Last year 2017’s monthly restaurant reviews saw a range of cuisines and restaurants on my blog and I enjoyed it so much that this year too I decided to do the same, except that I decided to target one area per year.
This year 2018 monthly restaurant reviews will be narrowed down to places only in my area – Indiranagar and trust me, there’s no dearth of food joints here nor a lack of variety.
For January 2018, I decided to go to Smoke House Deli (SHD) for lunch. Now, I rarely review the same place twice and I had already been to their Lavelle road outlet. (reviewed last year February 2017). I had given it a 4 out of 5 rating. I wanted to know what it is like to visit the same restaurant and make comparisons between different outlets.
It was a holiday so quite packed as expected but I was nevertheless directed to a table and let me tell you, they sure need to change their tables. It’s a tiny round thing and all you need is to place a menu card and a bottle of water and there’s hardly any space for anything else! They need to have bigger square tables. My bread basket had to be taken away to make away for other dishes – in other words one cannot keep too many stuff at the same time without crowding.
I ordered more or less the same stuff that I did in Lavelle road which I recall was very pleasant - SHD tomato Bocconcini Salad with queen olives and pesto Vinaigrette. As I chewed through loads of lettuce leaves, roasted tomatoes and olives, the taste was great but I kept feeling something was missing and it wasn’t as good as the one I had at Lavelle road.
After I had finished the salad, washed it down with lime soda and started on my flour less chocolate fudge – (which by the way is simply divine!) THEN it dawned on to me that the cheese was missing…the soft, melt in the mouth cheese that makes the very dish:)
Now comes the best part, a part of me was cheesed off (excuse the PJ), but when it was pointed out, the Manager, Suraj couldn’t have been more apologetic and said that the day’s order was on the house. I refused to let them do that though and while the salad was on the house, I paid up for the rest. Service is the best here.
Back to the cake – chocolovers will surely love this! It is served with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream and there’s something about the combination of hot cake with cold ice cream that makes me swoon. So all in all at least it ended on a sweet note!:)
Ambience wise I somehow liked the Lavelle road outlet better, calm and quiet.
I’ve always maintained that the bench mark of a good restaurant is would it make me want to go back again and would I tell other’s about it?
For this place
Lavelle road: Yes Definitely!
Indiranagar: Not sure…maybe to take away their desserts.
Overall rating: 3/5.
Ratings for reviews:
1 – No! No! No!
2- Just about average.
3 –Good. Can give it a try.
4- Great!!
5 – Yes! Yes! Yes! And I’ll tell all about it.
Details:
Address: Smoke House Deli – 100 feet road, Opposite Starbucks.
Time: 9 AM to 1 AM
Contact: 25200898/ 25200899
