Watching a good K-drama or an anime can sometimes turn into a mouthwatering experience, especially watching the actors gorge on Korean fried chicken or a piping hot bowl of Japanese katsu curry. These shows take you on a virtual food tour through the streets of Korea or eating at a yatai (movable food cart) in some Japanese alleyway.
Tiger Yaki Bengaluru outlet. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT
Tiger Yaki, a new entrant in Bengaluru’s fast-food culture may help satisfy your craving for Japanese or Korean street food. Located on St. Marks Road, the brand was initially founded by Chef Rahul Vasandani and Karan Sharma in a quaint 375-square-foot outlet in Pali Hill, Bandra, Mumbai. Since its opening, it has swiftly become a culinary sensation associating itself with street-style Korean and Japanese food.
The success of the brand in Mumbai prompted the Bengaluru outlet, brought to the city by ASAR Hospitality co-founded by Mohammed Aseem, Rohit Golia, Aryan Menon, and Sarfaraz Nawas.
Tiger Yaki interior. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT
With both indoor and outdoor sitting spaces, the décor has been kept minimal, with walls adorned with neon lights and the brand’s signature red dominating the colour palette of the space.
We started with their classic chicken gyoza. This popular Japanese street food pan-seared dumpling stuffed with juicy chicken filling hits all the flavour notes with the crispy chilly bits on top giving a real umami flavour. You can never go wrong with dumplings.
Korean corn dog | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT
We then tried the Korean corn dog, while it did have the classic cheese pull, in terms of flavouring, it was a bit on the bland side, the Mozzarella stick inside was hard to chew on and also lacked considerable crunch in the outer layer.
Apart from food, they also have an array of refreshing non-alcoholic beverages like kombucha and iced tea. We tried their lemon ginger kombucha and sweet lime Iced tea, a must-try at Tiger Yaki, and a perfect respite in this Bengaluru heat.
Tiger Yaki bowl. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT
We ended our meal with a bowl of basil-spiced chicken, a hearty portion of braised chicken with basil and oyster sauce felt like comfort in a bowl, advisable only if you have a good heat tolerance.
Places like Tiger Yaki, have become symbolic to city’s changing food culture especially people’s acceptability to global cuisine.
