Coconut Grove, Samarkand and Queens..

Team lunches, in the recent past, have turned out to be à la carte affairs as against the famous buffets that Bangalore is really famous for. An à la carte experience just goes to show you how much you end up missing out on when you treat yourself to a buffet. And the magnitude is a notch up if you are in a city like Bangalore where luncheon affairs tend to buffets thanks to the no-brainer experience [in terms of choosing from the menu] and the time-based factors.

Coconut Grove (no relation to the Pune based eatery of the same name) is located on Church Street and primarily caters to the Keralite, Mangalorean and Coorgi cuisine. Keralite cuisine tends to be very generous in its coconut base while Coorgi cuisine is pork-based and tinged with various spices. Paying heed to the specialty that the restaurant boasted of, we feasted on Mangalorean fried prawns and Kodagu Pandi Masala for starters. Kodagu Pandi Masala, which translates to Coorgi Pork Masala, is a preparation of marinated pork in various spices. The preparation is essentially dry and the meat is extremely well cooked and tender, which is a feature of the Coorgi cuisine.

Entrées were a sea-food and pork affair as well, with Karimeen Vevichathu and Kodagu Pandi Curry. While the pork curry shares qualities with the starter in terms of the cuisine that it represents, Karimeen Vevichathu is a Keralite preparation which is, surprisingly, not prepared on a coconut base. The gravy is a thin onion tinged, tamarind-based gravy with the fish being baked/boiled while the gravy is being soaked into the fish. Coming from Kerala, this was a welcome change personally and I highly recommend the same to be sampled with some plain steamed rice.

Samarkand is located on Infantry Road and caters more to the Awadhi and Moghlai taste buds. An interesting conceptual theme encouraged here, eating with one's own hands! Cutlery is available solely upon request. That set the tone for the lunch to follow. Samarkand does not boast of a very comprehensive menu but one must sample the choice of the day that is the chef's specialty. That said, the meal consisted of Galawati Kebabs, Moghlai Dum Biryani and a Gosth Rann preparation which was the chef's specialty. Galawati kebab consists of minced lamb meat served on top of a fried cake, probably wheat based. The kebab is spruced up with a range of chutneys ranging from spicy onion to mayonnaise. Once sampled, the cake melts in your mouth forming a spicy paste with the chutney and the minced meat. Highly recommended!!

Dum Biryani was interestingly served on a pan covered with a coating of atta which keeps the dum warm ultimately leading to the hardening of the atta covering. Serving the biryani requires one to break open the pan covering. The biryani and the gosht rann (lamb served with yogurt and spice-based gravy) combination was plentiful in spices like cloves leaving us wanting for more.

Queens' is again located on Church Street and for once, is known more for its North-Indian vegetarian options than the non vegetarian ones. This was reflected in practice as well wherein we sampled the some heavenly stuffed capsicum with murg palak (Chicken served in a spinach based gravy). The stuffed capsicum beat the meat hands down making sure that a recall was definitely on the cards.