In
a Shell
Sea food
festival @ Bene, Sheraton, Brigade Gateway
My love for Sea
food is unconditional and unmatchable. But honestly speaking, spending three
years in Bangalore, hunting many reputed restaurants for authentic and quality
sea food but unfortunately was disappointed every time.
When I was invited
for the ongoing sea food festival at Bene, I wasn’t expecting anything
spectacular from this experience, being my first visit. I always believe that
first impression plays a lot in your mind. And my first impression when I
stepped in Bene was ‘remarkable’. Whenever I visit a restaurant, I am very
particular about the ambiance as I feel it adds a lot to your dining
experience. And Bene is one such place that I would score very high on ambiance. The interior is very calm, pleasant and sophisticated.
Before we started
with ‘In a Shell’ carved menu, Chef Hemanth, a soft spoken gentleman gave us a
warm welcome introducing the “In a Shell’ concept and the food mentioned on the
menu.
Chef Hemanth Kumar
Bread spread
officially kicked off the evening followed by ‘Duo
of Bruschetta’. It was a slow poached prawn with fresh tomato,
basil, garlic and steamed crab meat with pickled onion. Both were equally good
I would pick the latter as it was quite different and the crab meat was so soft
that it melted in the mouth.
Duo
of Bruschetta
The next on the
menu was Oysters “reinvented”, which
had fried Oysters with agrodolce, fennel, onion and peppers. Chef Hemanth
believes in experimenting with the dishes he prepares to bring the best out of
it and needless to say he did wonders to Oysters “reinvented”. A person who
loves sea food would know that Oysters are mostly preferred to be eaten raw but
what Chef Hemanth did was, he fired the oysters and topped with agrrodolce,
fennel, onion and peppers. I don’t like the slimy taste of the raw oyster and
this was indeed a very fine experiment to me, giving the oyster a crunchier
still maintaining its essence. All praise for Chef for this reinvention of
Oysters.
Oysters “reinvented"
Next on the menu
was ‘Seafood Chowder’, which had
seafood broth with fresh clams, mussels, prawns and crab meat. And yet another
masterpiece from the Chef. The moment you take a spoon in your mouth, you will
get the taste of sea water. Once I started on this, I did not speak to anyone
till I finished it completely. All the elements (clams, prawns, mussels and
crab meat) were cooked to perfection. This will definitely leave you craving
for more. Only drawback I felt was, the soup should have been thicker.
Seafood Chowder
For the main
course, we had two options to choose from: ‘Smoky Pasta
and mussels’ or Lobster Asparagus & Pasta’. A tough choice to be
made, I chose the former as it sounded another experiment from Chef Hemanth,
which I was already in love with and was on expectation. Smoky Pasta and
mussels had Smoked Linguini with clams, mussels and crab meat with tomatoes and
basil. Undoubtedly, the best of the evening and the finest pasta I had in a
long time. Take a bow Chef for this amazingly cooked pasta. One taste dominated
throughout and that was Smoky flavor. When you have so many elements to be
take care of, it becomes difficult to maintain a universal taste or flavor but
Chef should be complimented in successfully getting the best out of all the
ingredients and cooking it to perfection and still maintaining smoky taste
throughout.
Smoky Pasta
and mussels
I won’t be able to
comment on Lobster Asparagus & Pasta as I could not taste it. It had open
faced lobster ravioli with asparagus, wilted spinach and zucchini sauce. My
friend Rumana who tasted this, opines: ‘The
lobsters was cooked to perfection and was very easy to cut and just melted in
the mouth. I am sure chef has done a lot of hard work for this kind of taste.
Pasta along with zucchini sauce matched the well-cooked lobsters. Asparagus did not work with me as it killed
the smooth flavor of the dish’.
Lobster Asparagus & Pasta
As we say a perfect
meal can never be completed without a dessert, we had ‘Walnut
& almond tart’, as a sweeter companion to conclude. This dessert
was a warm walnut tart with vanilla ice cream. Needless to say, it really
complimented the meal we had.
Walnut
& almond tart
Before I wind up,
would like to specially mention the host for the evening, Mr. Vijayan
Gangadharan, Executive Assistant Manager, Sheraton Bangalore. He is one of the
best host you can have for the evening. He is a witty person with a great sense
of humor and a ‘Wikipedia’ of wine and sea food. He had so much of information
to share from around the world on two of my favorite topics- Wine and Sea
food.
Mr. Vijayan
Gangadharan
Executive Assistant Manager, Sheraton Bangalore
I really like to
pair White wine with the sea food and Mr. Vijayan was very kind enough to offer
everyone the choice of wine we preferred. Lately, I have been in love with the
white wine and I must say it really complimented the meal we had.
Mr. Vijayan is a
true art lover and he appreciates and promotes the artistic talent. He showed
us the art of wonderful appealing designs in the cup of coffee. We could see
the excitement on his face.
To conclude, it was
an impressive first visit to Bene. ‘In a shell’, seafood festival ends on 25th
June and I highly recommended to all the seafood lovers. The seafood is
procured fresh each and every day yet the pricing is regular and not boosted
for the festival. An average meal will cost Rs. 2500 plus taxes and charges for
a meal for 2.
Pricing Details of ‘In a
shell’ menu:
Duo of Bruschetta-
INR 650
Oysters “reinvented”-
INR 525
Seafood Chowder-
INR 525
Smoky pasta and
mussels- INR 525
Lobster, Asparagus
& Pasta- INR 995
Walnut & Almond
Tart- INR 450
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