Except the fact that a sexy beach is missing, Three Dots and a Dash offers you a great Hawaiian Tiki bar experience with its brilliant roof top ambience and lovely cocktails collection that too in the heart of the city.
So, what does the name even mean? Most of the people know that “Three Dots and a Dash” (...-) stands for Letter “V” in the Morse code which was used by alliance forces to convey the Victory message. But another fact is, in the memory of Alliance Victory during World War II, a Hawaiian Tiki Bar named ‘Don the Beachcomber’ created a drink called “Three Dots and a Dash” which got popular just in few weeks for its spicy taste and for honouring the victory.
Does this place lives up to its name’s legacy? Absolutely… It clearly appears that before building this place a lot of effort has been gone in to perception to create the perfect Hawaiian Ambience. It may be the walls of Bamboo, wall decals, bar counter or the rooftop seating arrangement everything succeeds in providing optimum experience to the guests.
They have both air conditioned indoor and open air rooftop setup. I personally prefer rooftop as it feels just wonderful with all those dim lit raw ambience. This place is built around a coconut tree which is an unique feature and they offer the tender coconut from the same tree as welcome drink. I just loved this concept.
SERVICE
We were welcomed with fancy garlands and a genuine smile. Since they launched new menu for cocktails and food, stewards got confused to state the names of the drinks but the issue was quickly sorted out with the intervene of cool manager. He explained the varieties, origin and the preparation methods about the drinks. Stewards were active all the time and quickly responded to our orders. They respect your privacy completely and never interfere between you, your food and your conversation.
As they completed 1 year on last Sunday (20 Nov 2016), they introduced some new tiki cocktails and delicacies. We were invited to taste and review their new culinary achievements.
DRINKS
This restaurant is famous for its Tiki Cocktails… What’s Tiki Cocktails? Well, most of the tiki cocktails will be Rum based and the tastes are driven by various spices and natural essence like flower extracts, citrus, honey, etc. Its one of the popular drink style in many tropical regions. As per my knowledge, Three Dots and a Dash is the only restaurant which is serving large choices of tiki cocktails in Bengaluru. Here, they serve all tiki cocktails in a fancy mugs which are as wacky as their cocktail names. Our experience goes like this;
Dark & Stormy: True to its name! It was a tempting mixture of simple ingredients like Gosling’s Black Seal Rum and Ginger Beer with a light citrus kick from lime juice. I liked this drink for its simplicity and for revealing true liquor taste in the background. This drink became the benchmark to compare other drinks they served that evening.
Fog Cutter: Honestly, I didn’t liked this drink that much. The trace of liquor was too strong and I couldn’t able to handle it. It’s a bourbon drink with gin and aged rum. Yes! They have tried to tame it with different fruit juices like pineapple, orange, lime and honey syrup. But still in my perspective it was too strong.
Jungle Bird: I liked this drink, it was like splashes of many flavours at once. Being dark rum based drink it was treated with the generous portions of Campari & Cointreau along with orgeat and other spicy syrups. Being a spicy lover this drink won my heart. But I think they need to experiment more by using different proposition as I felt it could have been better.
Pineapple Daiquiri: It was proportionate mixture of aged rum with pineapple & lime juice. It was pretty straight forward and didn’t appealed much to my taste buds.
Rum Crusta: I had this drink somewhere in Delhi and I remember how magical it tasted over there. But in here it was just average. The whole point of this drink is to entertain different parts of your tongue. But here it tasted just bland. Need to improve this drink. It contained Aged Rum, Cointtreau, Maraschino &Lime Juice.
Rob’s Mistake: The flavours were so rich and confusing at the same time. Flavours just appeared to be overlapping each other. Yet, it was worth trying. It is the craziest definition for Tiki Cocktails and I kind of liked it. Its light rum and London dry Gin based cocktail with Passion fruit puree, Frangelico, Pineapple syrup and medium traces of Grenadine & Dark rum.
FOOD
Since I was the only vegetarian in the group I thought it will be difficult to blend in food tasting experience with the fellow bloggers. But thanks to service team and to the chef, each and every time they use to serve vegetarian version of their delicacies which they have crafted specially for Anniversary launch.
Ceasar Salad: The presentation was nice. By looks itself it appeared very healthy. Raw vegetables were processed well and the choice of veggies were great.
Lemon Coriander Soup: Another healthy starter which I generally see in calorie / organic oriented restaurants. Tasted good as the spice level was accurate.
Herb Cheese Stuffed Mushroom: Though I don’t like mushrooms much, I had a 2-3 chunks of it and it tasted good. The sauce provided with it helped me to push the mushroom taste aside.
Vegetable Croquettes: Mmmm… who doesn’t love such great fried dish. Everything about this dish was perfect. The vegetables used in the stuff was well cooked, they have used right amount of filling and fried it to the perfect golden brown. In matter of seconds this dish disappeared on our table.
California Spud: I didn’t like this dish that much as it appeared only like baked potato without any extra seasoning.
Quesadillas Vegetable: Delicious! I don’t know how many of these I had. The filling was too good as the assorted veggies were well cooked and it was a perfect balance between spiciness and tanginess. Just loved it.
Vegetable Tagine with Couscous: True to its origin of middle east, it was nice. I just wish that they have added some more assorted veggies. Nevertheless it tasted good.
DESSERT:
Hawaiian Banana Split with Fresh Ice Cream: The presentation was mindblowing. It came on the top of half sliced pineapple decorated with well sliced Banana slices. The ice cream scoops were so tempting that without any second thought we attacked it. It was delicious!
Chocolate Brownie with Vanilla Ice Cream: Brownie was good but not great. However it serves the purpose. Vanilla Ice Cream was soft textured and it made brownie to taste better.
EVERYTHING ELSE: Apart from tasty tiki cocktails and wonderful food, this place also offers Hookah with a great selection of flavours. Since I’m not a smoker (yup! Not even Hookah) I can’t comment on that. They do have valet parking and a decent space to park two wheeler. The open sky environment on the rooftop is wonderful but as it’s smoker's zone I wouldn’t recommend it for non-smoker or for family. Hygiene has been maintained well in the dining area and at bar.
FINAL VERDICT: Though the ambience doesn’t seem like a hard core romantic but it’s definitely a buddies hangout place to chill out the weekend’s evening boozing the favourite tiki cocktail!
BAKASURA RATING
3.5 / 5
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