Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Fusion Confusion - Fujiama and Babettes


Usually a restaurant that strives to offer ‘the best of both worlds’ is perceived as a crowd pleaser, However personally, I tend to look down upon this since it leaves too much room for mediocrity. In the case of the shared space that houses Fujiama, probably the latest Japanese restaurant to open in the city as well as Babette’s featuring a European style menu it takes my belief to the next level.

After multiple rave reviews from actual, real, live Japanese businessmen my family traversed across Bangalore all the way to Koromangala in search of sublime sushi and sashimi at what was said to be ridiculously affordable prices. For those of you that are pondering my Japanese business connections, wonder no more... my mother happens to be the vice-principle as well as the head of admissions and administration at Bangalore’s Canadian School – and with the number of Japanese expatriates in the city there pops up the need for their children to be educated, and of course an internationally recognised curriculum helps. My mother, an absolute Japanese food aficionado wastes little time when it comes to getting her way, whatever it may be. In this case roping out trade secrets, be it rolling the perfect sushi to where to wolf down an authentic bowl of udon! Unfortunately for us in this one instance they seemed to have pointed her in the wrong direction when it came to Fujiama – or perhaps the restaurant was just having a bad day – after all it happens, even if the public is unforgiving when it comes to restaurants missing the target.

On the evening of our visit to Fujiama we were a group of seven. We sat down and scanned the menu, ordering quickly, eager to sample some fresh raw tuna belly, salmon and snapper and sample their maki, nigir and inari rolls that are favourites. While we sat ready with our orders, mouth watering we had not an incline of what we were about to hear – there was’nt a morsel of fish or seafood available – and therefore no sashimi and no exciting sushi – what a bore! Why bother eating Japanese food without the base ingredient?!



It was somewhere at this point that I noticed a second menu with the name Babette’s sprawled across in cursive flowing print. The menu boasted European cuisine with the likes of Pork Chops, Spare Ribs, Rack of Lamb, Rosemary Roast Chicken, Carbonarra and Spaghetti Bolognaise. So we sampled a couple dishes off their menu and well it was boring. Not worth coming back to again and definitely not worth the drive halfway across the city!

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