other issues.

Food - 9/10
Ambience - 8/10
Service - 6/10
Verdict - Visit for the food, but ensure you're fully aware of what you're ordering.

A meal for two along with a glass of wine came up to Rs.1400.

The Mirage is located at: 61, 4th Floor, 1st Main Road, Above Corner House, 7th Block, Koramangala, Bangalore
Ph: 080-65333533
Parking: No parking available, but you should be able to park in the many bylanes of Koramangala.