A couple of weeks ago, 6 of us were invited to My Cousin’s Place(MCP) to try some of their special fare! I hadn’t heard of this place when I was asked by my friend to join him. I was of the opinion that it was actually his cousin’s place that he was asking me to join to! Now, when you’re done readin’ this blog post, you’ll know how close it get’s to your favorite cousin’s place 🙂

The USP of this restaurant is that they have a zero wastage policy and a daily changing menu!

The way they manage to have zero wastage is that the preparation of any dish is started only after an order is placed! Now, most people who have a busy schedule may not really like it, as their orders may get delayed. But, I’d suggest you come here with on a lazy Sunday afternoon and spend some time, with your loved ones 🙂

What about the daily changing menu? They’ve managed to dish out hundreds of dishes so far and the innovation never stops here. They’d want to reach over a 1000 dishes very soon! As you get a newspaper everyday, the menu here also is totally different from the previous day’s! They’ve combined these two to make sure the menu is printed on a newspaper, in the form of a collage 🙂

LOCATION

This is a nice little cafe that’s tucked away on the food street of Phase 1, Electronic City. You might just pass through this but not notice this one!

Here’s a link to the map:
https://goo.gl/maps/Zp2riwz1WH62

AMBIENCE

As you enter the place, on the outside, you’d see a cruiser bike and a table. On a breezy evening, this would be the table to pick! Definitely not a table you’d like to pick in the afternoon!

The table reminded me of the TV show – That 70’s show, where the cast would sit in a circle and smoke up!
The circle from That 70s Show:

At the entrance there are a couple of Mile Markers, which have quirky quotes on them. Here’s one of them! Does say how humorous the woman behind all this, is 😉

The decor of this place is something that’s been very thoughtfully done. Most of the artifacts here are personal collectibles! Now, why would you put your personal collection in your restaurant? Remember, this is not just a restaurant for them, this is their little brain child!

There’s a huge center table that’s more like the table that could seat 7 people on one side of the table, which makes it easy to seat 14 people at the same table! Try getting a table for 14 in a cafe, impossible! The table has a nice rugged finish to it. That helps in getting some nice pictures 🙂 The neon LED lights right on top of the table, give a rustic look to this place!

On the table there are a couple of quotes. One of which said ; Move On! It’s the universe giving me signs ! Do I take them? Hell no 🙂 Nice try, Universe 😉

They’ve designed the ketchup dispenser very well ! It’s like a rocket syringe!!
Even the salt and pepper cans are in the shape of zoozoos, black and white 🙂

Around the center table are some other smaller tables. If you’d look carefully, the table looks like a aircraft fuselage, that could fit 4 people!

There’s also a nice king’s chair! If you’re in the mood to feel like one and if you’re here all by yourself, pick that seat!

BEVERAGES

Rose Mojito

We had come to this place at about noon and the best thing that could start things off would have naturally been a chilled beverage. This is just what we got and the first one was my favorite of the day. So much so that I asked them to give me another one of it!

Irish Cream Mojito

This was a classic Irish creme beverage, a non-alcoholic one at that! It contains whipped cream, milk, coffee granules, vanilla and combined with mint ! We had a little stir and the cream oozed out of the glass. I did capture that ! The drink was decent in my opinion.

Yin Yang

This was a recipe that’s not meant for the faint hearted! It’s a spicy yin of green chillies and yang of cucumber. I had first tried something similar to this in Kerala. So, this concept wasn’t really alien to me. But, I didn’t expect this one to be this high on chillies, to be frank! One sip, and my mouth was on fire!
Somebody save me! All I could take was that one sip 🙂

FOOD

I was really surprised with the spread on the day! The list was never ending. I’m just trying my best to not miss any item that we tried 🙂

I’m not even kidding, we had 10 appetizers!!

