LotsaFood

Mythical Meat

2013-07-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

Grilling raw meat for a few minutes – most of the world would barely consider cooking; America has, however, managed to persuade everyone that it is, in fact, very haute as cuisine goes.

The great American steak is something I am very fond of. When I first moved to New York, Atkins was all the rage and steak was practically health food. In the years that followed Atkins (real and diet both) rested in peace and cholesterol worries became a religion; New York’s steakhouses, however, did not seem to bother too much – the ancient ones still held their own while fancy new ones cropped up with great regularity to take turns at stretching the good old expense account. Steak remains America’s luxury dining of choice, and New York has some of the best.

The most legendary steakhouse in the city is without a doubt Peter Luger. The place celebrates its 125th year by proudly proclaiming to have been #1 for the last 24 years (why it took a hundred years is a mystery). I had heard and read plenty about it while in New York – its legendary steaks, legendary aversion to reservations, legendary refusal of credit cards, legendary…don’t even remember all the legends. For one reason or another I had never made it there when I lived in New York - even though, for a while, my apartment was not much more than walking distance away. I returned to visit New York after quite a gap, and figured that this time I must pay the old man a visit. So much hype, I felt I was missing a life experience here.

And so I found myself outside its doors on one nippy lunch hour.

Now Peter Lugers goes out of its way to be different. Though as hard on your wallet as any Wall Street hangout, it locates itself in Williamsburg firmly on the other side of the bridge from Manhattan. Now Williamsburg has gentrified a lot, cool artsy lofts are the thing here now, but it has left Peter Luger’s corner alone. On a polite day, one might call it “industrial”; graffiti and boarded up shop windows more common than cool cafes and hipster chicks – a look that has not changed in at least a decade. Peter Luger itself works hard at preserving the industrial feel, were it not for the suits flitting about and polished edge that expensive grunge always has.

The entrance is a long bar, where people swizzle some very nice red beer while waiting for their turn at the tables, and so I did, ogling at the wall-full of plaques proclaiming their greatness. They do take reservations now, but it was barely third of my way down the beer before I found myself seated in a relatively empty dining hall. It was the last seating, so I got lucky - indeed, judging from the bustle when I walked in on a Friday afternoon, Peter Luger will be around for a while yet. The beer, meanwhile, was very good – a red lager that I would certainly have had more of if I wasn’t keeping myself empty for steak.

Back to the basics. Unlike tony city steakhouses, Luger has maintained a very narrow and focused menu. Steakhouses nowadays do many gourmet things (Old Homestead serves a tuna sashimi, for instance) but Lugers is still centered around steak, and only a single cut at that, cooked only a single way; the only real choice here is steak for one, two, three or four. Ok, they do have a few frills, a prime rib here and a chopped steak there (also a highly rated lunchtime burger) but the whole menu, sides and dessert included, is just a page. On one side.

Steak for one duly landed up. The waiter tried to get me excited about the sliced tomatoes; I opted for the extra thick bacon instead and loved it (my theory is that you can only digest so much fat in one sitting, the rest passes through). A large boat of sauce landed up, mild, tangy red stuff that fell somewhere between Worcestshire sauce and ketchup; it worked well with the steak.The star of the show was excellent too, perfectly done, perfectly charred, dripping perfectly with fat and juices and thick enough to be a meaty, juicy, satisfying chew. All while the red ale singing a wonderful side riff. Of course, a “steak for one” here is really a steak for one just rescued from a famine and about to be sent back there; for people with less ambitious appetites this is really a steak for two (or at the very least one and a half). I’ve been told the single steak is a different cut, that the Porterhouse – what they are really famous for - is apparently two or more (that’s four or more in regular speak). I guess it has to wait for a bigger famine; I did not have room even for dessert.

I walked out nearly seventy dollars lighter (including tip and lager, don’t even try and convert), satisfied at a great steak fix and the warm glow of having participated in a legend not unlike a visit to the original Disneyland. I’ve had many great steaks over the years, but the satisfction that comes from being bum chums with the waiter at a landmark (we did exchange over three words) is hard to replicate. That, after all, is what Peter Luger is – a fantastic product, to be sure, but lifted to the mythical by some very careful myth-making. Many of the other one hundred and forty something steakhouses in New York will serve you great, even extraordinary steak; none does the legend nearly as well. Old Homestead may have started a couple of decades earlier, Sparks may have its mobster stories and Les Halles a celebrity globetrotting chef but if you’re in the mood for a foodworthy tale, Peter Luger really the only choice you have – luckily the steak is also outstanding.

I highly recommend this place. A true foodie is, after all, a storyteller at heart.

Sated on Satay

2013-06-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

A few Sundays ago, a rather ancient plane served me decent satay and plunked me into a country where three civilizations have been trying to teach the others to cook for generations. And they usually get it right; Malaysia is a great place for foodies, and I had hardly had my fill on the plane.

