Food

Cubbon Pavillion – ITC Gardenia @Bangalore

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This is a restaurant within the hugely popular ITC Gardenia Hotel.  If I am not wrong whenever there are IPL matches, the players usually stay here.  This is the same place where ‘Time Food Award 2016’ was given away.  Its got loads of celebrities visiting it day in and day out.  And for starters the restaurant I visited received the aware of the Best Sunday Brunch – Fine Dining’ category.  I went there recently with my family hoping to get some really good experience on the Christmas day for the dinner buffet.  Let me share my thoughts on the same.

 

 

 

Location
ITC Gardenia is situated in the central part of Bangalore on the Mallya Road.  If you take the road from Cubbon Park and drive along the Mallya Road, the Mallya Hospital comes to the left and the ITC Gardenia comes soon after to the left side again.

 

 

 

If you are coming from Richmond Road side, you need to come along the road and hit upon the Y junction, left leading to Corporation Signal.  Right leads straight into ITC, but yes you need to be careful of the traffic coming from the left side on Mallya Road.

 

 

 

 

 

Ambiance
ITC Gardenia itself has a decent entrance.  I would not describe it to be exquisite coz there are 2 buildings.  To the left there are these banquet halls and then as you drive along the main entrance of ITC Gardenia.  The entrance on the day I went had a huge Christmas tree. And you could see the olden style of seats that kings used to hit on. And there are also some statues of Tiger, Elephant and other animals.  As it’s an ITC hotel, its got the ‘Wills Lifestyle’ store to the right side.
Walking through and taking left leads to 2 restaurants – 1 being Cubbon Pavillion and another Japanese Restaurant.

 

Cubbon Pavillion itself has got a decent entrance.  There is the reception area where there would 1-2 folks to welcome and the seating area to the back.  There is wide variety of sitting arrangement; you can pick and choose one of them.

 

 

Buffet is spread out to the left side.  This is pretty well done so that you are totally away from the food. 

 

Let me share some insight next into the food that I had on the day.
Food
This for sure is the most critical item in my visit.  Coz I actually went there to have my dinner.  
The dinner spread was pretty massive and the food was divided into various sections depending on the cuisine and type of food being served. The cuisines that were there included – Indian (quite naturally), Mediterranean / European, Japanese & Chinese. There was one more section for the ‘Deserts’.  Infact, I can’t call it as section coz it was one side of the buffet.
Soup and bread were also kept away from the main course.  In terms of presentation of the food it was well setup.
Let me share my experience in terms of the food from individual sections.

 

Soup
Hot & Sour Soup
This was pretty okay kind of soup which I did not enjoy that much.  So, I asked for another soup instead of this and the restaurant staff immediately obliged.

 

Lentil Soup
This was pretty good and nice to eat take along with some assorted breads.

 

Starters
Aloo Patty
This was from the live-grill counter and was done pretty fine.  It did not give me that wow kind of feeling but was quite normal.

 

 

 

Pineapple + Mushroom + Capsicum steak
This was pretty fine but then the problem was that you couldn’t take all the veggies in one short.  May be they should try something with lesser or say smaller pieces of veggies.
Drinks
Dinner would not be complete unless we get to take a drink along with the meals.  Some of the drink I had included.

 

 

Mojito
All time favorites were done pretty fine.  Not that they had added extra alcohol, it was pretty normal.  Again nothing that stood out compared to other places.

 

Orange Lemonade
This was a pretty nicely made drink, which tasted quite fine.  May be it was too much on the watery side and the orange pulp was missing.

 

Watermelon Juice
This was quite a refreshing drink.  But surely I did not like the way it was presented.  It was quite ordinary.

 

 

Main Course : Cuisine-wise
Mediterranean Cuisine
Marinated Tomato with Pickled vegetables
Somehow the dish was not well presented.  I wonder if it was setup fine and as people started taking the presentation was off.

 

 

Baked Polenta & Strawberry with Jalapenos
Decent dish but I felt that too many flavors were floating. Did not get the essence of this dish.

 

Mushroom Pate with Californian Grapes
I thought it was an ordinary dish.  May be I would have wanted more flavors in it.

 

Fried Quesadilla
This was a pretty unique dish that I tried here.  The taste was
Salad Counter
This section has got quite a few veggies like – lettuce, sprouts, grams and variety of dressing.  The salad was quite normal, did not get completely impressed.

 

 

Japanese Cuisine
Sushi + Wasabi
The Sushi had flavoring of Carrot in one and cucumber in another.  The dish was pretty decent and wasabi was quite hot like always.

 

Chinese Cuisine
Noodles
I only tried the noodles in this section of food.

 

 

Indian Cuisine
There quite a few items in the Indian section including.
Kadi + Vada
A nice combination and the flavor were pretty good in it.

 

Paneer Subjit + Veg Kurma + Roti/Naan
This very good combination of subji + freshly made ‘Tandoori Roti’.  Again the dish was not exquisite and was quite normal.

 

 

Deserts
This is a section that had quite a few items to offer.  I thought of describing in general the various items that were there.

 

 

 

 

 

Cake Verities
There were of cake options for people to pick up from.

 

Cut Fruits
This a standard thing in all buffet.  The idea is to enjoy these after heavy meal.

 

Falooda + Rabdi
A decent sweet that can surely be consumed in small portions.  Taste was quite normal and nothing too different compared to what we get outside.

 

Ice-cream + Chocolate + Dry-fruits
There are 3-4 verities of ice cream and you can take a scoop and add ‘Chocolate’ & nuts on the ice cream.

 

 

Final Thoughts
Well the experience of eating food from ITC Cubbon Pavillion was pretty good, I would not rate the place highly coz I feel that things need to improve, especially in terms of flavor and presentation of the dishes.  My rating for this place would be 3.5/5. It has al the potential but feels like the chef needs some inspiration.

 

My rating in other departments are as follows –
Food – 3.5/5

 

Service – 3.5/5
Ambiance -3.5/5
Drinks – 3.5/5
Food for 2 would cost anywhere between INR2500-3500.