Appetizers

French fries with Jalapenos and Cheese

It’s not a meal that doesn’t start with French fries! I repeat, it ain’t a meal that doesn’t start with French fries! I absolutely love ’em and would go great lengths to find one decent bowl of fries! I had a terrible experience with fries at one of these pubs in Indiranagar, so I was looking forward to these!
The fries were infused with infused with Jalapenos and there was some cheese added on top. The taste was very good. Although the next type of fries absolutely stole the show 🙂

French fries with Rosemary and Lemon

The thought of infusing a herb like rosemary into french fries is something that I’ve never seen and would rarely see elsewhere! Full points for innovation 🙂
This combined with lemon, gave that zesty flavor to the fries and I absolutely loved it 🙂 Notice the bowl’s design, it’s like a coconut shell!!

What a superb start to the food tasting session 🙂
What’s next?? 🙂

Fish and Chips

Classic Fish and Chips anyone? 🙂 This is one English origin dish that consists of fried battered fish and finger chips. French fries in USA = Chips in UK!!
The fish was cooked well. I didn’t get the smell of the fish, the outer was crisp. There was some garnish of finely chopped onions and carrots!
It was served with a mayo dip!

Chicken Roulades

This dish looked absolutely stunning. The meat however seemed to cold. It was more like a salad ! I didn’t quite like this dish. But, a lot of hard work has gone into preparing this dish. It’s absolutely an art to cook up this dish!

Cheese balls

The restaurant after serving a dish that I didn’t quite like, just before this, needed something safe to redeem itself! What better than Cheese balls! You can’t go wrong with this one. Only thing that can go wrong here is that you didn’t put enough cheese in it! This wasn’t the case here. There was generous amount of cheese inside those gorgeous balls of cheese! I would give this appetizer the top spot in the appetizers section 🙂

Chicken Muffins

Muffins are usually meant to be baked dish that’s sweet in taste! My favorite being chocolate chip muffins 🙂
But, here we witnessed a savory muffin. This had a stuffing of a combination of tender chicken and most probably potatoes. This dish was so good, that I finished a couple of them all by myself 🙂 It did have a bit of extra salt added in it, but I prefer food with more salt! I didn’t complain 🙂

Fried Noodles with Prawn

This looked like a very interesting dish. Prawns on a wooden BBQ stick were covered with crispy deep fried noodles. You bite into the noodles and the prawn and the combination of crisp noodles and soft prawns was very good. I would have liked the dish more, had the prawns been a little bit more cooked.

Zucchini Rolls

This was the most innovative dish of the day! Flat zucchini slices were rolled and stuffed with vegetables and baked. It was served with a very spicy sauce!
I thought the sauce was very pungent, and that was a let down, because the roll in itself was so good 🙂

Chicken Wings

As I said before , a meal(continental) isn’t a good one if it didn’t start with French fries. It’s also incomplete without Chicken Wings!!

What was served here was the entire wing( drumette, wingette and the tail ). You’re most likely going to see just the drummetes and wingettes as separate pieces. But, here the entire thing was as one piece!
The sauce was a regular BBQ sauce. The plate in which this was served, was so hot, some of us literally burnt our fingers, while trying to move the plate to get a good picture. Caution, HOT!! The wings tasted very good 🙂

Nachos

Just when we thought the appetizers were never going to end, as we kept getting one after another, we were told that the last appetizer would be Nachos!
Nachos were served with sour creme, salsa and some veggies! The tortilla chips were fried just right, the sour creme was delightful. I did not fancy the salsa on this one though!

Soups

Since we had a couple of vegetarians with us, we were served 1 vegetarian soup and 1 non-vegetarian! The veg soup was the green leek soup. And the non veg soup was Chicken Cream soup .

Veg Leek soup

Leeks are a vegetables that belong to the same family as onions and garlic. Leek tastes like a mild onion. The soup also had potatoes in the broth!
The soup was served with garlic bread. The restaurant bakes it’s own bread and this way they have a control over the quality of everything that’s served!
The soup was heavenly 🙂

Chicken Cream soup

Creating a simple dish is not a simple thing! This dish is true to that idiom! Although, all this dish has is cream and chicken broth, it’s still not an easy one to create! The consistency of the soup is very important. The sweetness of cream also plays a vital role in the overall taste of this soup. It was very well done. I would give a 5 star rating to this one!

