Friday, July 30, 2010

An ode to Varuna

Rain rain go away,
Come again another day
Bangalore city choked today
Rain rain go away

Exasperated because of the incessant drizzle that threw life out of gear yesterday at Bengaluru. It is looking good so far with dull weather and just one spell so far. I love rains, but only when it is a downpour.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Eatopia - Bon Appétit at e-inn

<Grumble> <Groan> Two consecutive eatopia posts!!! I am in a time warp these days. I've no clue each day on where a fair portion of my leaky bucket of 86400 seconds goes. Weekdays go in a flash with a very tiring evening commute, moderately heavy work load and weekends fly by. Maybe my spare time is all going to an unreported black-hole possibly created by the LHC experiments in CERN for the mysterious Higgs-Boson. I have a backlog of close to 200 posts to read and maybe comment on a quarter or less, at least.

Having explained my deficient blogdom visits and back to the topic, it is rare to find a star rated vegetarian restaurant anywhere. We went to one such last weekend, in Bengaluru (okay, it is near Electronics City, if you consider it as a part of Bengaluru), which is a multi-star rated hotel (I think it is 4 or 5 star) and whose restaurants are vegetarian, don't serve alcohol and are non-smoking.

Welcome to e-inn, the hotel on Hosur Road, 2 kms after Electronics City towards Hosur, in the Bommasandra Industrial Estate. It is a large multi-storeyed hotel (at least 10 floors) that comes up on the right and is visible from a distance, but because of the divided NH-7 you have to go under the overpass that comes after the hotel intersection and make a U-turn.

It has a very decent ambience at the entrance and some lovely flowering plants. The Chinese cuisine restaurant is at the basement and the main one is beyond the lobby. The main restaurant can seat around 60-80 and is usually frequented by IT folks (sometimes with their clients) on weekdays and families on weekends. A better way to dine would be to reserve seating in advance as I have seen the crowd increase steadily in each succeeding visit.

The lunch course started with a drink of the day (it was a chocolatey milk this time), some fritters to snack on and then the soup of the day, which had pasta and herbs in it. Then it was time to go and sample the world-wide buffet. It was a mix of Indian, Continental, Mediterranean, Oriental and some exotic dishes. Quite a few salads (at least 6 to 8 types) to sample, a few varieties of bread (3 or 4) to choose from, and the main course taken from an assortment of rice items like fried rice, pulao, saffron rice, curd rice etc, a few North Indian gravy dishes and associated bread(s), margherita pizza slices, noodles, lasagna, stir fried/tossed veggies, sambar, curries, mini dosas/chutney and a chaat item rounded off the main course.

The desserts took the icing on the cake (and takes it every time I go there with the variety). Around 10 varieties of desserts that include some bright coloured exotic ones which I have no name of, eggless cakes, payasam/kheer, fruit salad, two varieties of ice-cream.

For me, getting to this place from mine was like going to another city after crossing two toll roads before I reached Electronics City, but this place has become a regular haunt every quarter. Kids love it (choose what you want with no dearth of choices and no forced eating :-) like at home), Señora likes it for the variety to choose from and the desserts and I am ambivalent to what I eat, being picky and hence okay. Parents have a mixed opinion on this place as they are used to the typical South Indian grind of veg curries, kootu, kuzhambu, sambar, rasam and curd etc. The charges are pretty decent for the variety it offers, at Rs. 250/- per head for adults incl. taxes and half of that for children.

So went one more afternoon in the weekend that has been accounted for. :-) The dinner there also is a buffet with different entrées. If you have an afternoon or an evening in Bengaluru to spare, wouldn't mind a wide choice of all-vegetarian fare and can traverse the long drive to beyond Electronics City, I'd suggest e-inn for a try. You'll love it.

And till the black-hole releases me from its clutch, ciao!!!