Barbeque Nation - Live Grill !

Eat your fill .. Drink whatever is given .. then eat some more and go home happy !!
This is the simple mantra for a visit to the Barbeque Nation..
Well, I just go there with a single, sacred and pure intention .. to stuff myself !! :-)

BN is a great place for a relaxed meal. As the name suggests, they serve a lot of grilled(tandoor) food. And the best part are the starters.
What makes this experience unique is that once you are seated comfortably and decided if you are going to have non-vegetarian or vegetarian, the fun starts !!
They place a grill box with red hot charcoals in it. Yes, this is a live grill place.

You get a complimentary drink. You have a choice of cocktails and mocktails and soft drinks.

Next up, the waiter just gets you all the nice stuff in skewers, and places them on the grill on your table.
You could wait for them to get a bit more cooked/charred or just dive into it straightaway.
You also have a choice of sauces and a brush to add some more seasoning on the  kebabs or veggies and let them grill some more.
There is also a variety of dips, to go with the starters. (curd, mango chutney, pudina chutney, oriental sauce etc.)

The following is generally a choice of starters:

• Chicken tikka
• Mutton Sheekh kabab
• Prawns tandoor
• Tangdi kabab
• Fish tikka/ fish fillets in mustard sauce
• Mushrooms
• Pineapples
• Paneer tikka
• Corn on the cob
• Tandoor veggies (cauliflower,capsicum,onions,tomatoes in tandoori masala and on a skewer)
• Cajun spiced potato ( this is a personal favorite -- baby potatoes, deep fried with skin, slightly mashed and tossed in cream and spicy cajun sauce)

Well, if you are vegetarian, you get to enjoy only the lower half of the above items and if you are a non-veg guy, then .. :-)
well you know what I mean ...

There is a small flag on your table. The starters just keep coming until your flag is up. Once you are done with the starters, by which I mean, when you have stuffed yourself enough and are kind of thinking about the main course or desserts, jut lower the flag.

 You can now move to main course, which is a well spread buffet, complete with soups and salads.
The rotis are made to order and served hot at your table.

I generally skip this part. Or I take just a little bit of biryani, if I am in mood for it, and move to the next interesting part -- DESSERTS!!

Here too, they have a lot of options.
I will list them out for your convenience.

• chocolate-chip/walnut brownie
• lemon tarts
• phirni
• pineapple cake
• cut fruits
• gulab jamoon
• ice-cream with various sauces - chocolate,strawberry,orange and mint.

So, thats about it.

Go there on a lazy afternoon, and spend a couple of hours atleast (nothing less!!), chatting and enjoying the food with your friends or family and you would return home, with a happy and content smile.

A word of warning, please make prior reservations, since it could get pretty crowed.
And one irritating, peculiarity I saw with this place is they will let you seat at the exact time of booking.
Good in a sense, but when you end up a few minutes earlier with the tables being empty, I thought, it kind of makes common sense to let you seated, rather than make you wait till the moment of truth arrives!!

Apart from that, its a very enjoyable experience. Do try it, and you would love it.

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The vegetarian costs around 425+Taxes and the Non-vegetarian costs 475+taxes.
There are two places, one in Koramangala and the other in Indira nagar. Have tried at both and there is nothing to differentiate between the two, except that the one in KM has an open terrace.

The Italian job !

Italian food is wonderful!
Italians cook their food with love and take immense pride in it.
They use simple/fresh ingredients and turn it into something magical.
Inspired by the numerous cooking shows on TV and all the cooking blogs I read on the Internet, I decided, enough was enough.. I should get down and 'get my hands dirty'.(If you know what I mean!)

So, here is what we had for lunch, on that lazy Sunday........

• Pasta in red Sauce with mushrooms, black olives and bacon.

• Garlic bread with cheese, olives and chillies

FIRST, we went shopping for the ingredients, and NO, we did not end up in buying a pack of Maggi pazzta and adding boiling water to it !!

We looked about, asked questions, and read carefully all the ingredients and instruction on numerous bottles of goodies, before buying what we did.

This is what we ended up buying :

• Delmonte spiral pasta
• A bottle of red pasta sauce (basically a thick paste of tomato,oregano,onions,garlic and mixed spices/herbs)
• A pack of Italian seasoning which included Basil,oregano,thyme and rosemary
• Pitted black olives
• Roasted crushed garlic flakes
• Crushed chilli flakes
• Olive oil
• Mozarella cheese
• Bread and 
• Bacon (against my wife's wishes!!)

• Parmesan cheese -- Unfortunately we could not find it even after roaming in the three biggest stores nearby
• Also, what we would have loved would be some sun dried tomatoes, but again no luck there.

First the Pasta ::

To boil the pasta, boil 1 litre of water and add some salt.
Next add the pasta with a little oil and let it boil for 15 minutes, until tender.

For the sauce, which is the most important ingredient, we need to chop up one small onion very finely, so that it melts into the sauce and not be visible.
Next chop up a few mushrooms, but ensure you do not chop them too small, else they will just melt. I love to be able to bite into my mushrooms.
Remove a few black olives from the bottle and wash them to remove the brine off it, and chop them to form small rings.

Now, heat some olive oil in a thick bottom pan, and add the onions and saute them. Next in, add generous amount of the pasta sauce. Toss in the mushrooms and the olives. Dust in some of the great Italian seasoning and some roasted garlic flakes.
Add the crushed chilli flakes and some ground pepper for hotness.
Add a little bit of water and let it simmer.
The beautiful sauce is now ready!!
Toss in the strained pasta and mix well.
Pour in some cream and sprinkle parmesan cheese. If you do not get hold of parmesan cheese, you can also add a dollop of butter.
Stir well and cover the lid and let it simmer for 5 minutes.

This is the absolute optional part --
I had bought some smoked bacon, which I stir fried on a frying pan and added a few strips to my pasta..  My wife was just happy that I used a different vessel to cook it and added it only in my plate and spared her !
You can also try to add some boiled chicken or a few slices of sausages, as an alternative, or just forget all of this and enjoy a nice vegetarian pasta ..



In the 5 minutes, while the pasta is cooking slowly, we can quickly prepare the Cheese Garlic Bread.
Slice up the bread, apply some butter.
Grate some mozarella/processed cheese onto these slices.
Add a few rings of black olives, roasted garlic flakes, sprinkle some salt+pepper and add some green chillies (if you want! - optional. Chillies kind of make it indianised )
Put this into an oven or grill and let it sit there for 3/5 minutes, till the cheese melts and gets brownish on the outside.


Well, thats it about the cooking! Time to get down to business.

Pour the pasta into a deep dish (deep! coz you need to hold the sauce in it, for you to slurp it later) and keep a piece of that soft garlic bread handy in case you get the urge to bite into one, in between mouthfuls of pasta !!!