Food

Mekong – Pan-Asian Delight on Sarjapur Road

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Mekong is the first restaurant details restaurant review that I am posting on my blog.  I guess I should have started doing this long back but then as they say better late than never.  I guess it is apt to put this in the blog as there is so much to write about this place and surely a review portal cannot capture all the info.  To large extent the content in terms of review of food might be there but then there is so much more to write than just the review of this place.

 

 

Thoughts

Mekong is one of the Pan-Asian restaurant on the Sarjapur road which I have always seen while travelling but then never went inside it.  Well, today was the time when some of the fellow foodies planned for a get-together and then I jumped in the moment I was invited.  I sure did go there with high expectation but did it live up is what I wanted to share more info on.

 

 

Mekong Location

It is present on the Sarjapur main road.  If you are starting from Sarjapur Road Outer Ring Road junction, you need to drive across Big Bazaar to the left and then Total Mall to the right, then you will also have to cross the Fire station on the left and then to the right you would find this beautiful lake that is covered.  You will find Mekong right on top at 4th floor in the first building to the left.  And gladly they have a car parking lot, which I am not sure if it only Mekong’s because I thought it was also being used by folks coming to gym situated on 1 of the floor of the same building.

 

 

 

 

First Look of Mekong

As I took the lift to the 4th floor and got out, I got this amazing feeling because location wise, it is awesome cause you get to see the entire view of the lake from Mekong. And the lake and its backdrop looks amazing.  I entered inside and found that it to be really good.  They have these nicely painted/decorated/sketched walls and these nice looking lamp covering, the chairs seems to be more earthy and not that sophisticated. Then I move across to the section on the right, which leads me to the view that is directly facing the lake.  I got this feeling of wow there 🙂 

 

 

 

 

 

Menu

I guess, they had this fixed set of items that they were planning to serve as part of the package.  Well, there were quite a few items in the Vegetarian and the NV section.  I actually wanted to slowly pick and choose the order of items to be had but then somehow that could not happen as the waiters had it all planned.
 

Welcome Drink

This was the first thing served and it was basically a fruit punch and I must say that it was amazing and I enjoyed it.  Also checked with other foodies and they all loved it.  Could get the feel of various fruits and good flavour of ice-cream in the punch.  I guess all of us who were there might have had 2 of them for sure.
 

Soup

Tom Yum Vegetable Soup was served.  It was a pretty good soup with right mix of spices with a few pieces of mushroom, broccoli and carrot I think.  Initially I thought it to be on the spicy side but then I enjoyed it till the end.  All I could say is that it was a good start to the lunch 🙂
 

Starters

There were nearly 4 Veg starters planned to be served.  Let me share my thought on each of them.

Vegetables Tempura 

I know it might sound quite funny because we are not used to these names for Indian dishes. Basically a dish which has veggie pieces that is dipped in batter and deep fried.  The unique thing about this is that you can see the veg pieces very clearly.  I thought it was a pretty good dish to take in but yes high in calorie content 🙂

 

 

Crispy Lotus stem with spicy Thai sweet chilli sauce

This was a very different kind of dish of me because I don’t remember trying a starter out of lotus stem.  I remember taking a soup that had lotus stem @Taj West End sometime back. This looked more like those papad/wafer that they make at home.  It was net shaped item that was deep fried and quite hardly.  The best part was that it was having a very unique flavour and I pretty enjoyed it with the chilli sauce.
 

Vegetable Steam Dumplings

A decent item, not that I am big fan of dumpling.  I would not want to tell too much about this.  The only part I can see is that there was this tomato based chutney that went all well with the dumplings.  
 

Vegetable Gyoza

This is almost quite similar in the looks but then there are a few differences.  Basically Gyoza is Japanese & Dumpling is Chinese.  There is different in size as Gyoza is small or medium, filling is also finely chopped & finely minced.  Its good to read more to get the differences.  But yes, for me both tasted almost quite similar.

