3 Storys

Talking about good food in the midst of a shrinking economy, ever growing unemployment and layoff is blasphemy; The Hoggers, know. That's why they insist on talking about it, to inform you that food is indeed a great survivor! In order to beat the mundane chores of daily life at Alliance, they went on a spree to crack down the best restaurant on Lavelle’s Road. It was sheer eagerness from Fickle Fin that resulted in coaxing the rest into zeroing on 3 Storys, a restaurant just off the strip. Paneer Pat missed out as he was playing Tarzan, in vain, to his girlfriend!

The Hoggers made a beeline entry and hit it to the roof top. The view was pretty similar to the one that Kadamba had offered; the brightly lit UB city for a skyline. They had a categorised menu with pretty much everything on it costing the same. The restaurant had laid emphasis on coastal cuisine as their speciality. Goan, Manglorean and Kerala food were in abundance. The Hoggers had Mushroom Bulchao and Stir Fried Prawns for starters. The prawns had no texture and were easy on the spices. It lacked the usual flavouring which were very prominent in coastal cuisines. For a change, the mushrooms were delicious and put in an effort to impress The Hoggers. The place served drinks, this added a dash of excitement into the eyes of Beer Bob & Brewmaster Bryan. Alas, Bryan was disappointed as they served only beer, namely Tuborg & Kingfisher. Tuborg was just bland and seemed like the hops & malts went in for a toss. KF was just the usual but the chill made it quite interesting.

Coming to the main course, Fin shuffled the menu and chose to have the Goan Egg Curry with Whole Wheat Paratha. The others had Chicken Biriyani, Kerala Parathas and Manglorean Chicken Curry in distorted quantities. They also ordered some Sanas, which is a Manglorean rice cake. The food was pathetic to state the least. The biriyani, ordered by Sloppy Sam, was the worst among the lot with nothing going right for it, not even the raitha. It however did not make a difference to him as he licked his plate clean. The chicken curry was overcooked and tasted more like soup. Surprisingly the egg curry was pretty decent but not worth the Rs 150 price tag. The Hoggers were bewildered at the slush which was served as dinner. Yet, they pooled in the cash & walked away with heads held high. And they lived to tell the tale.

The Pseudo Sophisticated couldn’t make it, though. It seems he was busy getting a tattoo of his face, on his face and that he’d aired his thoughts to the rest on 33.33 FM.

Venue – 3 Storys, Kasturba Road Cross, Off Lavelle Road, Bangalore

Recommended – Don’t even think about it

Music – Does not exist

Variety - **

Quality - **

Value for money - *

Ambience - **

Service - **

Ice-Spice Bistro

Boredom can make people do really crazy things. The Hoggers, the protagonists of these escapades usually tackle such a situation with good food, booze & light conversation, as it was imbibed into their impressionable minds from college-life vagaries.

So, it was quite a surprise, when Fickle Fin & Sloppy Sam, came up with a brilliant idea (at least it felt like so, at that moment) to visit a science museum. Surprisingly they reached the ‘venue’ & unsurprisingly late. It was well past 3 in the afternoon & any self-respecting foodie would know that most of the good restaurants would be closed for the afternoon.

So after enduring some irksome descriptions on the exhibits by the lone engineer - Beer Bob, they decided that a light snack would appease their rumbling stomachs, so went to the canteen in the museum run by Kadamba. It’s not their usual fare & of course, the food was predictably disgusting but the view was something to write about. It was great; the UB buildings, gave it at least a skyline to talk about.

