American Burger

One of the best burgers, if not the best, this city offers is the American Burger.
The barbequed patty with the smoky flavour is wonderfully moist and hidden between two soft halves of a bun. The lower half has a nice serving of mayo and ketchup. The burger is well complemented with french fries which are perfectly crispy on the outside and soft inside.
The burger used to be a lot better about 8 years ago. The quality dropped and the bun started being dry and leaving a grainy feeling in the mouth. For me, burger buns must have a soft core which should be easy on my jaws; eaten without much struggle. Burgers with buns that need a lot chewing and moistening with saliva, making you thirsty is something I really hate. Recently they are lifting up their standards and the burgers taste good again.
However, management needs much work. When you are becoming something popular, one thing you must never ignore is the management. Poor management often kills a good business. One night I was charged a price higher than what was mentioned on the menu. The menu said "Vat included", but after my meal they told me that prices were "Vat Exclusive" and they will charge 15% Vat on that meal. If I didn't have extra money, that could have been really embarrassing. What if someone didn't have any extra and ordered by the menu considering what he had in his pocket? Honestly, I shouldn't have paid them another extra paisa. That night, I would say it was a dishonest business!

Cream soup in Dhaka

If you like cream soup and live in Gulshan, I think you are in luck. I always love cream soup and I haven't found any decent cream soup anywhere until recently. My mom makes the best cream soup and the only other place serving good, thick, creamy soup with good portion of chicken or mushroom is PIZZA INN.
I liked the mushroom cream soup more, because I had to struggle eating the chicken from the cream of chicken. Thinly sliced chicken strips are hard to pick with the spoon and I would have preferred cubes here. Otherwise, the soup is quite pleasing, and to me is a comfort food with two slices of nicely prepared garlic bread.
The best part is, the soup is not lumpy and neither made with milk powder and water, making a thin baby-vomit like liquid on the bowl as I have often found in many restaurants in the city.. It has the richness of cream and there is a very subtle taste of garlic.
If I am craving for cream soup on a day mom can't prepare, I will be visiting Pizza Inn Bangladesh.

Buffet lunch at Village Restaurant

Last week I was at Village Restaurant for lunch.
I was there for the buffet. One thing I have learned is that food in the buffet is good only its first hour and like always, I couldn't make it there before the last.
So here is my review of the last week's meal there:

Soups-I didn't find them named and so I had to go for the colour to have thick Thai soup. Soup was average, but I wasn't there to judge their soup. I don't expect them to make the best soup in the world either since I have known them to specialize on BBQ.

Chicken Biryani- This was something really interesting. The aroma kept calling me and I didn't resist. However, I was disappointed with the flavour. Kalijeera overpowered the whole dish and I would have wished for subtle taste of all the ingredients used rather than just one strong flavour. Meat was nice and tender though and the rice was perfectly cooked.

Steamed rice- I liked their choice of rice here and was fluffy and perfectly cooked. It is perfect to complement curry or daal.

Chicken Karai- I picked the breast piece. I expected it to be dry after being out here for so long and they try to retain as much moisture as possible using a foil cover, but that is not possible when you have to take it off to serve the guests every now and then. Yet I went for this dish to check the sauce.
Sauce was nice, cumin gives a pleasant taste and all other spices are balanced well to make it a really good dish.

Naan- Naan was okay but it could be a little fluffier.

Grilled vegetable- I didn't like it so much. It was mainly because of the contrast. Hard carrots didn't go well with soft grilled bell peppers.

Beef Sheekh Kebab- Now this is something they claim to specialize on; BBQ items! Sheekh kebab was quite traditional and had a nice texture, was moist and tastes good with the tamarind sauce they serve. The sauce that complements it is very good. Yet I was disappointed. I was looking for the smoky flavour and I found not a hint of it there. So last night I went to check the kitchen and the charcoal used didn't have enough carbon like pure coal to emit that aroma either. It is kind of difficult to get the taste you get from coal with charcoal.
In many parts of the world food is smoked using particular kind of charcoal or wood chips to infuse certain flavours into the food. The wrong type of wood can ruin it too.

Firni- This was a delight. It was done to perfection. I would have liked a bit of a contrast from the garnish but the almonds were too thinly sliced to give that crunchy bite.

Malai Kulfi- The balance was totally ruined by the malai. Malai was too sweet and sweetness of that level can give you stomach cramps.

I wouldn't say I had the best lunch, but i have tasted worse.
It ended with a cup of tea and if the saying " All's well that ends well" is true, then I think it went well.

The real attraction of this place to me certainly wasn't the food yet, but the interior. By the time its evening, it looks like you are in perfect picturesque village from the second floor with the trees around adding to the beauty. The ground-floor is designed to make you feel like you are dining in a well organized local restaurant outside the city. You may start to feel different though after you look into the menu, but until then, everything is village-like.

Service was good but can be better.

Food needs more work. This is a nicely decorated place with so much space for preparations. It will be a real shame if all those brilliant ideas go down only because what is served on the plate isn't that great. So I have decided to help any way I can to lift this place up, because I need to have good places in the city to dine at.
They have people who can cook, but it's time to avoid those slight errors to serve delights on the plate.

Nando's Bangladesh Quarter Chicken meal!
The other day I was at Nando’s for buy one get one meal. It was disappointing to see what came on the plates.  I asked for one with double fries as sides and the other with coleslaw and fries. But little was I told that one will be breast and the other will be leg. I felt a moment of strong frustrating anger bubbling inside when the unexpected leg was served.
I know leg pieces are perfect for grilling because they retain the juice while the breast loses all the juice very quickly and it is bland compared to the leg. But I just love digging in meaty succulent chicken breasts and I was there to check if the flavours have gone deep into the breast.
They should be serving exactly the same piece for buy one get one meal. Otherwise, it is like buy one and get 70% more.
Now it is time to taste. Fries were actually potato chips and they were good, but not enough crispy for me. I like my chips to have a very crispy outside with soft inside.  They shouldn’t bend, but break. Some of them were crisp while others weren’t. Coleslaw was good and refreshing, but I should have added pepper to it.
I have never enjoyed Nando’s chicken before and I wasn’t sure I would like it this time either. So I had a close friend and a chef with me that evening to help me.
The leg and the breast were grilled to perfection. Flavours did sink deep inside the breast, nice juicy and perfect texture (you know it when you chew). The first few bites were delightful.
Once I was done tasting the meat, I decided to try with their signature sauces. And right then I figured why I never enjoyed at Nando’s before. I know many love those sauces on the table, but the flavour and the sourness of the vinegar just masks the good flavour of the chicken. The chicken is already marinated in those sauces (not many know this I guess) and it’s quite tasty on its own. Sauce just takes away all the flavours the meat acquired when grilled. So if one is enjoying it more with the sauce, the flavour of the meat isn’t probably essential for him or her I suppose.
Every sauce had a strong aroma and a note of vinegar. The sourness itself tells the presence of that ingredient. If you sniff from the bottle, you can smell notes of piri piri, similar to the red chilli in Bangladesh.
I know many will find me crazy for saying it, but I don’t think the sauce has the perfect note to complement the chicken. For me, it lacks one particular flavour for perfection.  And I am on a mission to perfect the sauce.