Had heard about the Maiya's Fine Dine. A 40 item meal at 350 bucks a head and had t check it out.
We made it to the 3rd floor through the overcrowded waiting area with a guy bellowing people's names.
On the 3rd floor is a small area with maybe 30 seats for this fine dine experience. Decor nothing to write home about but wait all in Black. All crockery and cutlery in solid silver.
Asked for a menu to understand what the 40 items were and was given a indicative menu with the rider that specific items could be replaced.
They have tried to serve the meal in courses like in the west and that was intrigued me. Does a South Indian meal lend itself to being served course wise with matched items? Well read on.....
First came the drink- Grape Juice or Ginger juice and opted for the grape juice.
Then came the tomato soup that was served with a apple, pineapple, capsicum salad and a usli made of black channa. Slightly surreal experience when food started coming in courses but hey what the heck...
The next course was Puri with mix vegetable sagu and the delectable potato sagu.
After that came a Bengali sweet..some kind of a sweet sandwich.
Then came Shavige bisbele bath matched with a pachadi..awesome.After that came Puliyogare and decided to skip it.
Then came kadubu (a spicy idli like preparation that looked like a Dhokla) with pineapple gojju and a chutney.
Then another sweet Halbai.
There were two palyas- Beetroot and gorikai.
Then came white rice with tomato rasam, jeera rasam, a thick sambar along with 2 kinds of papad, sandige, fried chillis(balaka) and a pickle.Man we were stuffed though each item above was consumed maybe a table spoon of each.
Then came curds and butter milk.Then a much needed digestive.
After that hesarbele payasa. Then pastries and hot chocolate fudge.
That was a lot of food...
The experience I think is unique but is marred by the fact that it is too wide a menu meaning you eat a tsp or a tbsp of most things. You really are in no shape to eat more of what you liked or you would miss out on experiencing the whole menu..and therein lies the lesson - a meal structured like this does not lend itself to course wise serving. If they insist on serving a course wise serving it would have been better if customers knew the menu of the day so they could be selective in what they ate. Else a Thali concept with most items that would be served on the Thali so one knows what it entails and one can prioritize :-).
Would one go back again- Only if one was taking a foreigner out to showcase S.Karnataka cuisine or one's NRI cousin types who would be willing to cram in the variety in fear of not getting that variety in the land where they live.
Each item on the menu probably deserved 4 stars was very good but the whole thing just did not come together and hence the 3 stars.
foodyfoodpecker
