I’ve devel­oped a lik­ing for long lazy Sun­day brunches lately. It’s a nice way to bond with friends and spend time over some­thing that I love and if you’ve read my blog on and off you won’t have any doubts : eat­ing, of course.

I mean what can be bet­ter than 3–4 hours of con­ver­sa­tion and chat­ter over prawns, dum biryani, dahi puri, aloo chat and marsh­mal­lows with choco­late sauce! I like the idea of catch­ing up with friends and dear ones over tom yum soup. It gives me a nice warm feel­ing inside. And unlim­ited mar­ti­nis. And sparkling wine.

I’m always on the look-out for good Sun­day brunch places : they’re not always very rea­son­able though (is there such a thing any­more, but on the bright side the alco­hol is unlim­ited :-). Over the years, I’ve had the chance to sam­ple a few of Bangalore’s brunches. Here are a few.

Casa del Sol: The ambi­ence is nice on Sun­days. There is a live musi­cian singing. You can make your own pot, get some face paint­ing done. There are kids run­ning all over the place. And there’s also unlim­ited wine and san­gria and beer. The food is decent and the live coun­ters : pasta, omelets are good : and usu­ally crowded so get there early if you want your food on time! It’s priced at around Rs 600. 131, Devatha Plaza, Res­i­dency Road, Ban­ga­lore. Call 80 41510101‎.

Lime­light @ Royal Orchid: I like the space that RO offers : the lawns are also there expan­sive and good for kids to run around. They have a decent spread of sal­ads which I like. And also lots of truf­fles and good­ies and choco­late cov­ered delights. The main course usu­ally has both con­ti­nen­tal Indian selec­tion and the sparkling wine and beer is unlim­ited. There was even a tarot card reader who gave me the answer to my “ques­tion” (ask any ques­tion, she said!). She looked at the cards I picked for a minute and was ready with her answer in a trice, leav­ing me in a tizzy. Go forth and have fun! Rs 950 (all inclu­sive). The Royal Orchid, Air­port Road. Call 080 25201330.

Olive Beach: This is sheer indul­gence. But the spread is lav­ish and deca­dent to say the least. The sal­ads are a delight and they have among other things : cheese and breads, live coun­ters for pasta, seafood, and most of all, great cock­tails. And of course, unlim­ited mar­ti­nis : orange, pineap­ple, choco­late, kiwi, peach… what­ever you want! That of course, pretty much set­tled it for me. The spread was priced at 1800 at one time and I’ve heard its gone upto Rs 2350. Which means it will prob­a­bly be an annual pil­grim­age for me now. Woods Street, Ashok Nagar. Call 080 41128400.

Lido @ Ista: I still remem­ber the prawns from the lunch. Lus­cious, with just the right amount of sea­son­ing it was pre­pared in the grill right in front of us. The desserts sec­tion had a vari­ety of tricks and treats, which is a pity, because I like desserts more for their visual impact than for taste! The food itself was okay, I enjoyed the ambi­ence of Ista most of all. The sun deck beside the pool is ideal for laz­ing around after a long and sump­tu­ous meal. The one with alco­hol is priced at around 1200+, but do con­firm before book­ing! Swami Vivekananda Road, Ulsoor. Call 080 25558888.

Cit­rus @ the Leela: What can I say? I’ve never seen so much food together in one place at one time! I had a dif­fi­cult time decid­ing where to start and for the longest time I took deep gulps of cham­pagne while I mulled over the deci­sion. They have all kinds of exotic meats cuts, cheese, sal­ads, and besides Indian cui­sine they usu­ally have dishes from a few other coun­tries. Basi­cally, every kind of food avail­able to mankind and that’s the brunch spread for you. You prob­a­bly don’t need to eat for a week after. Thor­oughly enjoy­able espe­cially under those umbrel­las enjoy­ing the lovely Ban­ga­lore weather! This was around 1800 the last time I vis­ited and I’m sure it’s gone up now. Air­port Road. Call 80 2521 1234 .

If you know of any other brunch buf­fets worth sam­pling, please leave a comment.

(This post seems incom­plete with­out tan­ta­lis­ing pic­tures of food, I’ll get to it some­time soon!)