Leela Bangalore Zen

This is on the ground floor at the Leela Palace. This serves mostly Chinese food, but there is also a Thai menu available. There is outside terrace seating looking out onto the hotel gardens, in addition to the smartly decorated dining room.

Pork char sui was very good indeed. It was light and fluffy in texture and had tender, sweet pork. I have eaten much worse versions of this dish, even in China (14/20). Har gau was the classic steamed prawn dumpling. If I were being picky, I could argue that the dumpling wrapper could have been a bit thinner, but the prawns were nicely cooked, and overall this was a good har gau (13/20).

Prawns in XO sauce were carefully cooked, with a well-balanced sauce (13/20). Singapore noodles were unusually good. The noodles were thin and not clumpy as they can often be, with a gentle kick of chilli (14/20). Wok-tossed vegetables with garlic had nicely cooked vegetables but the garlic sauce had a slightly slimy texture (12/20).  At a second meal, prawn Cheung fun was unusual in the way it was presented but was very enjoyable, with nicely cooked prawns (13/20). Stir-fried mixed vegetables was a generous pot that included bak choi, carrots, sweetcorn, assorted mushrooms, water chestnut and green chilli. These were well-cooked and had quite a lively spicy sauce  (13/20).

Service was good here on the two meals we had, and the bill came to INR 7,731 so £64 in total i.e. £32 each. This seemed good value to me, and was much better than a meal I had here fifteen years earlier.

Further reviews: 26th Jan 2011