Soho St. : First choice for great buffet

Soho St. is one of the popular choice for corporate dine-out, organizational/community meet ups, team-out and of course birthday or anniversary parties.

I've visited this restaurant for couple of times in a year and half back. I just loved their food & drinks back then, but never got a chance to visit this restaurant for a long time in recent months. But when FBAB (Food Bloggers Association) arranged lunch meetup I was excited to revisit this restaurant. But, I got disappointed with food and drinks this time.

AMBIANCE: It appears like an invitation, well designed wall decals and great branding catches your eyes. Bar is ideally placed at the entrance, behind the bar it has dessert counter and it has wide spread of buffet arrangement in front of its huge kitchen. It also has a live kitchen at back entrance. It has a great seating capacity and can house any kind of crowd. What's interesting is you can feel it's environment as romantic or a crazy party floor or celebration venue or as discussion stage. It suits for everything.

SERVICE: I found nothing to complain nor to prise about. Stewards were attentive at the beginning and lost interest by end of our lunch session. Anyway, didn't felt that we were ignored. They were kind enough to suggest the drinks and usually within minutes drinks & food were arriving on table. Overall I can say service was good!

FOOD: Soho St. is one among those restaurants which makes customers to rise their eyebrows seeing wide buffet arrangement and the variety of food. Starters were really great and gave a good company to cocktails. Whether it's salt & pepper American corn or paneer pasande kebab or tandoori pineapple or dry babycorn one, each starter was too good!
Pav bhaji & other chat items were good, but they were not heated properly often, so it lost its freshness very soon.
In main course many curry were just good but I didn't felt it as awesome as my previous experience. Butter paneer did caught me. It was less spicy yet delightful... Just enjoyed that

single curry.
Then we began our trails with desserts. First thing caught my eyes was cold stone ice cream. A mixture of 3 flavors of ice cream with generous potion of caramel, chocolate chips & crackles will bring water in your mouth. It's taste was awesome. Along with that choco mousse was too good. But other than that almond cake was clear let down as it was bitter, some other jelly cakes were also below average. But I must admit that I'm really impressed by their desserts spread & great varieties!

DRINKS: Sadly this time drinks disappointed me deeply. At the beginning I ordered martini, but it had over dose of sugar. Toooo sweet so that I couldn't able to figure out other blended flavors at all. As per suggestion of a steward I ordered mint flavored mocktail by the end of main course, the drink tasted good but it was full of ice. It took forever to get melt. Hardly I took 4 sips out of it. It should me named as "Mint Gola" not mint mocktail. In general I tasted other cocktails & mocktails but nothing tasted good apart from 1 or 2 which were just above average. Hope management will take care of this issue because last time when I visited this restaurant I loved some of the drinks. But this time I felt sorry for drinks quality.

EVERYTHING ELSE: Parking wouldn't be a problem; kitchen, dining area and bar are hygienic.

FINAL VERDICT: Though they offer good variety of drinks with awesome spread of food, I would like to stick to beer next time. Recommended for all kind of occasions for its great ambiance!

BAKASURA RATING :

3.5 / 5

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Naveen Suresh, Food Blogger

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GALLERY

The Front Look

Royal Punjabi Dining Experience : Punjab Grill, Koramangala

Punjab Grill is renowned name among fine dine restaurants around Koramangala. Located in the hotspot of Koramangala it offers lot of unique delicacies. Whether it's weekday or weekend, it's always difficult to get a table if you walk-in directly. Same thing happened with me in my previous attempt and I changed the venue. But this time thanks to Zomato, they invited me for the meetup in this venue.

AMBIANCE: It's elegant. Though the dining area appears like small, it can house many guests at a time. Bar is located near the entrance and it appears like a hidden treasure. Drinks showcase will definitely gets your attention. However, those dim light & Bollywood music will surely set your mood. We had complete privacy and enjoyed the view of bustling traffic outside through window :P

Flaming Lamborghini

SERVICE: Very professional indeed! Soft spoken managers, prompt stewards and cool owner!
Yeah...! What else you want! Stewards were promptly checking us and replaced plates & drinks perfectly as and when it was required so that we can have our concentration only on our conversations. Manager was kind enough to explain about the drinks repeatedly to each and everyone and obliged well by understanding our food photography enthusiasm! Overall this Punjabi grill team successfully made us to feel pleasant.

