'Tis the time for BBQ

There couldn't have been a a better time to open a barbeque restaurant. The week-old BBQ World has some hits and a few misses

With the mercury levelu00a0 south bound, grills are on everyone's minds. Indiranagar now has a new barbeque joint called BBQ world.



Located in a quaint cul-de-sac, the terrace restaurant has table barbeques, much like the popular BBQ Nation. You can sit inside if you like, just as we did and take in the minimal decor complete with wooden chairs and orange spiral lanterns overhead.

The kitchen conundrum can get in the way of conversation and even the light music they play if you sit besides the bar next to the kitchen. But we chose to ignore it.

Right now, it's only a pre-fix menu with 13 to 15 dishes including six kinds of vegetarian and non-vegetarian kababs that's available. They will introduce an a la carte menu in the next two weeks.
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The non-vegetarian buffet, priced at R 549 on weekends, is sans beverage, and frankly a bit overpriced given that many restaurants include more dishes and beverages in their buffets which don't cross Rs 250 even on weekends.u00a0On weekdays, the damages are slightly less, but not less enough.

The menu changes once a week unlike most places that change it every alternate day. When the grills are about 80 per cent done, they are brought to the table. If heavy grills are what you fancy, you can roll the sticks further on the hearth.

Since beverages are not part of the buffet, we ordered a Fresh Lime Soda Salt and a sweet version of the same drink to build our appetite for what seemed to be like a lengthy dinner. While the former was refreshing, the latter had a bed of sugar at the pit of the glass.u00a0

Post that, we had the chicken shorba. Light and flavourful, it was palate pleasing, but there was hardly any chicken shreds in it. The grilled prawns with a mild tangy taste, were perfect and the heavily grilled small potatoes turned out to be the best of the lot.

The Paneer Jahangiri, completely saltless, was otherwise fine. The muttonu00a0 sheekh kabab was faultless andu00a0 went well with the mint chutney.
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The mango mint chutney here makes the choice of sauces interesting and can add flavour to the Indian Vegetarian Grills that includes broccoli, gherkins and cauliflower. Quite a misnomer given that neither broccoli nor gherkins have an Indian origin!

For the mains, it's a multi-cuisine menu here. We had a well made Mutton Biryani withu00a0 tender pieces of mutton enveloped by a soft aroma and followed it up with the Methi Murgh, which, surprisingly lacked the slightest hint of fenugreek although you could see them afloat in the gravy.
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Our guess is that the cashew paste and other spices in it suppressed the flavour of methi. The Toor Dal was wholesome and homely but the biggest disappointment lay in the Chinese Fried Vegetable. The batter fried vegetables were cold,u00a0 bland and quite insipid.
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Also, what was labelled the Thai Yellow Curry, actually turned out to be Szechwan Chicken and had us foxed! It was something like a false alarm. You see the name of a dish on the label, and what goes into your mouth is not just completely different but also something from another country -- China!

The Yellow curry is the richest of the Thai curries as it contains coconut cream along with coconut milk. And here we were having chicken dunked in a Szechwan sauce. The Vegetable Hyderabadi, a melange of seasonal vegetables, was as per our expectations though.

The dessert section lacked excitement. There was gulab jamun, which had soaked in much more oil than it should have, a Vanilla pastry that was just fine and a very disappointing butterscotch ice cream, the nuts in which seemed spoilt.

BBQ World should play to its strength and focus solely on its grills because they do a fairly good job of them.u00a0 Multi cuisine restaurants are not hard to find in the city, unlike exclusive barbeque joints. Besides, highlighting the USP is never a bad idea.u00a0

BBQ World didn't know we were there. The Guide reviews anonymously and pays for meals.u00a0

AT BBQ World, No 2726 Lakshmi Narayan Nivas, 80 feet road
Indiranagar
Next to Sapna Book House
call 25287777/25298888
Meal for two Rs 1, 200