Bangalore restaurant reviews Buffet

Ista - Sossegado

Wednesday, August 05, 2009Me! In words

Give me Goan food anyday. The lovely pork sausages dunked in vinegar and cooked with baby potatoes or radish, the bebinca, the perad, the sausage fried rice, not to mention of course the xacutis, balchaos, vindaloos.... oooh I got myself drooling just at the thought.

And that is one of the reasons I made a bee-line to Ista's Sossegado which was being promoted as a Goan brunch. Its the Ista and so there was no issue with parking and stuff. The buffet was set up on the 4th floor by the poolside. A flicker of doubt crossed my mind when I saw that everyone seemed to dressed in Hawaiin styled shirts and straw hats. Two gentlemen were at it on the guitar and sax and were singing English classics of the 60s and 70s with very few Konkani songs which were not clear except for the tunes.

Interesting table setting

Now for the food. as soon as we were seated we were told that there was a variety of buffet choices to select from. You had the
1) Basic brunch of salads, soups, pastas, desserts for Rs 550
2) The shooter brunch of with unlimited vodka shots, budweisers and Shweppes with appetizers for Rs 850
3) The Vitalizer brunch for Rs 850, with a choice of non-alcoholic drinks, the basic brunch menu and another buffet menu to choose main courses from
4) The Grey Goose brunch with vodka cocktails, the brunch menu and the chef's specials for Rs 1499
5) The Champagne brunch with free flowing sparkling wine and a pint of Moet et chandon for free with all the above menus thrown in for Rs 2499.

The wine bar

Fine... all this explanation behind, I began to look for the GOAN food. Went to the salad bar... it had a lovely assortment of breads, with dips like tomato salsa, saffron rouille, sweet and sour fruity mayonnaise and honey mustard yoghurt. There were also cheese and dry fruits??!! too. Next came the smoked meat, soups and salads... All of which were great but NOT GOAN!!!

The bread spread

Dips and cheeses

The Salads

No matter, I loaded up on the brunch menu part and sat down to scrutinize the main course menu. At this time our steward told us that we would be served an assortment of starters at our table. Yippee!!! bring on the food.... what came was chicken cafrael (Woohoo!!! something Goan), a malai paneer something, a prawn dish and a chinese potato dish. The prawns were great and the rest soooo been there, done that and NOT GOAN!!! Oh yes!! we were also served grilled squid on a wooden skewer. Spiceless but different. Again NOT GOAN!!

An assortment of starters

Grilled Squid

Since we had to select from the non-alcoholic drinks I had a Green Sea and Sudhakar had a Sunset and I have no clue what went into both of them.

Green Sea to the left and Sunset to the right

As I was saying, I was looking through the main course menu - I don't remember much of the vegetarian section simply because I am not one. Suffice to say that it was NOT GOAN. In the non-vegetarian section you had the pork vindaloo. So I opted for that with steam rice... Sudhakar decided to stick with the continental stuff and had a Irish stew.

Buffets as I know it is where you get up and serve yourself, from beginning to end. But here the main course was to be ordered and it was brought to us. A soup-bowl of pork vindaloo with 5 huge chunks of meat in a tomato based gravy. Sorry but pork vindaloo is inch size pieces of pork meat, fat, a generous helping of vinegar and a lot of spices. This was no where close to the original. GOAN, BUT NOT SO GOAN!!!

Pork Vindaloo

In the dessert section there was a huge assortment in which the only two Goan sweets were perad and bebinca and the bebinca had varak on it!!!! Wow talk of a northern touch to a Goan dish. Some things are just not meant to be changed. Among the other desserts were creme caramel, Missisippi Mud slice, banana fritters, date and walnut pudding, carrot cake and an assortment of ice-creams.


The dessert spread

In all, nothing Goan about this brunch. And nothing to talk home of, of the brunch that was laid out!!! Straw hats and coconut water is not what makes Goa and Goan food....

Address: 1/1, Ista Hotel, Swami Vivekananda Road, Ulsoor
Phone: 25558888
Cuisine: Multi-cuisine
Cards Accepted: Yes
Parking: Exclusive

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