48 East is one of the latest brand to get into the Food Delivery business.  They are unique compared to everyone else in the market because they have picked up a rather tough cuisine – Asian, Chinese, Vietnamese & Indonesian.  It is surprising to know that there are not many players delivering this kind of food.  The idea of having multiple kitchen as multiple outlets help in delivering hot food directly from the kitchen.  Instead of travelling in traffic, waiting for seating and ordering food, the food can be ordered and it gets to be served fresh & hot at our homes.  I recently tried some of the dishes from the 48 East Kitchen at Hebbal, I will share my experience.

Trends

The cities in our country have grown big and it has also meant population growth & traffic vows.  It has now become difficult to buy groceries from a nearby stores.  When it comes to dining out with family and friends, many times the idea of traveling in the traffic to reach a good restaurant becomes painful.  We may also not enjoy the food at times.

There is also a growing trend of eating out in families.  People have started exploring food at various outlets rather than preparing at home.  The idea of kitchen making unique dishes is good.

Food Delivery business, requires only a Kitchen to be setup, knowledgeable staff and well strain staff.  There isn’t a need to worry about the front office and management of customer inhouse, making it relatively easier.  Understanding the ease, there are multiple chains already in Bangalore.

Food

The most important aspect of any restaurant or Food Delivery chain in the quality of the food that is served.  It need to trigger the persons senses and they should be able to enjoy it.  There are couple of dishes that I tried.

Burmese Khaosoy – This is a soup made with wide rice noodles, coarsely chopped pork, tomatoes, fermented soy beans, chillies, shallots, and garlic, then topped with pork rind, bean sprouts, chopped scallions, and chopped cilantro.  They have a great job with the soup as the sauces seemed to be spot on the soup was very tasty.

Glass Noodles & Raw Mango Salad – This is a unique noodles, which is also called as Cellophane noodles, Chinese vermicelli, bean threads, bean thread noodles, crystal noodles, potato noodles, or glass noodles.  It is basically a transparent noodle made from starch (such as mung bean starch, yam, potato starch, cassava, canna or batata starch) and water.  The noodles seemed to be quite fresh and tasted good along with the salad.  Raw mango sure did add a unique tangy flavour which gave more flavours into the dish.

Paneer Tehri Biryani – A dish from the Awadhi Cuisine in which spices are added to plain cooked rice which gives it spicy taste.  The biryani was served quite unique with the cooked rice on one side and the Paneer gravy on the other side.  But when they were mixed, the taste was awesome.  I have now become a big fan of this biryani and specially recommend this to all.

Tofu Mushroom and Thyme Dumpling – The dumplings have become very popular in our city and across the country since past couple of years.  But to be able to get the authentic taste from the Chinese cuisine does required skills.  The dumplings were well cooked and they had some good fillings.  It was served with garlic mayo sauce, sour cream and onion sauce.

Exotic Vegetable Baozi – Baozi is also known as bao, bau, humbow, nunu, bakpao (Hokkien), bausak, pow, pau, or pao (Hakka) is a type of steamed, filled bun or bread-like (i.e. made with yeast) item in various Chinese cuisines, as there is much variation as to the fillings and the preparations.   It was yellow in color, had plenty of veggies and tasted brilliant.  They had given the same sides that were given along with the dumplings.  I would specially recommend everyone to try this dish.

Peppery Paneer – This is the same as Paneer fry that most of us are aware.  They had fried small cubes of Paneer, adding spices and topped it up with nice garnish.  The dish was good but I would specially recommend, consuming it quickly as the Paneer can get a little hard as it gets cold.

Teriyaki Mushroom Quesadilla – A dish that had soft Tortilla and inside it was mushroom cooked in Teriyaki style.  Teriyaki is a cooking technique used in Japanese cuisine in which foods are broiled or grilled with a glaze of soy sauce, mirin, and sugar.  The taste was quite brilliant, I could not stop myself after taking one bite and ended up finishing it completely.

Desert

Desi Rabdi Malpua – They have clubbed 2 desert into one.  The first is the Malpua, which is basically like a pancake prepared by crushing bananas or coconut, adding flour, and water or milk.  Rabri/Rabdi was very well done as it seemed to be quite dense, which happens once milk is boiled for long period. This was one of the most mouth-watering dish which is one of my special recommendation.

Basbussa/Basbousa Cake – This is a traditional Middle Eastern sweet cake.  It is made from cooked semolina or farina soaked in simple syrup.  Coconut is a popular addition.  I don’t remember taking this sweet anywhere in Bangalore. Though it seemed to the first time, I enjoyed the taste.

Drinks

Kokum Mint – Nice and refreshing drink that goes along well with the main course.  It was packaged in a small yet sweet looking bottler.

Special Mocktail – A drink that had some flavours of coconut, lemon, litchi and that had plent of sweet basil seeds.  Every sip of the drink was quite enjoyable.  It is irresistible and one can’t stop by just taking one sip.

Packaging

I think the most important aspect of Home Delivery of food is the need to package the food quite well so that the freshness is intact.  And naming the dishes from outside by having a sticker is most useful.  These have been done quite well in 48 East.

They have strong card-board box that cover the plastic boxes in which food is brought.  The outside of cardboard has nice message that says – Unmistakably Asian, Exquisite flavours from Middle East, Chef-crafter from 48-Asian countries, Select Asian Meals.  The words are quite nice and well thought after.

Overall Experience

It was a great experience trying food from the 48-East outlet at Hebbal.  The taste of every dish was simply awesome.  48 East team have done lot of research before including the items in their menu.  My special appreciation to the Chefs, who seemed to be quite skilful to pull of some of the hard dishes.  I am sure that this Food Delivery Chain is going to do wonders in Bangalore. The only hope that they can keep their taste and quality high always.  I rate my current experience at 4.5/5.

Rating in other departments.
Food – 4.5/5
Service – 4.5/5
Packaging – 4.25/5
Value For Money (VFM) – 4.25/5
Food for 2 form this outlet will cost anywhere between INR 500-800.

Reference

Khao Soi Soup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khao_soi
Glass Noodles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane_noodles
Tehri Biryani
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahri_(dish)
Dumplings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpling#Chinese_cuisine
Baozi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baozi
Teriyaki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teriyaki
Malpua
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malpua
Rabri
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabri
Basbousa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basbousa