The idea of Street Food takes your mind to places where you get some of your favorite chaat items or some street-dosa or may be a place that has a collection of  many such shops like in Thindi-Bidi (Sajjanrao Circle, Bangalore).  Well, you would be surprised to know that good hotels like ‘Fairfield by Mariott’ have realized that changes needs to be brought in, so that people don’t miss their street-food even though they dine at a fine-dining restaurant.  This is exactly what ‘Fairfield’ has done by introducing their ‘Street Food’ section @Kava restaurant.

Its pretty easy to spot if you are coming from Majestica area, especially from the Cantonment Railways station side.  You need to keep to right side @Y-junction and then drive along towards Yeshwantpur.  The first flyover, keep to the left and then hit at the signal that take you to Iskon temple & Orion mall.  In the signal you will find Mariott straight ahead being situated next to the mall.

Kava restaurant is located on the 1^st floor.  And with regards to the street food, just like the way street-food would be, they have kept the items in the hallway.

You would be surprised seeing the entire setup as there is a street inside the Mariott, not the literal street with tar, but yes a painting that replicates road. And there is also this zebra crossing, which makes it look like you are in the middle of the road.

And then there is there counter where you would get street food.  The restaurant has been smart to pick some of the local favorite in this section, which includes –

Soda bottle, Gola/Chuski, Sugar-cane juice and Dosa counter.  They dint have to bring a chat counter as its already setup.

Let me share my views on the various items being served on the street food section.

This surely is the critical part of the street-food where you need to have taste that connects to the people.  I had some mixed views on the items that were served but overall when you taste it all, there surely is a good feeling.

This is something I remember from my childhood days @Chennai, I would pick it up on a extremely hot day.  It used to be available in this small time shops.  The moment you ask for it the person would press the actual marble inside the bottle, which apparently holds the carbonation and lets the marble run down to a small open section.  This releases the pressure and the soda water, which used to be cold and with some lemon & water.

I never knew the machine that made it. Fairfield folks have actually brought the physical machine which is connected to the carbon tank.  And then there are 3 slots into which carbonation is added.  And you would see the person turned it repeated clockwise to get the soda into the water.

The moment its done, like old days, the person would press the marble and give the bottle to you.  It felt amazing looking at the preparation and then tasting it.  Though the carbonation was less, which I think is coz it was being tried for the first time.  It still did make me nostalgic and I enjoyed the drink.

There were simple lemon and watermelon flavor.  Overall I liked it and enjoyed watching it and I also tried to press those marbles to release pressure couple of times.

Another all time favorite which I should say ‘Blast from past’.  This is the same item that is prepared by the person on a running trail or some street vendor keep ice with some flavors.

For preparing this, the ice needs to be crushed quite well.  And then its put on a steel vessel, then its pressed to make it hard and then a stick is placed inside it.  Then the ice is taken off carefully while stick is still deep inside ice.  Then flavor is added as per the taste. For example – Kalla Khatta, Strawberry, Orange and others.

This was also again making me nostalgic.  But I enjoyed the item quite well.  May be I would have wanted more flavor to be added.  Ofcourse, I did put more of the flavor.

There are very few places in Bangalore where you could get such a thing and this place for sure is one among them.

Again the machine used to crush the ice was a tradition one and then ice would just drop down and collected in a bigger vessel.  Then the process of preparation would start for making gola.  It hardly take 3-5 mts to prepare it.

This is traditionally called ‘Kabbina Haalu’ (Sugarcane juice in Kannada) and ‘Ganne Ka Russ’ (Hindi).  Again, traditionally you would find 2 fat rings or say lathes.   The sugar-cane passed inside and it crushes the cane.

But offlate there are various machines doing the same stuff.  The one kept @Fairfield is similar where you just need to feed the sugar cane and it does not show the process of crushing.  But the end result is the crushed sugarcane juice in a glass ready for consumption.

It was a pretty good effort, just that I felt that this machine takes off the froth.  Taste was okay, may not more sugary as the sugarcane may not be all that sweet.  But I liked the overall deal of having sugarcane inside Fairfield.

I guess this is one of the most popular street food coz there are plenty of 50-100 variety of dosa available and everywhere you only find crowd all around the person making dosa(s).  I guess the similar thing happened @kava.

There are 2 counters 1 for making Veg and the other for making Non-Veg.  Veg variety had some healthy options that they we can choose.  Some of the healthy variety batter varieties included – Palak, Rava, Raagi, Wheat and guess what they also Oat based dosa batter.  The last variety was the extreme variety of dieting.

They also had a daal-based dosa.

In terms of traditional dosas, they were ofcourse there. And they had plenty of chutney options including – Red chutney, Gun powder, Chilli, Oil, Coconut Chutney, Tomato Chutney, Groundnut chutney.  Apart from this they also had sambar and rasam’s to pick up from.

The dosa along with chutney turned out to be decent. The only thing I thought was that the tava was getting too hot sometimes and dosa would not come.  That’s the only correction they needs to do or say be careful of as there would be guest looking intently how its being made.

This ended the street food section.  They have some special light to differentiate it to be the street food section.

The Kava restaurant in itself has a chat section where live chaat is made.  Some of the chaat(s) include – Masala Puri, Pani Puri, Samosa Chaat, Dahi Puri, Kochori chaat.

All of those items are pretty good and you can enjoy that along with the meal served @Kava.

This is a full blown buffet menu where in a person will get to choose from many of the veg and non-veg varieties that are there for offering.

Veg includes the soup, 3-4 of the veg curries, varieties of salads, bread-basked (roti, kulcha, naan), rice bath (pullav and/or biryani, plain-rice, sambar, papad and a selection of pickles.

Non-veg has also got something similar offering for people looking for sumptuous buffet lunch/dinner.

They have wide range of sweets like Jamoon, pastries, halwa options.  In the ice-cream section there are the standard selection of Vanilla, Strawberry and Chocolate flavors.  To that you can add chocolate sauce, dry-fruits and make it nice desert.

They have known the right ways to make cocktails.  I guess the day when I tried the entire Street Food menu with the main course, there was a need for drinks.

Ended up taking the ‘Long Island Ice Tea’ and ‘Mojito’, both were really awesome making my dinner complete in itself.

This was an event hosted by Mariott for some select foodies and being with fellow foodies is always fun.  Thought of sharing pics of them who were part of the event including – Shruti, Naveen, Anirudh, Nivedith, Vidya, Carolyn, Samith and others J

Overall the meal @Kava is something that will make you content and you will want to go there again and again.  I am sure the chef there will have some more new idea pouring in and they will make it more likeable for the guests.  My experience @Kava with Street Food was good and so the rating would be around 4.0.

I would recommend that anyone living in the Rajajinagar, Malleswaram area can go enjoy an awesome treat with family and friends.  And I think it’s also very pocket friendly.