Enough of that; the bad food made The Hoggers to search for a better haunt. The result was Ice-Spice on St. Marks Road. The Hoggers shuffled in, devoured in the menu & ordered some burgers. It was the ‘Tons of Fun Lamb Burgers’ for Beer Bob & Brewmaster Bryan they were always of the carnivorous kinds. The Duplicate Veggie Panner Pat had Veg Burger with cheese & fried egg (now you know why he’s a duplicate). Sloppy Sam wanted the entire menu but settled for the ‘Crispy Chicken Burger’. Fickle Fin jumped from a Cold Coffee (without ice-cream or whipped cream), to a hot Coffee, and then soon skipped that for a ‘Raspberry Fizz’. Anyways, he ended up getting an orange coloured fizz that reminded him of his days as a craver of Rasna. The waiter even tried convincing that it was indeed a Raspberry, in vain. The Pseudo-Sophisticated was tied up with ‘appointments’ (yeah right!). The Hoggers called him up anyway; he contemplated the issue for half an hour & came to the conclusion that an auto-ride would be too demeaning to his stature. Unfizzled by the turndown, The Hoggers stuck to their mission.

The food was good. The lamb patties which were tender & juicy deserve special mention. The veggie burger with fried egg was a weird but must try combination. The crispy chicken burger was quite different from the usual Mc Donaldish Burgers. The filling was not a patty but a crisp boneless chicken piece. As usual Sloppy Sam was in a hurry to devour the burger & scooped out the stuffing and made a mess. The burgers were big, tasty & easy on the wallet, what more can foodies ask from a dish?

Then came the deserts, the chocolate tarts were heavenly but the Ferrero-Rocher Cake was terrible. It seemed they just dipped it a pool of mud mistaking it for chocolate syrup.

Venue - Ice-Spice Bistro, St Marks Road, Bangalore

Recommended - Tons of Fun Burger, Chocolate Tarts

Music - Radio

Variety - ****

Quality - ****

Value for money - ****

Ambience - **

Service - *(the guy messed up the Fin’s drink)

The Hoggers' Evolution

What’s it that you’ve always wanted to articulate? Cheesy words like love, lust, friendship, relationships? But there’s a place for taste though. And if you dig deeper you’ll end up with FOOD. Now, what if we could articulate that for you? Hi, we’re a bunch of Foodaholics, who’ve spent funs of time and tons of cash to indulge in one of the carnal pleasures that humans can’t resist – FOOD, just so that you don’t have to! Welcome to our world, where there’s nothing more motivating & intriguing than eating good food!

DISCLAIMER: If you’re one of those who consider the canteen food to be the best diets around or love eating some brown bread & green salad with some sugarless juice for every meal or think KFC/Mc D/Transit/Whatever has the menu to satisfy your appetite then we suggest you do not read further. And if you’re a PETA activist we deeply regret any inconvenience caused as we did not kill the animals or vegetables we ate!

Coming to who we are, well, we do have names and we aren’t some invisible critics spending our wet dreams on the internet. The Hoggers’ main protagonists are:

Fickle Fin – The guy who gets all the orders screwed up (the waiters just hate him)

Brewmaster Bryan – The guy who’d blend the high spirits (it’s never too late for a drink)

Beer Bob – The guy with a penchant for finding those spirits (never say beer again)

Sloppy Sam – The guy who’ll just have anything (2 menus and a black tea for him)

Paneer Pat – The duplicate veggie (the confused soul )

The Pseudo Sophisticated – Well, you really don't want to know (Err...err...you lost him there)

By now you’d be having an idea what we’re on for. You do the little job you're trained to do. Pull a lever. Push a button. You don't understand any of it, and then you just die. Life’s too busy for you to remember to have a good time. That’s where we come in. We want you to have that good time and eat that good food because there’s no point dying without a few scars. Yeah, we accept we’re food critics, but the whole point is we’re not going to go about it the way you’ve always seen or heard. We are definitely not going to indulge in technicalities like the amount of carbs or fat or protein of the food we eat. Just because that shit’s boring, period. Now where do you find strangers with such honesty?

So the next time you you’re taking someone out, you know where to go and whom to thank. FYI when we’re running the show we do invite guests and there might be a day when one of them is you. At the end of the day we’re just here for our elation and hope that in some way or day it translate in to yours. And remember, after eating, everything else in your life got the volume turned down. You could deal with anything!

P.S: Due to our geographical limitations & the fact that we’re living on borrowed money, we’ll be only reviewing restaurants in Bangalore.