Main Course

We’re all foodies who have a huge appetite, and after an extensive appetizer section, we were still up for some main course. And how!!

Main course section had 6 items!

Chicken steak in Red Wine jus

If I were asked to survive on 1 thing, it would be very easy for me to pick that; Chicken Steak! I absolutely love them and they love me back by making me happy 🙂
At first, me and another foodie thought it was the regular pepper sauce. But, one bite into this, I knew it wasn’t the pepper sauce. It was a reduced wine jus. I’m a fan of red wine and was having high expectations from this dish. It didn’t quite live up to the expectations. Was it a poor dish, I don’t think so. Just not as good as the pepper sauce. It was served with grilled veggies and mashed potato that was superb! I normally trade my mashed potatoes for fries/wedges. But, the mashed potato was superb on this plate 🙂

Seafood platter

The seafood platter had grilled fish and prawns in creamy white sauce. It was served with mashed potatoes and grilled veggies. Another refreshing thing that was on the plate was citrus fruits neatly sliced 🙂 This instantly made the dish likable 🙂 The fish was very good. But, once again I didn’t like the prawns 😦
The sauce was quite bland and didn’t go very well with grilled seafood.

Veg Burger

The veg burger had a nice patty made of corn, peas. It was laid on a bed of mayo 🙂 There was a processed cheese slice added as well. The burger’s presentation was very good. I would any day prefer a Non-veg burger, so that was what I had next 🙂

Chicken burger with bacon strips

You add bacon strips to anything, and suddenly the grin on your face grows and eyes pop out because of joy 🙂 The bacon strips tasted amazing! I absolutely loved it 🙂 The chicken patty was well done, just the way I would prefer this. Once again , the patty was laid on top of generous quantity of mayo. Instead of the cheese slice, there was fried egg 🙂
Something else that you’d like to know is that the burger buns are also baked in house. The glaze on it, was worth noticing!!

Spaghetti Meatballs

I’m not a huge fan of spaghetti, but this dish did taste very good with the meatballs! The gravy was excellent, the meatballs were also very well spiced.

Veg Lasagne

Lasagne in my opinion is all about the cheese! This one is all about the cheese 🙂 The lasagne was having some great layering. The tomato gravy went very well with all the veggies added in it! I had a couple of bites and it was very satisfying 🙂

Dessert

Raindrop cake with tamarind flower

This is a dessert that originated in Japan. It’s shot to fame as it’s a zero cal dessert! It’s translucent and basically tasteless. It does taste like flan jell-o. It is served with cookie sand, maple syrup and caramel syrup. This was the first time I was seeing something like this. It did justice to what it was meant to 🙂
Let it rain over me 🙂

SERVICE

The service here was quite good. The owners have gone to great lengths to train the service staff. The staff did a good job in clearing the plates soon enough and cleaning the tables, so we get good pictures!
And more than anything else, I’m sure these guys have a great chef who’s implementing all of these innovative dishes!! Hold on to that man, never let him go 🙂

AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT BY BUTTER THEORY

1. When they’ve dished out close to 800 unique dishes, I’m sure they would have received feedback for all of them. I would like some of sort of a fixed menu, that would make people come back for the recommended dishes. This way, you’ll have some room for daily changing menu, as well as permanently available ones 🙂
The reason I state this is that I wouldn’t want to go to a place where I wouldn’t know what’s available.

2. The center table is excellent, I would like to see some more tables on the side which have a higher table height. It’s extremely difficult to eat when the table height isn’t right.

3. The pricing is excellent, please do not ever change that 🙂

I had a good tasting session here. I’m genuinely happy having tried so many dishes, most of which were very innovative and prepared with a lot of love !!
Definitely coming back for more, when I head to Electronic city 🙂 Wait a minute, I could probably take a trip just to have food from here ! I love continental cuisine, and they’re dishing out some amazing dishes in that cuisine, so, why not ? 🙂