Virgin Sangria

DRINKS: It was as exotic as this restaurant's ambiance. Flaming Lamborghini was one of the dare drink which is absolutely not for faint hearted. Crafted blue flame over the drink was an absolute treat to eyes. Apart from that I tried Niki the Tikki cocktail which was too good. And my favorite of that night was Virgin Sangria, it appeared like they have carefully mixed the portions of fruit juices and balanced it with ice. The guy who prepared must be good at chemistry. Because after every few sips the taste of the drink use to get more stronger as the ice kept melting. Indeed a wonderful mocktail. But, it took several minutes for me to figure out how to drink this mocktail as the fruit stick in the glass was annoying a lot (bar attender must be weak in physics). I kept that stick aside and enjoyed the drink at last :P

FOOD

Many of the dishes in their menu are very unique, many were core Punjabi and very few were not upto the mark. Our experience goes like this:
STARTERS:

Papad Platter: This was the first dish to make a grand entry on our table. It had 5-6 types of papad with great choice of dips / chutneys like beetroot, onion, tomatoN'cheese, PudinaN'Chilli. Each papad tasted differently with different dips, by the time I was suppose to finish this "match the following" game with papad and chutney more dish arrived on our table.

Veg Kurkuri: This dish appeared as unique as it's name, well fried dish which was stuffed with cheese generously and dipped in a sweet-chilly postion. Really awesome starter.

Paneer Tikka Multhani: I get very soft feeling whenever I hear the name "Multhani". And this starter did justified that feeling. Paneer was Soft and fresh. But spices were bit on lesser side. However, it was too good.

Dahi Ke Kabab: Honestly, I didn't like this dish. It was too sour. Even pudina chutney didn't help me to get rid of its sourness.

Subz Ki Khaam Katai: This is another dish which I didn't liked the most. Appeared like it is lacking in salt & other key ingredients. Tasted very bland to me.




MAIN COURSE:

Tawa Vegetables: Starters almost filled our tummy, but when main courses arrived, we realized there is a long way to go. Tawa Vegetable is first to make it up to our (Vegetarian's) plate. It was neither like gravy nor like dry it was like "subji". Impressive thing about this dish is, though it had 4-5 different Vegetables they have categorised the vegetables into different parts & they served only those Vegetables which you like. One of the unique side dish I ever came across.

Paneer Labadar

Paneer Labadar: It was more like paneer butter masala with very little trace of sweetness. It was good.

Sarson da Saag: at the beginning it tasted bitter & raw, but after few bites it turned out very tasty. I could experience some of the core Indian spices in it. Definitely it was king of main course.

Guchchi pulao: It was quite let down, rice was not mixed properly. Uneven spread of Masala & visible chunks of pure white rice were disappointing.

Breads: Ulta Tawa ka Paratha was a great delight, it was too soft and went well with all side dishes; And other breads like makai di roti, kababreez khasmiri roti were just good. The amount of butter used on Rotis was perfect.




DESSERT:

Ram Flamed Gulab jamoon: I've read many reviews which states that the Gulab Jamoon in Punjab Grill is a must try. So, I was waiting for this dessert eagerly. When the steward flamed it, ah! my temptation gained more altitude. But once I tasted it, I felt like I'm falling from the same great altitude of temptation. It was not as great as I expected. First layer of Jamoon was good but the second layer inside it was kind of bland & tough. Mostly it was a bad day for Jamoon!

Kulfi Falooda

Litchi Ki Tehri: A creamy dessert with overdose of sweet. It disrupted by taste buds for a while by its heavy sweetness.

Kulfi Falooda: It was like fusion of paan masala & Kulfi. Since I'm not a big paan lover, I didn't like it much.

