Medici

Medici easily comes in my top 5 favourite restaurants in Bangalore. The food is delicious, the ambience is really nice and truly fits the bill of 'fine dining' and the service has always been outstanding. Despite this, I have never visited the restaurants when it has been super crowded or have had to wait for a table (even on a late Saturday night).

I've been visiting Medici for the past 3 years (since it opened) and always thought that the food they served was world-class. The name Medici has been inspired from Queen Catherine de Medici, an Italian, who married a French man and brought to his court an array of Italian delicacies, birthing the beautiful union of French and Italian food, flavours that are loved world over.

We went for lunch to Medici on a Friday afternoon and surprisingly, we didn't find any customers at the restaurant (it was 1:30). I generally struck a conversation with our server to shockingly find that Medici was moving. They have two floors on the building in Indiranagar - one floor is the restaurant, and the floor above that is Muse, a lounge bar. They would probably be have one fine dining section on the top, also sharing that floor with a lounge bar section. Also, they would probably be revamping the menu, bringing in more Indian influences *shudders*. Apparently, this is what customers want.

Quite disappointing to hear, so if any of you want to try their delicious food, you should probably head to Medici pretty soon. Looks like they are about to move within a month, so ensure you pay a visit to their restaurant before they do. (Disclaimer: Medici has NOT paid me to promote them, neither did I get a meal on the house).

So, about the food. I started out with ordering the Chicken and Fig Salad and my friend ordered the Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Tart. The salad was actually nice and refreshing and had a sweet-savoury flavour running through it. The chicken and fig blended well and the lettuce was coated nicely in a honey-mustard dressing.

The Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Tart was also quite yummy (according to me, caramelized onion and goat cheese is a combination that can't go wrong). The tart was baked to that perfect crispness and the onions lent a nice sweetness to the salty cheese. If anything, I'd have liked more seasoning. And a bigger portion. Definitely a bigger portion.

For the main course, I ordered the Filet Mignon, as it's my favourite cut. This steak was marinated in Dijon mustard and rosemary and served with a red wine jus. The steak was given to me just the way I asked for it - medium rare (not many restaurants actually serve up a medium rare). The meat was nice and I liked the jus but I would have liked more seasoning. So our waiter prompty served me some Dijon mustard and a crack of pepper, something that blended beautifully with the steak. The portion size was large and I was disappointed that there were no veggies or mash served with it. I mean, it's a steak! What's a steak without mash and veggies anyway?

My friend ordered the Chicken de Medici, one of their signature dishes. This was simply a chicken breast stuffed with mascarpone and sundried tomato, also served with a red wine jus along with a rosemary potato.The chicken was nice and tender and the creaminess of the cheese along with the sourness of the sundried tomatoes married wonderfully. This was served with veggies like bell peppers and zucchini (I find veggies a must with meat - it adds more texture).

For dessert, I ordered the Chocolate Fondant, which is by far, the most orgasmic dessert I've had in the city. When you poke it, and all of that chocolate goodness oozes out, and you spoon a delicate bite of that into your mouth, you'll know 'orgasmic' was an understated word. It was not too sweet, not too hot, and was nicely soft and warm.

My friend ordered the Wine Poached Pears (I'm beginning to see a wine theme here), because this is another signature dish of theirs that we've happened to love before. The pear is poached is poached in wine, decored and stuffed with cream cheese. The first time I tried this (2 years ago), this was delicious, but this time it was slightly disappointing. The pear was poached for too long, and the cream cheese tasted obnoxiously sweet.

Overall, a good meal with a nice ambience and outstanding service again. Unfortunately, since this restaurant is moving and plans to bring about some changes in the menu, I suggest you visit Medici before it revamps itself. It truly remains one of the finest restaurants in the city.

Food - 8.5/10
Ambience - 9/10
Service - 11/10
Verdict - Definitely visit before they change their menu! :(

P.S. On an unrelated note, I also read here that Bangalore's legendary steakhouse, The Only Place is closing. If it really is shutting down, then do make a visit to The Only Place before this weekend (March 31st) to experience a piece of Bangalore history. Also, visit Medici :)

Under The Mango Tree

Under The Mango Tree is one of those restaurants in the city that you would usually enjoy going back to. It's a great place for friends to catch up with conversations without having to scream over the loud music and also a great place to have those quite, romantic candle-lit dinners with your special someone.

