Wander with a purpose into this watering hole that is Kaavu
With pubs popping up on every corner, it is becoming increasingly easy to find your go-to place where the food, drinks and ambience meld in with your vibe. However, it does get challenging as your gang of friends gets larger, and more varied.
This is where Kaavu comes in. Set in a sprawling acre of greenery in central Whitefield, Kaavu (grove or forest in Malayalam) lives up to its name as a vibrant patch of green in a city that has morphed into a concrete jungle. Sectioned into seven zones — Forest, Cavern, Cafe, Bistro, Waterhole, Cicada and Stonehenge — each with their unique ambience, visitors can choose what suits them best.
While the Forest is an open air, pet-friendly space and the Cavern has game tables, a library and big screens for match days, the Cafe has an array of desserts from PU Dingding an arm's distance away. Bistro offering a more sedate vibe for a laid back meal. Waterhole is their unusually, designed bar, and Cicada with a seating for 95 is an enclosed space ideal for private parties. Stonehenge is their biggest zone with a bamboo thicket and a water feature that adds to the atmosphere of being in the woods.
Of course, the food and drink is what brings repeat customers to any watering hole, and Kaavu is not lacking here. It offers a wide range of cuisines including Asian, Italian, European and Indian. It is not often that one finds a menu where a fig, kohlrabi and fox nut salad and kheema kulcha, share space with Indonesian sambal ikan fish and an Italian bruschetta tasting platter.
We begin with the burrata and Bengal aamsotto salad. It is a refreshing bowl of raw mango, cherry tomatoes and lotus stem crisps, paired with greens and spiced aamsotto (mango leather). Alongside the salad, we are served the Kozhikode egg roast. Tagged under starters, this well-flavoured morsel is a welcome surprise in a restobar.
Our drinks arrive at the table with a flourish. Showtime is a fun concoction of bourbon, vermouth, maple caramel and cola, arriving in a cheerful, red-and-white striped box topped with real popcorn. The abundant popcorn sliding off makes it a bit cumbersome to handle. The Kaavu Mist on the other hand, with gin and green apple, herb cordial, green pepper tincture and vermouth, is piquant and certainly a more sophisticated libation.
Almost every dish that comes to the table has a special twist or tweak, courtesy chef Souvik Ray who believes 'the culinary world is a platform for culinary expression'. Take for instance, the Jaipuri-style crispy okra or the peri peri arbi and aloo tuk — both vegetables not usually seen outside of one's home. Or the kasundi crumbed fried fish and chips served with French fries and tartar sauce.
The kaffir lime fish tikka has a distinctive zing, while the Kaavu wings tasting platter with a combination of barbecue, Caribbean and Gochujang marinades made for an interesting pairing with our drinks. The crispy fish in Indonesian sambal is a must-try too.
We wind up our meal with the Sri Lankan Jaffna curry and jasmine rice. Hearty and wholesome, it was a fitting end to a lunch that had almost extended to tea time, and hence, desserts were out of the question, even though an array of cakes, pastries, cookies and more were on offer.
While a day out at Kaavu, could sate differing appetites, one misses the days and places where a single cuisine or dish was the star of the show.
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