The Mask

Last week, a friend from Wooplr and I got together to check out this restaurant Mask, at the Aurick Boutique Hotel. Located at JP Nagar 6th Phase, the stretch is quite filled with a sizeable number of restaurants, and I must admit, this was only my second time venturing into the area. The last time I visited (which was 4 years back), it seemed quite dead, but is now blossoming with plenty of dining spots and coffee shops.

Notice how the wine glass craftily makes its way into the 'mask'.

The Aurick Boutique Hotel primarily has 3 places you could dine - 2 restaurants and one coffee shop that is open 24x7. The Maori restaurant focuses on Indo Pacific cuisine, while The Mask is a  resto bar serving continental fare. The view of the city from Mask is quite lovely, and it was a pity that I visited during lunch time. The view would be done more justice if I had probably stopped by for dinner instead.

I was definitely a big fan of the interiors.

Our server started us off with the mocktail of the day, which he claimed were Appletinis (though it had no alcohol), but was simply a weird apple milk shake (is that even a thing?). I then asked him for the cocktail menu, as I was looking forward to an icy drink on that particularly torrid afternoon, to which he simply shrugged and said there wasn't one. I could apparently order whatever I wanted, and he said he'd bring it. I ordered a Mojito, but received a pineapple-vodka drink with a splash of soda. He told me that's how they made a Mojito, I decided to stick to my bottled water.

As my drink disappointed me, I jumped on to the starters and ordered the Malaysian Style Prawn and on the chef's recommendation, we ordered the Swiss Meat Bowl. The prawn was described to be an Asian style of sweet and sour prawn dish, but we found it to be very Manchurian like, with bits of chillies, spring onions and capsicum thrown in. I thought it as a complete waste of good quality prawns. The meat bowl had 4 meat balls, that had minced chicken stuffed with mozzarella and then crumb fried. The chicken mince was a little too dry for my taste, and the cheese failed to make any impression whatsoever.

Malaysian Chilli Prawn - very reminiscent of the capsicum chilli-esque Manchurian dishes.

Swedish Meat Bowl with coleslaw

The chef also insisted that we try the new soup that wasn't yet featured on the menu, and we decided to go ahead with that. I got the Pumpkin and Cilantro Soup, neatly separated, and the flavour of the pumpkin really stood out wonderfully, which easily overshadowed that of the cilantro. My friend got the Onion and Cilantro Soup, which to me, wasn't the best combination. The onion soup also tasted more like a lighter version of a basic white sauce and didn't work with the cilantro for me.

Pumpkin and Coriander Soup - lovely combination of flavours.

Onion and Coriander Soup

Since we were exceptionally hungry, we also tried a salad each - I knew I was going to order the Caesar Salad simply because it was served with crispy bits of bacon (and is always a personal favourite). My friend picked a nice, light Greek Salad and decided to top it up with Prawns. I was in love with my Caesar Salad and the bacon bits added the perfect bite to the salad. The dressing, made in-house was fresh and delicious, and coated every bit of the Romaine lettuce. It was oddly topped with grated cheese and served on a bed of sliced tomatoes, that I didn't care for too much. My friend's Greek Salad was mighty disappointing though. We expected a light olive oil and vinegar dressing with herbs, but were instead met with a creamy mayo dressing for the Greek Salad that didn't have much Greek going for it. Lettuce coated in mayo, topped with prawns and a sprinkling of parsley and served on cucumber slices, instead of being tossed with the lettuce. This was their own version of the Greek Salad, I suppose. The only saving grace was the crumbled bits of Feta they served it with.

Caesar Salad with crispy bacon bits and topped with grated cheese

Greek Salad with Grilled Prawns in a thick, creamy dressing.

We finally proceeded to our mains where again, on the chef's recommendation, I ordered the Fish D Casa, which was a nice grilled fish served with creamy spinach sauce on a bed of spaghetti and a side of veggies. The fish was perfectly cooked and I loved the spinach sauce that topped it. The flavours really came together, and the veggies were seasoned with butter and herbs that gave it that extra kick. What also blew me away was the spaghetti, that was cooked perfectly al dente and was simply tossed with garlic, chilli and olive oil - the simple, but delicious flavours that always work. Every flavour on the plate worked to create a beautiful harmony of sorts.