The cuisine served here is generally continental, with some Asian dishes thrown in. Food is delicious, and also doesn't burn a hole in your pocket, much to my (or everyone's) delight. The ambience is relaxed, service is friendly but slow. Be prepared to have that lengthy conversation with your friend(s) because the wait for food is long, but worth it.

My last visit here was on a friend's birthday, where she just wanted a quite birthday dinner at a nice place. UTMT seemed like the right place to go to. We were pretty hungry, so none of us were really in the mood for appetizers, individual portions of mains made more sense to us. However, since the wait was going to be predictably long, we figured one appetizer wouldn't really hurt our appetites.

So we ordered a plate of Grilled Squid Rings, which everyone thought might be a good thing to just grab and snack. The portions were pretty large, as 4 of us could happily share without fighting. The squid was well-seasoned, and also quite meaty, by which I mean it was succulent and had a nice body to it, which I don't see too often in restaurants. I don't like the idea of raw onions and cucumbers served with meat in general, especially when it comes to continental cuisine. These were priced at Rs.190.

Grilled Squid Rings

I'd also ordered a salad (ordered a main course too - I have a HUGE appetite, you see :D ). Now this was supposed to be one of their signature salads. The salad consisted of simply apple, walnuts, goat cheese, lettuce and some bacon (on my request). This is accompanied with a red wine dressing, the consistency of which was too thick and tasted positively revolting. I'm glad they didn't toss my salad in it, so I settled for the salad minus a dressing, but tasted delicious nevertheless. The salad scored high in terms of flavours and textures - it's sweet, soft, crunchy with the nuts, creamy with the crumbly goat cheese and awesome because of the bacon :). It's merely a tossed salad and tastes good by itself, so avoid the red wine dressing and take a simple olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette dressing instead. This was priced at Rs.160.

Apple, Walnut and Goat Cheese Salad

Now to the mains, my friend ordered the Pork Chops Vindaloo. The Vindaloo is generally a meat curry based dish whose primary ingredients include vinegar (for the vin  in Vindaloo), garlic, chillies and other spices, resulting in a delicious sweet-sour taste. The pork chops here were wonderfully coated with the Vindaloo gravy and the result was super-tender pork chops that were bursting with flavours in our mouth. This was priced at Rs.310.

Pork Chops Vindaloo

To keep the pork love going, another friend ordered the Pasta Carbonara. Yeah, I know it's nothing exotic, but man, did these guys nail this dish or what. The sauce iss simply cream whipped with egg and slowly cooked with bacon and cheese tossed with spaghetti (here, they throw some additional ham bits and we chose Penne instead). This has to be the BEST Pasta Carbonara I've had in the city so far. Creamy, delicious and not too heavy. I generally don't like ordering pastas at restaurants because I get tired of that monotonous taste, but that never happened here. Two thumbs up. This was priced at Rs.280.

Pasta Carbonara

Finally, my dish arrived - which was simply a Veggie Ravioli - pasta pockets loaded with Parmesan, Ricotta and spinach layered with a cream sauce. By this time, I'd already downed some of that Carbonara and wanted more of that. I like veggies, but wasn't the biggest fan with the Ravioli they served up. It was WAY too creamy and bland (I chose the cream sauce, I know), and had little or no flavour. It seemed like one big mush and I couldn't get through the whole thing. This was priced at Rs.230. This was also surprisingly, one of their signature dishes.

Spinach and Cheese Ravioli

We were pretty stuffed by the end of this meal, so decided to order one dessert split 4-ways (yeah, we're that shameless). Another signature dish here was their Blueberry Cheesecake which many Bangalore foodies swear by. The cheesecake was nice and creamy, and had a decent consistency to it. The biscuit base was not as crunchy as I would have liked it to be, but it was a good dessert overall.

