A Teetotaler’s Veggie take on TJ’s !

 

Rating – 4/5.

 

People who know and follow me are aware that I am a hardcore non-vegetarian but on a fine Monday evening which happens to be a strict No Non Vegetarian day for me I was invited for a food tasting at TJs. What this tasting offered different from the usual ones is intermingling of healthy stuff within the usually considered junk food like Pizzas and other fried stuff you get at Lounge/Bars across the city !

 

The above is where all the Stuff happens as far as stuff gets brewed in the TJs brewery !

 

The Ambience – The typical setting is that of a Lounge with an indoor seating as you enter the outlet on Amanora Mall, second Floor. They have done some work in the recent past to increase their outdoor seating space towards the rear part of their outlet, which now offers a decent view of the Mall surroundings and gives an overall fresh feel. Overall I was pretty pleased with the Ambience and comfort factor offered in the varied seating arrangements.

 

The Food – Coming back to the aforementioned healthy food stuff, how they have positioned themselves is to cut out completely on refined flour in their pizzas and other food products under the Nudo Pizza menu and integrate usage of spent grain (residue left from the malt during the brewing process which is rich in proteins and fibers hence very healthy as well) in their products. The idea is to also have some products as Gluten free (without even wheat) to give an extremely healthy experience, they intend to increase the footprint of gluten free products in the near future.

The French Onion soup – This was a veg soup with a little sweetness of french onions accompanied by a toast made of spent grain. Despite being submerged in soup, the toast was still crispy and went well with the overall preparation. I am not quite sure when was the last time I had a unique yet tasty vegetarian soup.

 

TJ’s onion rings – Again the usual Onion rings with a twist of being covered with spent grain which not only was rich in fiber and proteins but gave the rings a very crunchy texture and went well with the supplied dip.

 

Dark Malt Bao with Chilli Tofu – I absolutely don’t like the idea of Tofu at all so I was a little skeptical about this one. While the sweet sauce used in the Bao was just a tad little too sweet for me however the Tofu was the real star of the show, it was cruncy & juicy and since I love Paneer (Cottage Cheese) if I didn’t know I couldn’t have spotted the difference. The Bao was devoid of Maida and was made of spent grain.

 

Cottage Cheese Burgers – Through the snap one may not be able to make out the actual size of the burger but one was quite a handful with a patty of Cottage cheese and french fries went well for me. It was a decent preparation however nothing really out of the ordinary for me to be really honest. The burger buns were again devoid of Maida and were made of spent grain.

 

The Nudo Pizzas – While I wouldn’t bore the reader with a lot of details on the Pizza bases and minute details, the crux of the matter here is the fact that you won’t find a trace of refined flour / maida or even wheat in these range of Pizzas, so these are what would you call guilt free / gluten free / grain free pizzas (cheese would still be there though). They have some innovative range of pizza bases ranging from Cauliflower to Almond base. Let’s talk about some of them as we proceed.

 

In the Vegetarian section we had the company of three Pizzas with the following base options :

 

Nude Margarita with Cauliflower & Whey Protein base – This was the best Pizza among the ones I tasted for the evening and if I didn’t know before I would never ever have been able to make out a difference between a traditional all refined flour base and this all healthy gluten and maida free Cauliflower & Whey protein base.

 

Nude farm Veg with Quinoa base & Buck naked with Almond – These were the other two Pizzas I tasted and found them pretty decent as well but the Cauliflower one definitely takes the cake for me.

 

The Desserts – The sumptuous dinner was polished off with two desserts. The first one being a Walnut/Buckwheat Tart which for it’s taste was decent, very walnutty but a bit too dry and was crumbling as one tried to take a bite. A little fine tuning would definitely lift this to the desired level.

Vegan Masala Pan Kulfi – Oh man on man, this was the tastiest Vegan dessert I have tasted ever, the kulfi was paan flavored and very smooth. It went went really well with the accompanying paan (betel leaf) and their combination tasted amazing.

 

The Verdict – This was one healthy yet satisfying meal, don’t quite remember using that combination before for healthy food ! I would definitely recommend this for vegetarian folks, for the non veg options I definitely require another outing 🙂