Navroze Bhonu @SodaBottleOpenerWala | Bangalore
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Different communities have different styles of cooking,
secret recipes and also a separate significance behind what they eat, how they
eat and why. As mentioned before, our country is home to a variety of people
and this time we will be talking about a certain community only: The Parsi
community.
Just like any other community, Parsi’s have their specialty
when it comes to food and we got a taste of authentic Parsi food very recently
at one of the most popular cafe’s in Bangalore: SodaBottleOpenerWala (Now
that’s what you call a long name!) and they are located in Lavelle Road, Bangalore.
This is the time the Parsi’s celebrate their new year called
Navroz Bhonu to honour India as their new home.
On this auspicious occasion we visited SodaBottleOpenerWala to try out their special menu. Their
special menu consisted of two thali’s: Veg and Non Veg including two desserts.
For pretty obvious reasons we tried the non veg thali and
the desserts of course. Parsi’s cannot imagine a meal without non veg and the same
goes for us so as always great people think alike ;)
Now coming down to the items which were present in the
thali:
There was a mysteriously tasty pulao which when dug into,
revealed chunks of boneless and well cooked mutton. There were
berries in the pulao with loads of caramelized onions and cashews. The pulao was insanely
tasty and the overall combination was a boom! The sweetness of the berries complemented excellently with the flavors and spiciness of the mutton. This preparation was called the mutton pulav.
Along with this there was a brinjal pickle, salads, masala
ni dal, saria and a chicken preparation called Jardaloo chicken. Along with the
pulav, there were also roti’s as accompaniments.
The masala dal had a thick consistency with a sharp taste.
It was another lip smacking preparation.
The saria was most probably the
fried cutlet made of mashed potatoes and it had the fresh aroma of coriander. A
bite into this and a spoonful of mutton pulav: (eagerly waiting for next year’s
bhonu!)
The Jardaloo chicken was wholly
based on apricot. It was very tasty with well cooked bony pieces of chicken but
the gravy was a little bit too sweet. Some people will like this and some
people will not. I (Rudra) actually liked it. It was like a spicy chicken
masala which was sweet at the same time!
So that’s all from the non-
vegetarian bhonu/thali side. Now for the desserts: Raspberry and white
chocolate panacotta and Sev.
The panacotta was served in what
we normally perceive as roadside tea glasses and looked good. Taste wise it
could have been better as the consistency was not equal throughout and not
smooth like panacotta should be. Apart from these negatives, it tasted decent.
The Sev as it should be had sev!
It also had raisins, was mildly sweet and had a touch of ghee. It provided a
smooth finish to a hearty meal.
Unfortunately, this special menu
was till the 21st of August and now the only thing left to do is think
of what we have missed. (In our case it is something we could have tried again!)
We’ll wait till next year for
this same menu if possible because even if it was on for a short time, this
menu is absolutely worth trying again!
If you guys happen to drop by
next year around this time and try these marvels do let us know ;)
We will soon bring to you another
of our food encounters.
Till then—bon apetit!
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