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

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:)