Monday, October 10, 2011

Herbs & Spice burger fest, Pizza Hut, and Spoonful of Sugar

A couple of weeks back, my mom had gone off on a tour to Amritsar, Jammu, and Srinagar with her friends from medical school. So that meant no lunch for me to pack, and so that meant eating out. Herb & Spice was running a burger fest during that time, and so that was a blessing that I very happily gorged on.

Complimentary bread and herbed butter with the beverages

The pulled pork burger that was served was divine. Not just coz I love pork, but it truly was a fine example of how a burger should be, and how pulled pork ought to be. The pork was well flavoured, 'pulled', or extremely tender, and there was sufficient amounts of it to me smile from ear to ear. The honey mustard pork burger wasn't as good as the pulled pork burger - not that it was bad, but the pulled pork was just better - but the honey and mustard did add a nice zing to the burger. And once again, as with the pulled pork burger, there was enough of meat in the patty.

Pulled pork burger


Honey mustard pork burger

The Thai beef burger was a fairly big let down - there wasn't anything in the burger that even remotely whispered Thai, let alone screamed. If they'd just called it a 'big beef burger', or had pinned any such lame name to the burger, I think it would've been great because as a simple beef burger, it was nice.

Thai beef burger

The burger fest ran for about 10 days to two weeks. Perhaps the next time they do some such thing, a little more thought into some finer details would be appreciated - like NOT placing the lettuce below the patty on the bun. As someone who loves burgers and sandwiches, and believes that a burger tastes best once all the components have been 'assembled' in the right way, this one minor glitch did get me to frown a wee bit.

Pizza Hut seems to have come out with a new menu - and by that I couldn't care less about anything, but a friend of mine dragged me to try some of the new goodies. Upon arriving and taking a look at the menu, the new pizzas did seem nice - if they'd deliver them in a size that I thought would be acceptable! Yeah, as you may have guessed, I'm not a big fan of Pizza Hut, or Domino's, but between the two, I think my vote would go to Domino's for the only reason being that the size of their pizzas are complete value for money (hah! I just used another very Bangalore phrase).

The beverages we had were average. The much touted very berry daiquiri had way too much of the berry thing going on in it - it was so tangy that once sip of it and I think my blood curdled, but that was before my whole body shriveled up with my face sporting that look when you have something unexpectedly sour and tangy. I'm pretty certain that too much of any berry will make it a gooseberry! Thankfully that was my friends drink, and my green apple mojito was decent enough to counter the effects that daiquiri had on me.

Very berry daiquiri


Green apple mojito


The Jamaican jerk chicken skewers quite decent in taste (although the spices used didn't seem like the actual Jerk spices), but the chicken did seem a little dry, but I guess that was being consistent with the standards set by Pizza Hut. Hey, if it was any better, they'd be moved from fast food to gourmet food, which I'm guessing would be a big no-no for their brand.

And finally, the pizza. A pesto pepperoni (pork) pizza is what we zeroed in on, although, in hindsight, we should've opted for the pollo heaven because that seemed to have a lot more meat on it. Nevertheless, the pork pizza was quite nice, think crust and all. They could've drizzled a bit of oil on top of it, but it was good nonetheless.

Pesto pepperoni (pork)

For dessert, we found this choco chip cookie sundae very intriguing and so we decided to give it a try. From the photo, you'll notice that there's a baking pan, and the cookie is actually at the bottom of it with some almond savings and ice cream on top of it. Warm cookie with cold ice cream was an amazing way to bring life back into the meal, especially since bits of the cookie were stuck to the pan and those slightly burnt bits are usually the gooiest and yummiest parts.

Choco chip cookie sundae


Spoonful of sugar is located right next to my office (OK, ex-office now, but when I visited it for this particular post, I was still working at GXS). Apart from the desserts - cakes, pastries, tarts - that they're famous for, Spoonful of sugar also dishes out a few pastas, quiches, and sandwiches, any one of which can be a full meal in itself. And so one afternoon we headed towards the place for an outdoor lunch (they have 3 tables outdoors and 1 indoors). I had more or less made up my mind to go and give their quiche a try (I've had some of the sandwiches before, and wasn't really in the mood for any kind of pasta that afternoon).

And so quiche it was for me. Taste wise, there wasn't much to complain about, but my friend who'd joined me is some sort of an expert when it comes to baking, and immediately pointed out to me that the crust of the quiche wasn't completely baked. If you notice the base, you can make out two thin yet distinct layers of differently coloured 'layers' - one golden brown, and another that's pale creamish gray in colour. This, according to my friend, is an indication of the base not having been baked properly. I didn't give a hoot - I loved the taste, but it did make me wonder about whether I should give a hoot about such things. Of course I should!

Quiche

The lasagna was, on the other hand, decent but the cheese used on it was quite evidently old, and it was a reheated lasagna served to us. This was disappointing, given that Spoonful of sugar's USP is that they use only the freshest of everything.

Lasagna

We rounded off our meals with a mud pie and a lemon tart. Both were divine. The chocolate pie, with warm molten chocolate oozing out (see picture) was simply fabulous, while the lemon tart was zingy and good in its own unique way. My friend was again going to point out how the base wasn't done properly but I asked her to put a lid on it and yenjaay it :)



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