Church street has been one of the most happening streets in the city of Bangalore. Frequented by college students, office goers, couples, friends and families, it is bustling all the day. Number of shops selling clothes, electronics, craft works, money changers can be found here, among coffee shops, eateries and restaurants. One of the restaurants on this street has always fascinated me with its name, Three Quarter Chinese. I love having Indo-Chinese food, the hot soups, main courses to go with rice and noodles and more, so I decided to try out this restaurant.
The Location
Amoeba Complex is right in the middle of the Church Street just behind Barton Center. The complex building hosts the bowling alley along with two restaurants, 20 Ft. High and Three Quarter Chinese
Address: No. 22 Amoeba Complex, Church Street, Bangalore – 560001
Phone: 080 – 25327982
The Hours
The restaurant serves lunch from 12 PM to 3:30 PM everyday while dinner is from 7PM to 11 PM.
The Ambiance
The restaurant is on the ground floor of the Amoeba complex with a waiting area outside. Inside the restaurant is fairly crowded with food counters all along the left and back wall and a separate chaat counter. Actually all there to the restaurant is just straight forward food and comfortable seating.
The Service
Being a busy street, finding a parking slot is all too difficult and the valet here gives a good service.
Once at the restaurant, I was welcomed on arrival and escorted to my table. The server assigned to me took good care every time I asked for. Most of the items are to be picked from the buffet, while few are served on the table. I got the orders and refills quickly a couple of times I asked for. Since its a large buffet spread, they are also used to a lot of wastage and didn’t mind clearing the used plates as quickly as I got up for the next serving.
The Price
Three Quarter Chinese provides buffet both in Lunch and Dinner. The prices vary slightly from Mon-Thu and Fri-Sun and are inclusive of all taxes and charges. Lunch on the weekdays cost INR 500 ($8) per head, while on weekends cost INR 575 ($9). The dinner on weekdays cost INR 575 ($9) per head and on weekends cost INR 625 ($10).
The Food
Three Quarter Chinese name was supposed to signify that three fourth of the menu is Chinese with remaining one fourth being Indian cuisine. However I felt it was more like 50-50, in fact even lesser for Chinese dishes. The restaurant brands its buffets as Wow Buffet with live grills, live shawarma, live dosa (10 varieties), live tawa specialties, live chaats, live dimsums, live desserts and many more.
The buffet is pretty wide with starters like various Indian chaat (including gol gappe, papdi chaat, bhel etc), pav bhaji, keema pav, appam with stew, shawarma roll, grilled chicken, momos (prawn and vegetarian), dosa all served on the table. The Chinese and Indian main course are on the buffet table. The main course includes all kinds of vegetables, salads and meats including chicken, goat, fish, prawns, crab in different Chinese and Indian gravies with choice of rice, biryani and noodles. The dessert section includes fresh cut fruits, cakes, mousse, fried noodles, ice cream etc.
Since the restaurant maintains the same menu for lunch and dinner, they can probably manage the huge spread in much easier way. I however felt that the quality of preparations differed from dish to dish.
I liked the papdi chaat as it was made fairly authentic way with just the right combination of yogurt, tamarind and green chutney. The papdi’s seemed all fresh and crispy.
The shawarma rolls had optimal fillings and just melted in the mouth, I did ask for a refill of the roll as they are only served half at a time.
The grilled chicken also was well done and had good cuts to the pieces.
The keema pav and pav bhaji were fairly ordinary and nothing stood out for me, the vegetable curry didn’t have much authenticity and probably a bit low on Indian spices while the pav lacked freshness.
Similarly the dimsums lacked taste and freshness. They were all too bland for my taste.
I took a couple of servings from the main course, once a fully Indian and the other time a fully Chinese. Among the Indian preparations I liked the pepper prawns with just the right bits of spiciness, the mutton curry had the meat well done and I like it this way, paneer curry is an all time favorite, although the crabs were a bit hard.
For the Chinese serving, I liked the noodles and veg fried rice, both were fresh and nicely cooked. The fish curry had good fillet’s in a light sauce complimenting the rice or noodles. While the brown sauce curries with more soy didn’t stand up to expectations. I felt they were more liquid than required.
For the dessert I took bits of jalebi, jamoon, ras malai, Chinese fried noodles. Jalebi is not served in too many buffets, so that was a surprise and they tasted good as well and so did jamoon and ras malai. I also liked the Chinese fried noodles as they complemented with my ice cream.
It was obviously not possible to try each item on the menu, what I suggest is have small bites, choose your favorites and make the most of the buffet. You might also want to consider this as Three Quarter Indian than Chinese. The restaurant is good for bigger groups as everyone can find something to their liking while there is no one single specialty.