My friend decided to order the Moroccan Lamb Chops, that was their specialty, and it was a Moroccan style juicy lamb served with cous cous & ratatouille. We were hoping for a juicy lamb chop, but the lamb was a tad overcooked and dry. The cous cous also got replaced with 'spicy flavoured rice' that seemed like a Pulav gone wrong. The sauce wasn't too bad, but had only one primary dimension of flavour and lacked a zing. I found it quite boring and monotonous and wished it had more depth. A nice salad/side of mash would have also worked with the lamb.

Moroccan Lamb Chops with flavoured rice

Pretty stuffed with our mains, my friend decided to order one portion of a dessert for the two of us. 3 out of the 5 menu items weren't available, and we settled for the Caramel Custard instead. It tasted pretty average, nothing extraordinary, and probably wasn't the best finish to our meal.

Service also failed to hit the mark, with the servers often confusing the drinks and the dishes up. While they were friendly and courteous, they simply weren't trained enough to completely understand the menu and the dishes. The restaurant is experimenting with its menu and desperately needs to up its food and service to really leave a mark and keep its customers returning. The view is definitely worthy of a visit, but the rest of the elements fail to keep it together.

Overall, my rating:
Food: 5.5/10
Service: 6/10
Ambience: 8/10
Verdict: They're trying out a new menu with some serious changed to be implemented, so maybe wait it out a month before trying it. The fish is definitely recommended.

The Mask is located at: Aurick Boutique Hotel, 598, 15th Cross, 35th Main, 6th Phase, JP Nagar, Bangalore
Phone: 080-49011000
Parking: Basement parking available

Benjarong

So the Citibank Restaurant Week is finally here, and I’m very excited. Yay! Spanning across 3 cities (Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore), the event usually happens twice a year – in April and in September. The idea is to give people an opportunity to dine at each city's finest restaurants at a fraction of the price it would normally cost through a three-course prix fixe menu. This allows participating restaurants to showcase their food by selecting dishes representative of their philosophy and diners get to experience restaurants they may have hesitated from trying. A 3-course meal at these fine restaurants costs Rs.750 plus taxes per head. I won't call it cheap, but it's not too expensive either.

The first restaurant on my list was Benjarong, the Thai restaurant located on Dickenson Road. I've been to Benjarong before and have always enjoyed my meal there, but it had been a while since I visited it last, so I picked it. Also, they had the most extensive menu of the lot, offering 4-courses with plenty of options, so it was a personal favourite.

We went on a Tuesday night at 7 30, and the restaurant was empty except for one table. We were offered the menus and everything looked really tempting. Each of us was allowed to pick two starters (mighty generous, if you ask us), so we ordered the 3 starters off  the non-veg menu and one from the vegetarian menu. Your meal here typically begins with the Thai version of what I may call a paan. Except that instead of betel leaves, you'd have the iceberg lettuce served with pieces of ginger, peanuts, chilli, lime, toasted coconut and jaggery. It all comes together wonderfully to essentially give you 3 prominent Thai flavours - sweet, sour and spicy.

Thai style Paan ;)

We ordered our appetizers, along with our soups and salads. Surprisingly, the first dish that came to our  table was the soup. As far as I know (and the million army parties that I've attended), it's always the appetizers that precede the soup. The soup is served as a reminder of "Dinner is nearly ready." Do educate me on this if anyone knows the whole deal. Anyway, we ordered the Tom Yum Soup, which was a spicy Thai soup flavoured with lemon grass, Kaffir lime and galangal. I ordered the vegetarian one and my friend ordered the shrimp one. I liked the veggie one better because it was lighter and had a distinct, clear flavour of the lemongrass; the shrimp soup literally tasted 'shrimpy', i.e. had that fishy taste that I didn't particularly enjoy.

Lemon grass soups with veggies (L) and shrimp (R)

My first starter, Grathong Thong Gey was simply herbed water chestnuts in rice tartlets. Now, I really like water chestnuts as I love their versatile use, so I might be a little  biased while writing this, but this was a splendid appetizer. The herbs blended very well  to give the chestnuts an already fresher taste and the tartlet was perfectly crispy. My next starter was the Gai Hor Baitaey, which was spiced chicken wrapped in pandanus leaves. The chicken was wrapped in a pandan leaf which locked its flavour and heat and was perfectly moist and tender when we tried it. I enjoyed both of my starters.