Kulfi: They served 4 flavors of kulfi dipped in sugar syrup. I chose lemon in order to get rid of taste of Litchi Ki Tehri. The taste was good and it successfully refreshed by taste buds.

THE PAAN SHOT: This is one of the signature shot of this place & an awesome way to end the dining session. Yes! Even non-paan/beeda lover like me will also like the after sensation generated by this shot. Trully amazing.




EVERYTHING ELSE: It has valet parking service. But parking two wheeler can be really difficult. Hygiene is maintained very well.

FINAL VERDICT: One of the most dependable restaurant in the area with decent pricing. Highly recommended I suggest people to reserve table in advance.

Nikki the Tikki (Cocktail)

Singh is King (Cocktail)

Some Non-Veg Dishes

Ulta Tawa ka Paratha

BAKASURA RATING:

4.0 / 5

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Romantic outdoor dining experience : Bayleaf Restaurant Bar, Koramanagala

I never thought that such an exotic place is located at ground floor of Raheja Arcade. In the recent times Koramangala has become hub of fine dine restaurants, breweries and multi-cuisines restaurants. Bayleaf is just another star among them.

Since Zomato awarded me with a voucher and as it was last date of voucher we made plans to visit this restaurant though it's bit far from home. We located it very easily and dedicated parking space in such a traffic bustling vicinity added extra delight.

AMBIANCE: Though it's located in a building which looks very old, they have completely given modern touch to their restaurant. In the whole building this restaurant part appears like it has came from a different time. However, ambiance is truly wonderful. They have open air outside seating and air-conditioning seating. Naturally cultivated green fence separates outdoor seating from the koramangala main road. Since it was week day evening it had only few guests. So, we decided to sit at outdoor without worrying about smokers! Our choice was great, we had complete privacy and enjoyed light drizzle!

SERVICE: Honestly, I didn't liked their service. At the beginning manager took great interest and helped out in choosing a seat, soon after I presented the voucher everything changed dramatically. First thing which irritated me was manager started to educate (literally) me about how to place order. I don't know what he was thinking. Second thing, they assigned a trainee / inexperienced steward to us. Our steward use to drop food all over table while serving. Also that manager enquired about the voucher twice in middle of our dining (like how & when you got that voucher, who awarded it, etc) Fed up with his questions I told him that I'm ready to pay the bill without any discounts. Thereafter he didn't asked any questions. Ill-treating a potential guest threw away all other good factors about this restaurant in my views.

FOOD: I must say, food was really great. At the beginning we ordered tamatar dhaniya shorbha which had true taste of its flavors. It's been a while since I tasted true tomato essence in soup and every sip of this shorba had true tomato puree in it. Just loved it.

We ordered corn pepper chat to accompany mocktails. It was not that much crispy as it must be. However taste was good and it went well with mocktails.

Then we jumped to main course by ordering Paneer Kurchan with Butter Roti & Naan. Paneer Kurchan was extraordinary. Paneer was perfect, the light sour taste in the background blended well with tangy taste of gravy. It was indeed a perfect harmony between spices. Butter Roti & Naan were good as usual. They must work on presentation of food in order to make food more appealing.

Purple Glaze

DRINKS: In between we ordered mocktails namely Cinderella & Purple Glaze. Purple Glaze is my all time favorite. But here it tasted quite lite. I never tried Cinderella before. It was too good or beautiful just like it's name.

EVERYTHING ELSE: Locating washroom is like a treasure hunt it's not easily visible, outdoor seating arrangement is bit tricky. Since space between the tables are not even, it appears like a maze of you want come out of it. Hygiene has been maintained well all over the restaurant.

I'm rating this restaurant considering the great ambiance & for excellent effort of chef. If service was good, I would have rated this restaurant 4.5!

FINAL VERDICT: In my views it's one of the best place to take your date with you... Provided if service factor improves distinctively in future.

Tamatar Dhaniya Shorba

Corn Pepper Chat

Cinderella (Mocktail)

Paneer Kurchan

Roti & Butter Naan

BAKASURA RATING :

3.5 / 5

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