Resto-review: Healthy Affair, Bangalore

My friend Soju fasts five days a week in order to hog on junk food for the remaining two. And this bright idea has not changed his weight, his body shape or his ever expanding waist line. Soju keeps lamenting his Health-Taste theory: “Everything that is tasty is not healthy and everything that is healthy is not tasty”.

Enter Indiranagar’s new eating joint, Healthy Affair, which seeks to make healthy food tasty (or vice versa). And it just about succeeds in this endeavor.

Healthy Affair attempts to make healthy our eating out affairs. They claim to choose their ingredients themselves rather than buy the tinned and canned versions from the markets so that they know exactly what goes into their dishes. For example, they use a lot of fresh herbs, skimmed milk powder and other healthier condiments to substitute for their commonly and widely used fatty alternatives. And they say they choose their wares with a lot of emphasis on the health factor. This idea is the central theme of the ‘Healthy Affair’ way of food.For me, my lasting impressions of Healthy Affair were the ambience, the service and their philosophy on food.

Healthy Affair occupies the first floor of the building that is right behind Kyra, 100 feet rd, Indiranagar, so you need to take the left immediately after Kyra (when coming from Old Madras road) and then the first left again to see their pale green board. Parking should not be much of a problem as there are a lot of arterial roads in the vicinity.

The ambience here is very cosy and homely and since we went for lunch, we found the place to be very well lit with natural light. In fact, there’s a lot of natural light which kinda brightens up the whole place and that gives a very positive feel about the place. Of course, I did make a lunch reservation for a table for two by the window, but at the venue, I forgot about the window side and my friend and I were ushered to another table at corner of the room, which was equally good and we never gave another thought to the window bit. The crowd consisted mainly of couples, a few families and there were quite a few number of foreigners too.

The service is good, but could have been great. The hostess, Ms Krupa Dass makes sure she comes to each table, asks if you been there before and explains their food philosophy, which I felt was a nice and warm gesture. Another thing which caught my mind was that she mentioned that the table clothes were made by the NGO she runs (http://www.sukrupa.org/). I told Krupa that my friend is a vegetarian while I’m a strict carnivore and asked Krupa for suggestions . Krupa recommended the garlic mushroom for starters and the spinach pasta in white sauce for my vegetarian friend, while I started with the Chicken Satay and main coursed with Chicken pasta with white sauce. I did feel that there were limited items on the one page menu when Krupa brought a larger and more comprehensive menu card.

The food is good – there was a herby hint in the Garlic mushroom (though we felt quantity was less :)) and the Chicken Satay was well absorbed with all the right juices and hence was very tasty. The Chicken Satay is accompanied with yummy Peanut Sauce. My friend liked her Spinach Pasta in white sauce. However she did wish that the pesto sauce would have been better and that they had chili flakes and oregano placed on the table. Also, she missed her usual Iced Tea as Healthy Affair did not have Iced Tea on the menu. Or any other cold mocktails. As for my Chicken Pasta, well this is my take: yes it was tasty and supposedly healthy (or rather, healthier). But I did so very wish that there were that taste of unhealthy cheese that I always associate with pastas. Sometimes, you just wish that there was a lot of cheese dripping in the pasta, health be damned. But having said that, let me say that it was nice - so it may not be the tastiest pasta you’ve had (but it’s almost there), its most likely the healthiest pasta you would.

Also in the desserts section, we had this same taste-health riddle – all the desserts were fruit based. We settled for the Fruit Exotica – banana and kiwi in plum puree. It had a strong banana flavor and I did miss the times when I used to end any meal with anything chocolate. You tend to miss that here. What need to be admired is that they stick to their promise – the food is light on the stomach however there are those days when I wish there was cheese dripping off my spoon. Overall, good place to go. Just remember to ask them for the bigger menu – they keep another more comprehensive menu card inside, which they are ‘in the process’ of printing, and they might hand you the one page menu, which does not do justice to their fare. Another thing we liked was that we sat there from 1:30 till about 4 in the evening there; we were the last ones to leave after lunch and we just sat there chatting and nobody came to us and reminded us that it’s closing time, like some other restaurants do.

Our bill for two with two starters, two main course and one dessert came to 920 bucks.

My veggie friend promised that she’d come back again. As for me, I might too; When I feel guilty about all the junk I eat with Soju, I’ll most likely drop by for a healthy affair with eating out. But if I want pasta with cheese dripping out in unhealthy but tasty dollops, maybe not.

But I’m sure Soju will be pleased.

J

From more of my restaurant reviews, check out here.

Happy eating.

J