Hungry in Bangalore: Sattvam, Sadashiv Nagar

The starters roll in

Sattvam is a buffet only vegetarian restaurant which focuses on Sattvic food - sattvic meaning good for the body and soul. Located in Seshadri puram, it is a very unique restaurant experience with one of the best tasting food in Bangalore. In a nutshell, the food is excellent, the service great and you really don't feel heavy after the meal - which my Family unanimously felt makes it a good restaurant.

Buffets almost always evoke a groan in my house. Same old tired concepts of the usual starter+roti sabzi+rice+gulab jamun with ice cream which were perhaps from the wedding hall down street or the barbecue Non veg buffet which doenst work in my household rule by majority vegetarians.

But Sattvam creates a unique twist to the buffet experience with a very tasty, wide and impressive spread. The several starters are just superb, the masala puri with tiny bottles of pani to start with comes with a dry ice presentation. The buffet spread is huge covering a lot of Indian salads, starters, sabzis and rice dishes. All of them great. The few chinese are continental dishes were above average. The deserts were numerous and extremely well made. Plus there was a live cold stone ice cream counter and a live pasta counter. The Pizza slices were really good!

For Rs.630 per person on weekend for Dinner, this is a very satisfying restaurant.

Great presentation

Hungry in Bangalore: Kakori Kababs and Curries JP Nagar

The life of Bangalore restaurants usually goes something like this:

1.      New eating joint on the Bangalore eating block so all out efforts. Good food, reasonable prices, excellent service and the good reviews come pouring in – lasts about a year max
2. .       Now that all the nearby IT offices have had their lunches and far off ones tried and gone, service is strictly OK, prices jacked up and the food doesn’t quite hit the spot – lasts a long time say 3 years
3.        Patrons just want to get drunk, change in management, all the good furniture sold off, staff is  basically all the street egg roll vendors in bigger kitchen and– 6 months tops and then a new restaurant or shady local liquor den in place.

But the very few good ones last. Although business seems great in Bangalore, its probably tough to compete in this city with the steady inflation and fickle eating interests of patrons. 5 years in Bangalore (A term I will now use more frequently) I have seen this life cycle and happy that my favorites have stuck around.

Kakori Kabab is probably at stage 1. New on the map, a good addition to South Bangalore. A bit inconveniently located in JP Nagar but that’s good. Fewer crowd in the joint hence more attention for us.

So like almost all big eating events it was my teams jaunt for a Birthday celebration. After having tried and tired of all the nearby restaurants we decided to go for this. Kakori Kabab is a specialty of the Nawabs cuisine from UP state in India. It’s a rich soft lamb kabab composed of a special secret mixture of lamb meat, paneer and spices.

Though I don’t think we had any of that. We had the Kabab platter which costed around 900 rupees but was total bang for the buck. An assortment of really really good fish, chicken and lamb kababs. I couldn’t make out which was which but the fish and chicken kababs were off the hook. I feel sorry that I didn’t take a pic, cause I would have hung it on my wall. The kababs were that good. The name suits the game.

The veg starters were disappointing.  So that was a big let down. I didn’t have any so no complaints from me.

But it got better again after that. Up next Dal Makhni, Nargis Kofta and Nawabi Haandi along with rotis, kulchas and phulkas. Dal Makhni so good. Nargis Kofta so so so good. Nawabi Handi meh.

The portions average. The ambiance comforting and pleasing and the price was a bit above average. We returned back to office super full and happy and ready to nap with our eyes open.