Shitakke

Critic´s Review

• Food: 3.5 / 5
• Service: 3 / 5
• Decor: 3.5 / 5

-By Suresh Hinduja

An upscale oriental restaurant in the IT hub of Bellandur, Outer Ring Road.

Decor
A large Buddha artefact welcomes you as you step into this warm and elegant oriental restaurant. Located on the 6th Floor of Soul Space Mall, this popular restaurant also has a Lounge Bar, Binge, located next to it. The restaurant is spacious yet intimate with large frescoes on the walls and dim lighting, surely a modern take on Oriental-themed restaurants in Bangalore. A mood of tranquility prevails here.

Food
We ordered the Vegetarian wanton soup, which arrived piping hot with flavourful wantons in a light clear broth.Not many restaurants serve Japanese sushi rolls, which need a lot of dexterity. The Seafood maki mono here,were perfectly done and served with Wasabi. Shitakke is named after the popular East Asian Mushroom,so we ordered the restaurant's signature dish,Crispy Shiitake (note the spelling difference) in honey and pepper.The wild and unusual flavour of the Mushrooms was complemented well by the sweetness of the honey.Some of their signature dishes include Singaporean crabmeat fritters, Steamed chicken with shiitake mushrooms and burnt garlic, Szechwan ma-po tofu and sliced lamb with wood ear mushroom.We particularly liked the Indonesian fiery prawn curry with steamed rice. Chinese desserts are usually uninspiring, so we finished our meal with the popular choice of Fried Ice cream.Shitakke also runs a busy afternoon buffet at an amazing prize of 349, but that may not be the best showcase of this restaurant's culinary ability.

Service
The service here is attentive without being obtrusive.

Plus and Minus
This is a place well suited for a family meal.The menu is extensive, comprising Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Korean and other Far Eastern cuisines. But that's not easy to engineer, considering the non-availability of many exotic ingredients.