Blueberry Cheesecake

My overall rating for Under The Mango Tree:
Food: 7.5/10
Ambience: 8/10
Service: 6/10
Yum!: They go bacon my heart

Toit Brewpub

Toit Brewpub has become synonymous with us Bangaloreans for being the go-to place to drink some good beer, munch some yum starters, listen to some music and drink up some more good beer. Having opened in 2010, Toit is ridiculously popular in the city over the weekends (don't even bother walking in after 9 on a weekend) and quite a hangout over the weekdays too.

I've been visiting Toit for the longest time and have almost always enjoyed my experience there. I especially loved the food, and kept going back for their delicious chicken wings. The last few times that I did visit Toit, the food didn't match up to a great standard, service was indifferent and the beers, well, they kept me happy. This review on Toit is based on my last visit to the pub.

Since Toit has its own microbrewery, you must try their beers - they make for a nice change compared to your standard fare of alcohol. You can choose between Weiss, Dark Knight, Colonel, Basmati Blonde, Tintin and I think a few more that I can't seem to remember. My favourite remains the Weiss, which is light and has a savoury-sweet taste. Basmati Blonde leans in closest to the Weiss as well. The Colonel and Dark Knight have that bittery taste of beer that most guys seem to love. Tintin has not been a favourite to anyone I know.

For those of you who are confused on which beer to choose, I suggest you order the beer samplers pictured below that give you a chance of trying out different kinds of beer.

And now, yes, the food. Like I mentioned earlier, their quality seems to have declined in recent times for me. Pictured here are the potato skins with bacon. These were nice, but I remember them being a lot fuller earlier and as actual potato halves instead of these small bits.

The Chicken Piccata is simply crumb-fried chicken that is lightly spiced. I was never a fan of this and it honestly doesn't taste like anything writing worthy about.

I love ordering something that sounds totally odd on the menu. So these Snake Bites definitely caught my attention. They're simply serpent gourd bits stuffed with lamb mince. While I thought they were refreshingly nice, my friend thought that it was quite an odd combination and wasn't its biggest fan.

When it comes to pizzas, I think Toit has the right idea, but they did screw up our order. We ordered the half and half of a BBQ Chicken Pizza and a Veggie Attack pizza. After having waited for twenty five whole minutes, when we asked our waiter about the pizza, he seemed genuinely puzzled and then tried to cover it up by stating that it'd take 5 minutes (this is the Indian Standard Time deviation of at least another 15 minutes). When the pizza did arrive, the BBQ chicken bit kept spilling all over with the sauce having splashed around happily. Clearly, the pizza wasn't baked long enough and our waiter didn't seem to care that it wasn't. He seemed pretty happy with the pizza.

And, the one dessert that I do order everytime at Toit is their Apple Pie. It's so beautifully baked to perfection that it makes me want to cry. The softness of the apples against that crunchy base with that light hint of cinnamon riding through make this for a perfect dessert. Two thumbs up.

Other recommendations at Toit include the Pork Chops that are succulent and well-seasoned, the Boozy Chicken where you can't taste the beer but that broccoli sauce is 'Oh, Wow!', Chicken Wings and Fried Calamari.

Dishes you can miss at Toit are the Beefy Loaded Potatoes that are poorly seasoned and so loaded that it makes your belly uncomfortable, Bacon wrapped Chicken with Almonds which made it difficult to distinguish any particular taste and Chicken in Peppers that simply tastes like a warm, spicy chicken salad.

Overall, my rating for Toit:
Food - 6/10
Ambience - 8/10
Service - 5/10
Beer - I bow down to the Weiss

Would you like to add anything to my review for Toit? Do comment! I'd love to hear your tryst with food! :) Until next time, here's a picture of beers to keep you happy. Cheers! :)

Here we go!

Hello, you awesome reader! This happens to be my first post on My Tryst with Food, and I'm super excited!

Like most people, I love food and am a self-proclaimed foodie. I love everything to do with food - cooking it, studying the science and art behind it and of course, eating it. I eat out often and recently began to post photos of dishes I try on my Facebook album where I recommend people what to eat at restaurants and what to conveniently miss.

Since then, many friends (and some strangers) did follow some of my recommendations and insisted I write more in-depth reviews rather than two lines on a Facebook photo. So, here I am! Expect a lot of restaurant reviews, cooking experiments, food stories and read about my tryst with food.

Before I go, here's a photograph for a sneak peek of my first review. Cheers:)