Shiro – A raw experience!

Shiro is a popular Chinese restaurant in U B City Bangalore. From the outside it looks like any other expensive restaurant. But the moment you enter the place it just takes your breath away. The place is adorned with two massive rock sculptures depicting two ladies holding a water vessel each and pouring water from it. The water is real and falls into a small pool. The statues are centrally placed on either side of the restaurant. The place between the statues is occupied by a hanging lord Buddha statue with orange color beads hanging from the neck. There is also a smoking area to the place which is open and hosts the catering table and a small party area.

Overall, the whole set up is a true manifestation of the experience of living life king size - in line with what the founder , Vijay Mallya , firmly believes in.

As we seated ourselves comfortably near one of the mammoth statues to the left we were welcomed by one of the attendants with a warm smile. He placed the bar menu in front of us.

Considering that we were at Bangalore’s very own Twin Tower, a.k.a. UB City, and the life style it represents with some of the most expensive brands like Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Kenneth Cole et al on offer, I was expecting to have a good laugh looking the prices which are usually insane at such places. To my pleasant surprise, everything was reasonably priced vis-à-vis the other counterparts in the same league like Firangi Pani at the Forum.

We placed our orders for alcohol and starters but were informed that until 7.00 there isn’t much of a choice with the starters. Seven in the evening is when most of the crowd starts coming in and kitchen is ready to serve.

Vikram wanted to try something exotic while my sister and I stuck with good old beer! By the time we finished our first round of drinks over our little chatter it was past 7 and we decided to go for another round of drinks and starters.
This time we were handed over two different menus, one for dimsums and the other one for the main course. We ordered for one serving of chicken dimsums and just when we were wrecking our brains to decide on another starter – our attendant suggested that we try something really really exotic !!

Something that we have never really tried before! Something like raw fish!!!

Well we jumped in our seats half in excitement and half in amusement. While my sister and I were still in half minds, Vikram, in a very composed manner, suggested –‘lets try tuna! It is supposed to be very healthy and rich in protein’ – pat came the trivia along with the suggestion.

We sealed our order with Chicken dimsums and tuna fish – served raw! The attendant seemed very pleased with the choice.
By the time Vikram finished telling us how one of his friends who had been to Japan was served raw fish while the fish the still moving in his plate, the attendant got us our exotic dish along with dimsums!!

Tuna was served with a host of accompaniments like plain vinegar, ginger slices soaked in vinegar, a very pungent green chutney, slices of cucumber and carrot. Amazingly enough, all these accompaniments were to be used to eat the tuna.
Our attendant demonstrated how a small ball of pungent chutney was to be mixed into the vinegar for the fish slices to be dipped in it before eating the fish. He told us the whole slice had to be consumed in one go and that finally we had to bite into the vinegar soaked ginger slice to complete the experience!

Well an experience indeed as we all took a deep breath and got ready with our chopsticks to bite into some real flesh.

One serving of raw tuna has six slices – I managed to finish my share of two slices broken into several other slices, while my sister was struggling with the first one. On the other extreme - Vikram seemed to be relishing it!! I did finish all the cucumber and carrot slices though!

Well, I dunno about the taste, but the experience was sure a memorable one – very rich and very very raw!! Quite literally :)