I am a big fan of oriental food – chinese, thai, vietnamese – but am constrained to vegetarian oriental food. Often when I visit oriental restaurants, I am faced with this problem of too much meat floating around (When I don’t have that much choice, I still eat in these places). Hence, I am always delighted when you do find a place such as Luo Han, which serves oriental (Chinese, Thai etc) vegetarian food.

Location

27th Main, HSR Layout, Opposite Food days. For people coming from the Koramangala side, get to the Agara junction and keep going straight. Take the first right available after you have crossed the junction fully. This will take you into the 27th Main. Keep going straight, till you hit Food Days and then take a right. You should find Luo Han right there. For people coming from the other side, i.e. ORR, take the left  before hitting agara junction

Ambience and Service

Now this is not the place if you are looking for some high-flying oriental place with a glittering ambience and lightining fast service. The place is neat and clean with the typical oriental decor. There is enough space available inside the restaurant and the hosts are very amiable and friendly folks. Service sometimes falters when the crowd builds up. When we started going to this place, hardly anyone used to come except on weekends; those times we faced no problems with the promptness in service; however now the crowds are building up even on weekdays, with the place being mostly full on weekends; Good for Luo Han cause  I personally think the place deserves it .

So, if you come to this place, have some time on hand and be patient to savor the good food they serve.

Culinary Delights

Which brings me to the food! I have no complaints here. The food is excellent in taste, always well prepared and there is abundant variety. The soups are great (all of them are nice; my recent favorite is some Thai Lemon Soup (thin)); the starters are varied with the standard Momos being my favorite. The main course and side dishes are also abundant in variety, ranging from midly spicy to hot stuff. Ofcourse Phad Thai remains my out and out favorite here; the other combination which is very delightful is the Luo Han Stir Fried Delight ( its basically full of vegetables in a light sauce ) with Steamed rice ; very tasty and light on the stomach too. Most of the other dishes are very nice – the various noodles, the varied rices and different side dishes – do try out the sides dishes with tofu and potato . . . awesome in taste

Price

Extremely affordable

Verdict

Even thinking of those dishes I just mentioned above makes my mouth water. Definitely a place worth checking out. We are regulars out there. But then as I suggested, not the place if you are looking for a swanky joint. But do drop by if you are looking for a simple, easy going place with some excellent food!

I have been in Bangalore for now close to 2.5 years and my wife’s been here 25!, yet we hadn’t heard of this place until a couple of months back, courtesy our friends – Sriram and Pranitha.

After getting back to Bangalore from our Himalayan trek, they recommended this as a place to savor the delights the southern civilization had to offer:). Though at that time we chose to visit Nagarjuna’s in Jayanagar, come this Independence day, we decided to have a showdown with Krishna Cafe.

Location

Koramangala 5th Block, Next to GK Vale, on top of Kairali..

Ambience and Service

The place is neat, clean and hygenic and the service has been very very prompt and good on all days that we have been there. Even when the place is exceptionally crowded (which it is on most days), I have found the service to be very prompt!

The Food -  “Core” offering of this place

“Smack you lips” delights! Awesome awesome food! Infact, it is the best south indian restaurant we have been to in bangalore…we have been to a lot of darshans and sagars and to Vidhyarthi Bhavan  in Basavanagudi (supposedly the best dosa place in bangalore) … but man this place is special!

The idlis are hot and so soft; the paper roast is huge and crispy to the core. The accompaniments, three of them – coconut chutney, tomato/onion chutney and sambhar – are fresh and exquisite in taste! The sambhar is perfect in taste – pretty much the one I grew up on . He has all other good stuff like Kanchipuram idlis, Rava idli, and the list goes on….the coffee is delicious as would be expected after all the amazing delights he serves.

The other great thing we liked about this place is that Krishna Cafe has a different menu every evening featuring select south indian delicacies. e.g. on Sunday evenings he serves Idiappams (or Sevai as I know it and one of my utmost favorites) with Cocunut Milk or Morkuzhambu! Yummy!

The standard stuff deliciously made- idlis, dosas and vadas -  coupled with other special south indian delicacies makes this joint a veritable foodie delight! We went to this place first on Aug 15 and since then have already been there 10+ times:)

Anyone who has not been there, is missing out big time!