Yauatcha - BLR

I recently read and watched a video about Michelin starred restaurants.Chefs go through immense stress and pressure to attain the level of perfection needed to receive that star. While some restaurants are rightly awarded the maximum three stars for their impeccable dishes, there have been some restaurants who probably don't deserve even one star.I wouldn't know since I haven't dined in an actual Michelin starred restaurant.

But I did have the pleasure of eating at the Bangalore location of Yauatcha, a London-based Michelin starred restaurant servimg dim-sum. Yauatcha, Bangalore is located in 1, MG Road, the new hotspot in town. With multiple stores and restaurants dedicated to international cuisine like Food Hall and Haagen-Dazs, this is probably the best location for such an upscale dim-sum place.

As you enter Yauatcha, you see a long sleek room with minimalistic yet chic decor. You know instantly you have come to a place where they pay attention to detail. But if you are there on a date or a serious business meeting with one, you could have a problem on a busy day since their tables are very close to each other. You can choose the quieter part of the room near the trendy bar section or a slightly noisy section with the view of the kitchen. The service is fast and friendly. Our server was attentive and provided good suggestions.

They have three separate menus for drinks, vegetarian options, and for vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. I loved the colours on the covers of these menus and sleek design. A separate menu for vegetarian is both smart and considerate as they do have a wide range of vegetarian choices and one doesn't have to hunt for them and wonder if the dish is vegetarian or not. 

They have some interesting drinks on offer. These two oolong tea based cocktails caught our eye, never having had tea-based cocktails before. Lalu was an oolong tea and vodka-based drink with hints of lemon grass, lime juice and lychee juice for sweetness. The Cha la li had along with oolong tea and vodka, black grape juice and lychee juice. Both drinks were very smooth and all the flavours worked really well together. The heros remained heros (the lemon grass and grape) and they had brilliant support from the other flavours. These drinks are a must try!

We started our dumpling meal with the truffle and edamame dumplings. They are 3 petit dumplings made of near translucent rice wrap, folded like a flower on top. They tasted as beautiful as they looked. One bite and you are in dumpling heaven! Edamame, a japanese bean, is smoothly mashed with water chestnuts for a slight crunch and drizzled with truffle oil. You can smell the truffle oil as you bite the dumpling and it just melts in your mouth. Having these dumplings was a superb gastronomic experience. I wish we had ordered seconds but with the wide array of choices, we chose not to be greedy.

The fried turnip cakes is a popular dish at Yauatcha and it does not taste like turnip at all. So the popularity is mostly for the generous helping of the fried garlic and red chilli on the turnip cakes. The garlic basically provides the flavour to the dish. I wish there was some hint of the turnip's taste to cut the garlic's monopoly. The fried cakes were pureed turnips with some flour to hold the shape and seasoning. It's a win if you love garlic but can be skipped in favour of their other delicious dumplings.

These are called cheung fun. Unlike the drawstring pouch shaped dumplings usually made, these are long rolls of dumpling. They are steamed in long rolls and then cut for ease of serving. We had the three mushroom cheung fun - strong tastes of the button, shitakke and wild mushrooms doused with soy sauce at the table. The shiny rice wrapper provides a smooth texture - the best dumpling wrap I've ever seen or tasted. What I liked about this dish was that the mushrooms were the main taste with no additional spices and complemented with salty soy sauce. They have a good choice of cheung fun and it is worth trying.

We couldn't stop ordering dumplings, stuck at just the 3rd page of the menu halfway through our meal. These poached Peking dumplings made it harder to stop. Soft dumplings stuffed with chicken and prawn pieces and poached in a spicy soy sauce. The red chillis gave it a new level of spice and the garlic, coriander and spring onion provided lovely flavours to the spice. This dish is highly recommended! 

I didn't want to leave without trying something from their main course menu and I ended up doing that in a manner of speaking. The lotus leaf wrapped sticky rice is a cross between a dumpling and a main dish. With rustic flavours of the lotus leaf, this dish was glutinous rice sandwiching a peppery-sweet sauce of mushrooms, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and spring onions. It was not as impressive as the dumplings because the rice was slightly dry but still an interesting sticky rice dish which I've not tasted before.

With all that food, we still made room for dessert. As popular Yauatcha is for its dumplings, it is also popular for its desserts. They have the raspberry delice which is most instagrammed picture of the restaurant for its beautiful plating. But we decided to try their other popular dessert, the blood orange cake. This dessert is multi-faceted with dark chocolate mouse topped with spiced chocolate ganache, tempered white chocolate and wedges of blood orange accompanied by a sweet blood orange sorbet placed on some dark cocoa powder and more wedges of blood orange. The main flavour of this dessert is on the bitter side with dark chocolate and the blood oranges, but the sorbet helps cut the bitterness. So though it's a dessert which does not remove much of the original tastes of the ingredients with extra sugar, you'll like this only if you like dark chocolate.

Their crispy duck dishes are also much enjoyed either plain or in a roll or salad. I was also pleasantly surprised with the prices of the dishes which weren't too high that is expected from a place of such high reputation and were similar to any upscale restaurant. I definitely recommend this place to get an introduction to fine dining, dim sum and how a Michelin starred restaurant runs.

Location: 1, MG Road, Bangalore

Timings: 12 noon - 11PM

Cost for 2: Rs. 3500 - including drinks

Taste: 9/10 

Service: 9/10

Ambience: 8/10