Chicken in Pandan Leaf (L) and Water Chestnut Tartlets (R)

My friend ordered the Grathong Thong Gai, which were rice tartlets filled with herbed chicken mince (similar to the veg one). This tasted fine to me, nothing exceptional, and I found the water chestnut tartlet to taste far better. The final starter was the Tod Mun Pla, which were fish patties served with cucumber relish. This was a mighty disappointment, as the fish tasted like it had some gram flour coating and was a little too greasy for my liking. My friend agreed. No sign of the cucumber relish either, but we were served a sweet chilli vinagrette which, fortunately for us, completely overpowered the tasted of the fish patties.

Chicken Tartlets (L) and Fish Patties (R)

For the salads, I picked the Yum Mamuang, the raw mango salad (something that I've always enjoyed here) and my friend picked the Larb Gai, which was a minced chicken salad flavoured with Kaffir lime leaves and mint. My mango salad was lovely as always with the toasted peanuts and chives, just that I found it a tad too sour (largely because of the unavailability of good quality raw mangoes in this season). The Larb Gai was a total breath of fresh air with the chicken coated with that lovely Kaffir lime tang and the fresh mint powering through. Both the salads were a hit among us.

Raw Mango Salad

Chicken Larb

We were filling up real fast and still had main course to try. There were four options in the non-veg menu, and we decided to order all four of them (since each of us were allowed to select two mains, again, a very generous choice). I ordered the Gai Pahd Hed, which was stir fried chicken and mushroom in a wild oyster sauce and the Gae Pahd Prik Tai On, stir fried lamb in a tender peppercorn rice. I liked the chicken in the oyster sauce a lot. This was served with steamed rice. It was light and the combination of chicken and mushroom was a wonderful marriage that went well with the rice. The lamb was nicely flavoured and had a lovely peppery flavour. The accompanying veggies with it were also nice, though I ate this like a starter instead of pairing it with my rice.

Our next orders were Kaeng Keow Wahn Gai, which was a chicken green curry with pea and aubergine and Pla Rad Prik, fish in chilli basil sauce. We chose Thai flat noodles in a chilli basil sauce as an accompaniment for this. The chicken and aubergine went very well, and the rice was a better accompaniment to it. I found the peas, however, hard and very difficult to bite into. The fish had a nice chilli flavour, but was nothing exceptional.I enjoyed the flat noodles in the chilli basil sauce immensely though.

Now completely stuffed and nearly bursting at the seams, we had a final dessert to go. My friend ordered Sankhaya Fakhthong, which was a coconut and pumpkin custard. It was an odd combination, but we were curious to try it. The flavour wasn't too great, and I didn't get much of pumpkin flavour anyway. The texture wasn't silky as that of a typical custard, and the total dessert wasn't much to write home about. My friend even termed it as 'Coconut Halwa'. :P

Coconut and Pumpkin Custard

 Since curiosity seemed to be the theme of our desserts, I ordered the Aitim Takrai, which was nothing but lemon grass ice-cream. I had never tried a lemon grass flavoured ice-cream and seeing this on the menu definitely piqued my interest. Two generous scoops of this pale green ice-cream finally arrived on my table and I took a small teaspoonful. I LOVED the burst of flavour in my mouth and loved how versatile the taste of lemon grass was right from the soup to ice-cream. I recommend this to everyone. My next stop: Wasabi Ice-cream. :)

Lemon Grass Ice-cream

Our lavish 4-course meal finally came to an end and we were too full to even move. The bill came up to Rs.940 inclusive of taxes and was money well spent. I must add here that we found the service outstanding and our server constantly came to our table from time to time, serving us, explaining the dishes, and taking good care of us. We did leave a generous tip because the service was fantastic.

Food - 7.5/10

Service - 10/10

Ambience - 9/10

Verdict - Definitely go to try an authentic meal from Thailand in the heart of Bangalore.

I'm looking to try two more restaurants this week for the RWI, so more reviews coming up! :)

Benjarong is located at: 12/1, Ulsoor Road, Ulsoor, Bangalore

Contact number: 080-32217201/+91-9342-401-606

Parking: Valet