Salads

This was actually the first item served before these starters were served.  Salad was basically all veggies.  They served all the items in a single plate.  Let me write the names and it will give good idea in terms of its content as well.
Bean curd and ice bergs lettuce salad with lemon child jaggery dressing.
Grilled pineapple with sweet chilli dressing.
Cucumber with Chinese cabbage.
Potatoes and eggplant salad with tamarind, mind dressing.
Overall the salad was decent and I enjoyed it well.  Its did not give me an out of the world experience but yes it was pretty good actually 🙂
 

Main Course Vegetarian

Well well by now anyone reading this review would have been overwhelmed just reaching the names of the dishes.  I guess there is more to come.  Let me write in general about the main courses.

Baby corn, Mushrooms, and Broccoli with Butter Hunan sauce

It was an okay dish served with rice.  I thought that the sausage lacked salt big time and then the rice did not get consistent sauce.  Had to ask for additional sausage which made it good to take the rice with but somehow did not enjoy it all that much.

 

 

Stir Fried Vegetables in Chili Garlic and Basil

Was a pretty decent dish to take.
Exotic Vegetables with Jakarta cry – If I am not wrong, this was a dish with the noodles and I thought it was simply superb.  They had this additional plate with few items that had to be added along with the food.
The additional plate contained 5 small cups including – Ground nuts in 1 of the cups, Garlic Fried in 1 of them, Cut pieces of lemon, Coriander in another.  Overall when this was all mixed, I just loved the taste of it 🙂

 

 

 

Singapore Black Pepper Tofu with Scallions

The striking thing that I remember was that Tofu was quite hard.  Infact, I got a thought it was chicken because it was hard for me to chew. I have heard people say that Paneer was not available in good quality in Bangalore and people have had to get it from Delhi.  The quality was not definitely up to mark. I hope the hotelier don’t give the similar reason for Tofu.
 
I guess I have written in length about quite a few of the items and now it was the time to go for the final desert.

 

 

Deserts

There were quite a few items which I will explain again separately.

Vietnamese Lychee Surprise

This was one awesome desert and the lychee was simply superb.  The surprise that was in store deep down was that they had a lump of curds which somehow did not go well.  But overall the desert with lychee and ice creams was good.

 

Drunken Apple

I guess these were those red cherry ooty apples dipped in wine.  It was a pretty good dessert to take.  Not that I enjoyed it very well but a different kind of item to have.

 

Seasonal fresh fruits & Ice-creams

This basically the version of Fruit Salad.  We actually told them and they got a plate with fruits that were cut and on one side of the plate and ice-cream on the other side.  I did not enjoy the fruits so much because they had watermelon that was not as sweet to my liking.  Ice-cream sure was good.  Overall this was an okay okay desert.

 

Deserts wise I did not enjoy all of them except the lychee based ice-cream.  I wonder why there was no chocolate based item, there also not cakes part of the desert.  This is something needs to be added into the menu because most of us love the chocolates for the desert 🙂

 

 

 

 

Overall Experience

I enjoyed being at Mekong with fellow foodies and having food.  But it did not make me feel really ecstatic or say blown-away or overwhelmed.  My rating will as well be around 3.5 but that sure is after a lot of thought flow.  Basically the downers about this place was the food (not being upto the mark) and a bit in terms of service because I guess many of the times I found the waiters were running around and not available to get dishes that you needed. But interns of its ambiance, ie., the view is simply awesome and nothing can take away about this place.  But in terms of the interiors, felt that it was a bit congested, few of us had problem getting out of the chairs. And also the smoke zone was too congested.  I am sure with few improvement, this place will be right on top in the area, because I don’t there is much competition of Pan-Asian food in this region of Bangalore 🙂
 
My other ratings would be as follows –
Food – 3.5/5
Drinks – 4.0/5
Ambiance – 4.0/5
Service – 3.5/5 

 

 

I am hoping to visit this place and see if I can improve on the rating I have given to this place.
Few more pics from the location and the interiors of the place.