Navrang Bar and Restaurant aka. Navrang Kebab Corner

Navrang Bar and Restaurant served the patrons of Rajajinagar for over 50 long years. It has now transformed from a rather popular drinking dive to a reasonably popular kebab joint. Despite this terrible slight to the original patrons of Navrang, there is a legacy here that cannot be tampered with. Erstwhile Navrang Bar once accommodated three generations of my family’s drinking habits. Think about that for a moment. Three generations of my family have at some point in time, wined and dined at this very place. The father and his brothers and select friends enjoyed a few pints of Kingfisher here when they made the long trudge down from Bellary to Bangalore during his days in and out of Medical College and I was introduced to Navrang as a skinny first year BCommer, on a day that Viking and White Horse weren’t fancied. Recently, I learned that the grandfather too might have been party to a couple of sends and this revelation was mind-blasting. Not so much because Navrang hosted such an exemplary set of people, but more so because I realised that I came from a long history of dive bar hitting gents of the highest calibre. While earlier I would sheepishly stand behind a curtain and tilt back a couple of plastic cups of DSP Black in quick succession, I can now stand proud and chest-thump my way in and out of a quick send without the guilt of disgracing the family’s Brahmin lineage. This is actually liberating!

I feel sad that Rajajinagar doesn’t get its due in the larger scheme of gastronomic experiences to be had in Bangalore. While there is no doubt that the area is a fantastic location for those seeking pleasure in a dive bar sort of way, there is excellent food here too, across the many Mangalore style messes scattered on both sides of Dr. Rajkumar Road. For the yennay seekers, some of my favourite haunts here include White Horse (which now houses a pretty decent pub called 1522) and Viking (which is in Malleshwaram but who’s checking) and happens to be one of my favourite bars in Bangalore. Of course, the early Looreans among us would fondly remember Sussegado, which was one of the better goan food places in the city and of course, Kim Lee, which remains my favourite Chinese destination in this great city. Both the Indiranagar and Rajajinagar locations are owned by my main man Walter, who deserves a post of his own. But this post is all about Navrang. Not just everything about Navrang. About one particular dish at Navrang. The Chicken Raja.

The Chicken Raja is a Navrang specialty. Very much like other bar specialities had in many other bars in Bangalore, such as Kheema Balls and Sudden Chicken (Dolphin’s Bar), Pork Fry (Suri’s Garden Bar), Tender Coconut Chicken and Green Chili Chicken (Ujjwal Bar), Tandoori kebab and Nethali Naked Fry (Sarathi Bar), and so on and so forth. The Chicken Raja is a seemingly incongruous congregation of flavours that should actually devastate a palate. Batter fried chunks of chicken tossed with curry leaves, green chillies, yogurt, cashew nuts and assorted powders. There is no way in hell this can come together to taste even remotely nice. But it does. And not just nice, Chicken Raja tastes fantastic. The only thing missing is a quart. Really.

So, head on down to Rajajinagar. Just leave your Hindi at the door and proceed calmly.