Experience the Authentic Thai Cuisine on a Cool Rooftop Ambience: Tom Yum Thai, Indiranagar

Thai cuisine is one of the most loved cuisine worldwide for various reasons like; delicate cooking method, nutritional value and in some specific delicacy for its taste. Being a food diversity hub, Bengaluru has many well known Thai restaurants and among them all Tom Yum Thai stands out with its simplicity and elegance.

This rooftop restaurant is located on the CMH Road of Indiranagar. You can depend on Google Maps as it is bit difficult to notice from the moving vehicle.

AMBIENCE

As soon as the elevator door opens on the 4th Floor, a simple environment opens up before you. Ambient lighting and attractive wall arts will definitely win your heart. They have two kind of dining setup. One gives in-restaurant dining experience and another one gives you the rooftop dining experience. Restaurant interiors has been crafted with decent number of wall arts which illustrate the culture of Thailand in a simple manner. While the exterior has been decorated with plants, pebbles and a statue of Buddha as a symbol of peace. They usually play some of the great EDM albums in the background which fills the energy and makes the evening more lively. They do have a separate smokers zone.

SERVICE

They make you feel like you are in Thailand itself. Most of the stewards appears to be from North East region and they are well trained. They will be always there when you need them. I haven’t seen them interfering in between. You can brief them about your priority of dishes and how it should be served, they obey it very obediently. As per my experience language won’t be a problem with the stewards or managers.

FOOD

It's been a while I tasted Thai delicacy. This restaurant illustrated a different level of approach by its culinary expertise in Thai food. Thai cuisine is one of a kind. They usually cook it very gently and it includes multiple steps even for a simplest dish. It requires a lot of patience and to get it right, it also requires expertise. Here in Tom Yum Thai, they have both expertise and passion. Our dining experience was really nice;

Tom Yum Vegetable Clear Soup: One sip and I felt like decades of odds got cleared in my throat. It was divine spicy. The spice level was equally balanced with the well cooked veggies. Just loved this soup and it’s a must try dish in here.

Tom Yum Veg Soup (with coconut milk): I experienced true Thai essence in this soup. The spices and herbs used in it was so perfect that each and every sip felt heavenly. Especially when some sips included lemongrass pieces. Ah! If I’m visiting this restaurant again, this soup is the whole reason for it!

Classic Raw Papaya Salad: It appeared so innocent by looks but believe me it tastes too spicy. It felt wonderful to me but some of my friends were not able handle the spiciness. However, it was well processed raw Papaya tossed with spicy Thai sauce and crispy peanut. It was classic in deed.

Tofu with Cashewnuts: Soft & well marinated tofu with well fried Cashewnuts! What more to expect, it was a perfect combination to satisfy our Thai food cravination at the first place. This dish was so cool we ended up ordering it two more times. 

Fried Tofu with Sweet Chilli Topping: Arrrrgh! It appeared to be challenging us all spicy lovers. It’s all about how much spiciness one can handle. I had 4 spoons of it and I was done! My eyes started to cry! Despite such strong spice level I really admire this dish. Because it was not just about adding more spice but the chef has managed to compensate the spiciness with equal amount of seasoning and assorted veggies. I have very few such places in Bengaluru where they know how to tame the spice and this is one among them.

Stir Fried Vegetables: The bowl full of vegetables or a bowl full of healthy calories. Being a non-diet oriented person I didn’t liked this dish as much I liked other dishes. Despite generous use of Soya & Garlic sauces, this dish tasted bland and felt something is not right. 

Green Curry with Steamed Rice: It was good. But it slightly failed to impress me in front of such great starters. However, the green curry went well with steamed rice.

DRINKS

As a welcome drink they offered Watermelon Juice which was nice, later during the dining session they presented Shula Red & White wine. I opted for Red Wine it tasted kind of ordinary but paired well with their Spicy Tofu. I also had a chance to taste their Virgin Mojito, it felt bit diluted and they have used lots and lots of ice which is really strange. Any how, taste of the Mojito was good but they can improve a bit.

DESSERTS

Chocolate - Vanilla Scoop: It didn’t take much time to some of my fellow foodies to figure it out that Ice Creams are transported from Managalore’s famous Ideal Ice Creams. Its very very hard to find such Ice Cream in Bengaluru and I’m glad that Tom Yum Thai has taken an extra effort to serve the world famous Ideal Ice Cream in here. The texture of both scoops were so smooth that I fell in love with those. Just brilliant.

GudBud Ice Cream: It was a nice way to end our dining session. It was filled with generous portion of jelly, nuts and flavoured syrups along with strawberry, kesar ice creams and topped with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream. Lovely.

EVERYTHING ELSE: Pricing is moderate and affordable. They do have dedicated parking space in the cellar. Whole restaurant is very neat and hygiene has been maintained well.

FINAL VERDICT: It's a perfect place to enjoy the Thai delicacy and lovely rooftop ambience is a boon. Whether it’s a romantic date or friendly hangout you’ll definitely enjoy the simplicity of this place. 

BAKASURA RATING

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Event Organised By:

It was "50th Meetup by Food Bloggers Association of Bangalore". Being associated with the organisation from its very first bloggers meetup it feel immense pleasure and proud at the same time to see their achievement. They are one of the primary reason to start this blog and I'm very glad that I got inspired by such expert community.

I thank them for inspiring us and congratulations on completing 50 milestones by creating a perfect platform for all bloggers.

Admin Panel of FBAB:
Bibhuti Bhusan Panigrahy   Chef, Food Blogger, Travel Blogger
Naveen Suresh   Food Blogger
Nameesh N Rajamane   Lifestyle Blogger

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AMBIENCE

FOOD

The best Hawaiin Experience in town : Three Dots and a Dash, Indiranagar

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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