Punjab Grill Forum South Bengaluru — Restaurant in Bengaluru

What do expect when you move in to dine in a premium restaurant. Great taste, awesome ambience and lastly value for money. Ever since "Punjab Grill" broke into mainstream dinning it has revolutionized food and comfort. Thus when we chose to visit Punjab Grill for a Sunday Lunch our expectations were bit high. So let me summarize our experience in 3 headers. Ambience, Taste, Value for money.

Ambience: We visited the Forum Mall Bangalore outlet of Punjab grill at 12:30 pm on 25th Feb 2024. When we entered the place appeared clean and near empty. We had a hard time to find a place for 4 with my kid on a pram. Eventually we found one but had to compromise on the AC. The decor in the restsurant, the photos were in a blind spot and never enhanced the feel. As the time progressed the place became crowded and that airy and spacious feel faded away into more of a substandard restaurant. There was no washroom or a handwash in the restaurant and we had to step out of the restaurant go to the Mall washroom to tend to our needs. Finger bowl is however given at the end of the meal. Overall a 2.5/5 for me on the ambience.

Taste:

The soul of the restaurant lies in its food and taste. Punjab grill much to its reputation did deliver expect one dish. We ordered mutton Raan shorba , Mint mojhito, dhaniya Mojhito , cucumber jeera mojhito, Dhaba paratha, Bhatti da Murg,Laal Maas and Kesariya Biriyaani. The Shorba was good but had a bit of oily residue. However it is expected of a Shorba thus no complaints.The mutton pieces, were shredded and smooth, was not chewy, the shorba consistency was silky. You can easily do a 1 by 2.Overalls a clear 4/5.

The 3 juices were pure bliss. The Mint mojhito, dhaniya Mojhito , cucumber jeera mojhito had awesome taste and was refreshing. But for dhaniya mojhito and cucumber jeera mojhito the additions were bit too much . Specially the Dhaniya mojhito, which had a whole Dhaniya branch thus reducing the content. Overall good taste can rework on the quantity. So a 3.5/5.

The Bhatti da murg was good from taste, the murg was grilled well with no charing of the masala, but then we found blood. Blood in near the bones. When shown to the waiters did not see any reaction. Not even a sorry. Was bit annoyed.Thus though the taste was good, the quantity is sufficient, i would not like to taste blood in my food. So i would give it a 2.5/5.

The famous Laal Maans, was red, oily and gravy, how it ought to be. The mutton was tender and literally dropped off from the bone. The gravy goes well with bread or rice. A very good dish. A 4.5/5 for me.

The rice and paratha are usual stuff and lets review together. The lachcha paratha was crispy at the edges and soft at the heart, the rice was freeflowing, flavourful and aromatic. Nothing extra ordinary so a 3.5/5.

Value for money. So the question is is it worth. A 5151 bill which is inclusive of a 8% non negotiable service tax seemed bit too much considering the quality. The laal maans at 935 with only 5 pieces, the drinks each over 300 seemed bit high. The premiumness of the restaurant lies in its food and the price is just an outcome of it, unfortunately for Punjab Grill it looked that the price justified the premiumness not the food. So for me it was not the worth. Hope in the time to come, we hope to see some smart interiors to make it spacy. Price, Quantity and Quality needs to be...

Review after a family lunch here:

Food Appetizers: It was just okay. Nothing to write home about. The harabara Kabab had no salt, was undercooked and for some odd reason had a cheese filling; why? The tarkari fritters had no “tarkari” in it; it was just filled with cheese and served in a shot glass in an attempt to seem fancy. The golgappa was meh; again nothing to write home about. The paneer tikka was garbage, stiff rubbery paneer with poor marination. The stuffed mushroom was the only one that was excellent. It is clear that more thought and time has been spent on the presentation than the taste of the appetizers. Mains: The dal makhani was the only one that was seasoned properly. The other two gravies (mushroom and one mix veg) had a minuscule amount of salt. We were all tapping the salt shakers one by one for this to be palatable. The breads were okay; nothing special.

Service Initial impression was good. Attentive polite and easy to get a hold of a server. Although, there was no single server who was assigned to our table, we were able to get one of their attention to place our orders etc. However, there were a number of mistakes in our orders that left us feeling frustrated. The drinks order is supposed to arrive before or along with the appetizers; two of us who ordered lassis got our orders before/along with the appetizers and the others who ordered fresh lime sodas got it after we were done with our appetizers. The fresh lime sodas were also not how we had ordered them; we got a super sweet one when what we had ordered was a sweet and salt. We had to follow up with our server almost 5 times before these were brought to the table. There were also errors in the appetizers and the breads. There is clearly a lot more work and attention to detail that’s required for the service staff to fix for it to be a smooth dining experience.

Ambiance: The overall ambiance is good. Well designed and aesthetically pleasing space. Good comfortable chairs and sofas. However, the music was way too loud and annoying. Why is every family restaurant trying to be a bar?! The predominant sound in a family restaurant should be of indistinguishable chatter of the people talking and eating; not loud music that people need to shout over.

The only redeeming quality is that these guy had a printed menu and not the QR code digital menu that most restaurants are using. I don’t know where to begin about restaurants with a digital menu. People go to restaurants to engage with friends and families; when you have a digital menu, you force everyone in the table to spend the first 10 minutes looking down into your phone. I’m glad that at least these guys had a printed menu that we could pass around instead of staring into our phones.

But my overall experience does not compel me to grant a second visit to this particular branch of pubjab grill. For these prices, I expect exceptional quality in at least 2/3 aspects (detailed...

REAL ESTATE: Much CRUNCHED space in big mall.

COST: Here, they are serving a simple Chicken Biryani costing ₹ 700+Taxes+ Service Charge. The best biryanis of Bengaluru are half the cost. ₹ 225 + Taxes + Service Charge for 1L bottled water, does not matter even if imported that from Europe or America or from the Himalayas its 2.5 times Petrol price. We have same water available at 1/10th of the cost even from the top brands. It would have made more sense if you would have served 1 bottle complementary for every 3 PAX then you could be proud to mention that you are serving "xyz" brand water only, that too complementary. That would certainly become your USP and show you really care for you customers.

FOOD: I must say taste of the food was good, nothing great or out of the world, which is actually a basic expectation from such a restaurant One of the item we ordered was Kullad Meat which was served in a Brass pot instead of a Kullad. Could not understand the essence of the name of the item.

SERVICE CHARGE: They have put up multiple warnings of 10% service charge without being courteous enough to mention that its actually optional (as per law). We have numerous restaurants all over Bengaluru serving great food with no demand for so called "service charge" but a serving great food with complementary higher quality of service.

STAFF: This is nothing against any individual working in this restaurant. Staffs were decent couple of them even tried to speak only in English best he could, good try but that does not impress me at all as I was not talking in English with them at all. We visited during off peak hours and based on that experience I am not sure about efficiency in serving during peak hours as.

MY OVERALL FEEDBACK For such a price tag + service charge warnings, I would better spend my time and money where get value for money (Taste+Service+Quality+Quantity). Its a 5 star Price for something which is really basic. Seems they are charging also for the facilities provided by the mall itself i.e. ample parking + Metro station :)

Still I wish all the best to the team and hope the management would strive to match the level of the similar category restaurants...