Entree is a restaurant I have been hearing about for quite a while and this might might sound silly, but the only reason I stayed away from the place is because the pics in their Facebook page and the pics that others shared to me end up in me have a concern about whether or not the furniture could handle my weight and also I am not a fan of outdoor seating when it comes to restaurants, because in Trivandrum unless its rainy season, during lunch time there is this hot sun above and usually during dinner hours, based on previous experiences, I expect to be attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes… However, recently, a friend of mine assured me that there is no reason for such concerns and that I must check the place out and so here I was on the very next day, at the Entree for lunch… 🙂
Clearly the place looks like it was built by converting the terrace of a house with the kitchen inside the built area and the dining area outside, on the terrace with stairs directly to the terrace from the sidewalk for direct access to the restaurant as in a “Stairway to Heaven” concept I guess… There are some tables under the shade of the building’s roof whereas the rest are outside under the shade of a giant tree, which they have decorated with light bulbs 🙂 To counter the heat from the sun, they have these pedestal fans that they place near the occupied tables and I also saw an air cooler at a corner… So, I chose the table having the sturdiest bench to sit on under the roof rather than the tree 🙂 On a side-note, I do wonder what they do during the rainy season considering half of the tables are outside without a roof above them… 🙂










Entree calls itself as the Continental restaurant… So, basically the menu is a mix of delicacies from across all the continents and so, at one end you have the Buffalo Style Wings starter to Piri Piri Chicken to Thai Curry and Rice along with choices in Soups, Salads, Pasta, Burgers and Sandwiches and along with it a separate beverages menu having choices of hot and cold options…
For this first visit, I decided to start off with the Clear version of their Celery and Chicken Soup along with the Buffalo Wings with Mango and Jalapeno Dip and then for mains, I went for their Grilled Fish and then finished off with a Strawberry Mousse for dessert… They all arrived as shown in the pics below 🙂




So, as usual, the first to arrive was the soup… As per the menu, there are two versions of the Celery & Chicken Soup namely the Clear and the Creamy… Since I prefer the lite Clear soups, I went for that version and thats what can be seen in the pics below… The menu makes the claim that this is an “utterly delicious soup made out of fresh celery and chicken broth”… The soup that arrived appeared to have Chicken, Celery and Onions and seasoned with salt and crushed black pepper… It was served with a piece of Garlic bread as can be seen in the pics…






I must say that this is one of the lightest soups I have seen with absolutely no thickening applied… Flavour-wise, its quite intense as in strong flavours of the Chicken broth (From the taste, I guess, made with Chicken, Carrots, Onions, Ginger, Garlic and Cilantro) and fresh Celery, all seasoned really well with salt and crushed Black Pepper… As can be seen in the pics, the soup was loaded with pieces of Chicken… The bread that was served at the side was toasted with Butter, Garlic, Parsley and a pinch of Oregano… It was crispy and worked well with the soup… Its probably going to be my regular soup from now on as I might drop by the place just for it… 🙂
After I was done with the soup, my starter of Buffalo Wings arrived… Its been quite a while since I had a good Buffalo style Chicken Wings and so seeing it in the menu made me wanna try it… According to the menu its served with a Mango and Jalapeños dip… It came as shown in the pics below and it indeed surprised me because it looked nothing like the Buffalo Wings that I have had before, even the ones I had from the States because the ones I had were all made by broiling the Chicken Wings and then finished with whats known as the Buffalo Wing Sauce, which is sort of a Spicy and Tangy sauce thats said to have originated at the town of Buffalo in the state of New York and is a sauce thats used in dishes claiming to be of “Buffalo style”… I have heard of a Southern variant to this where they deep fry the Chicken wing after breading and then serve it with the Buffalo sauce to its side, although I never had the pleasure of trying that version before… I guess that was the inspiration behind this version here… The menu says that they are pan fried, but clearly looked like they were deep fried as can be seen in the pics…






The Chicken had a thick coating of crumbs that easily peeled off at the slightest touch… The Chicken inside was cooked perfectly and moist… The marinade appeared to have gone thru the entire meat to the bone and overall tasted great… However, there was one key ingredient that I felt was missing and that was the Buffalo Wing Sauce… I couldn’t taste that at all in here… So, as a Chicken Wings option, this is great, but I quite frankly didn’t see the relevance of the Buffalo name anywhere in this… The dip tasted great and is quite a unique one where you have Mayo with Mango and Jalapeños making it sort of taste like a Mango infused Tartar sauce 🙂 Overall I liked this starter… Just didn’t see how this is in anyway of Buffalo style 🙂
As I was getting done with the Chicken Wings, the main course arrived and its the Grilled Fish that I had chosen… According to the menu, its “a perfectly marinated english style pan grilled king fish fillet served with parsley potato and butter glazed farm vegetables”… However, what came was not a Fillet but rather two Slices of Fish (which I suspect is Indian Cobia itself)… Along with the fish, there was no Potato but rather some Farm Vegetables that were grilled, a Tomato, some Beetroot cured Cabbage and a cup of Yogurt along with a slice of Lime… 🙂 All of that came in a platter as can be seen in the pics below…







First of, I like the ratio of Fish to Vegetables in the plate as it is quite diet friendly for me 🙂 The fish appeared to have been marinated with some lime juice, Sait, Crushed Black Pepper and a pinch of Paprika… I don’t think there were any fat added to it while grilling as it felt quite clean and cooked such that it was slightly pink on the inside and quite moist… I felt that the fish worked great with the Yogurt dip… The vegetables were all seasoned well with salt and crushed pepper as well and seemed to have been grilled with a bit of olive oil drizzled over it… The Beetroot cured Cabbage was a first for me but I loved it with the fish and the yogurt… Overall, this tasted of quite authentic English style and not a localised version as most restaurants tend to do here…
At the end of the meal, I felt like having a dessert and when I checked the menu, the waiter informed me that only Chocolate based desserts are available, other than the fruit salad… Since I am allergic to most fruits, that will be a risk and so I thought of checking out the chocolate options and thought of trying their Chocolate Mousse… However, thats when I noticed that its a Dark Chocolate Mousse and since I am not a fan of Dark Chocolate, I ditched the idea of dessert and asked for the bill… In a few seconds, he came back and informed me that they have a Strawberry Mousse available, even thought its not listed in the menu… So, I decided to try it and after a few minutes, it arrived as shown in the pics below…



From the taste perspective, this is a very good and refreshing dessert to have… But the problem is that its clearly not a Mousse… A Mousse is supposed to be incredibly light and airy whereas this felt like an Ice cream… But definitely one of the best Strawberry Ice creams I have ever had nonetheless… I guess based on how it looks partially melted, they made the mousse earlier and it was defrosted for serving to me… It was topped with Strawberry syrup and sort of a nutty or rather a White Chocolate based Nougat paste which even though was a paste when it got served, got solidified very fast on the cold Mousse… The combination of the Mousse with the Nougat seemed to work very well and so, I am looking forward to having it again during future visits… Since its not listed in the menu, I am not sure if it will be there again though… I sure hope it will be… 🙂
On the overall, even though there were issues with some of the items, it was indeed a nice lunch that I had during my first visit to Entree… I am looking forward to trying more options from their menu soon 🙂
That was a very beautifully described, well written post. Looking forward to more restaurant reviews from you!
Thanks 🙂