The aircraft finally diisgorged us bang on the evening of rhe IPL final and with Kuala Lumpur strangely disinterested in cricket, even with all that fixing, we were stuck hotel room watching it on Youtube. Luckily the room service menu had Malay food; a very nice nasi lemak duly landed up on a pretty little tray, but the other item was a nicer surprise. mee mamak - official name mee goreng mamak-style – the Mamaks, it seems were Tamil Muslims who came to Malaysia centuries so this was basically Indian Chinese Malay-ishtyle.

Day Two, however, started badly. Having neglected to reset my watch for time zones, I woke up for early lunch instead of late breakfast. A short walk down the promisingly named Asian Heritage Row got me to corner bistro serving biryani to a fair crowd of lunch seekers, and who can ignore the promise of a biryani. Disappointment followed; both the mutton biryani and the accompanying lamb shank had been crushed under the weight of a heavy, heavy hand with the spices (none of that beautiful delicacy of a top-flight biryani here). It came with a “korma” a bowl of unimpressive gravy and a rather nice sweet-n-sour plum chutney that tasted very Parsi. A rojak at a mall some time later was equally lame; only a chicken claypot mildly redeemed the morning.

The night, of course, meant night market in Chinatown (or Petaling Street), and things started looking up again, foodwise. Satay still on our mind, we headed to the biggest satay stall in sight. Now we do kathi kababs in India, but here they will put anything moving on a stick – and plenty that does not move too. The spread is pretty typical for chinese street food anywhere, but the local twist came from the sauces – the expected peanut sauce, the regulation soya sauce and a rather nice chilli sauce. We ordered a bunch of grills; my favourites were the baby squid, the duck and some kind of mushroom. A grilling station caught our attention next; they called it portuguese baked fish. It turned out to be a sting ray wrapped in foil with bhindi, chillies and some kind of gravy. Unfortunately, it was less interesting what we thought, but next door was a chicken claypot rice that blew the socks off anything we had in the morning.

The formal dinner at the hotel the next night was all Malay – roti canai, murtabak, a much nicer biriyani and loads of satay prominently advertised as “Satay Kajang”. Now Satay is one of those universally popular ambassadors of all that is Malay, and it seems Kajang, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur about an hour from the city centre, is the best satay there is. By this they probably mean the classical Malay variety – marinated strips of chicken, lamb or beef on a skewer, slathered with peanut sauce. The real test of the Malay variant is really in the perfect peanut sauce – something that must be left to simmer for hours before it really packs a punch. The hotel’s version was quite good, but so was the versions in the airport, the lounge and the flight on the way back the next day. I must have had at least twenty helpings of satay in the few days I was in Kuala Lumpur.

It’s hard to stay sated with satay. Maybe I’ll make it to Kajang the next time.

A Kerala Shaadi

2013-02-08T01:34:00.000-08:00

Its always a good idea to cultivate marriageable Mallu friends, or at least friends willing to be married to Mallus. The last time this yielded dividends was at Anjali’s wedding – Chennai, but a wonderful, payasam-loaded affair – and it took half a decade to find another candidate.

And so I landed in Thrissur, home to temple, elephants, tons of big fat jewelers and the ridiculously named Lulu Garden Hotel (35 rooms and a helipad) working off my work obligations before jumping into the revelry. I checked in late, only a dull ‘working’ lunch in my belly, but with sleep deprivation and little appetite for adventure decided to eat in (hotel kitchens are usually dull, I thought, but rarely fatal). Two hours later, I was weeping and sniffling like a baby. The food was, much to my surprise, excellent. It was also blazingly, killingly, blazingly (have I already said that?) spicy - even the raita given to cool things off had pieces of chilly. The mutton olathiyathu sang with flavour, the prawn biriyani danced with aromas and the karimeen was worth every bit of its pollichathu - it was, in other words, a thoroughly satisfactory meal for all the fire and brimstone you waded through.

The shaadi was all about mundus and veg food. While my friends tried to figure out how to climb steps with their fancy dresses, I investigated the food options. The cornerstone, of course, was avial – but there was a whole array of rapidly served veggies that I no longer remember the names of. Pumpkin was involved, as was raw mango, pineaple. banana stem and a procession of other unknown vegetables in liquid, paste and dry forms. Rasam, sambar, rice, achaar, all danced about on the banana leaf glammed up with coconut and loads of spices. The two payasams that followed somehow forced their way down overstuffed gullets.

Kerala is one of the great cuisines of the world. Distinctive, delicious and with unending variety; its going to take a lot more than two weddings to get to any level of familiarity here. Unfortunately, its not a food well represented in Mumbai (though there are exceptions to this rule). There’s a huddle of them in the fort area, and a smaller cluster in Mahim. Maybe my next food route will be about those joints.

Hidden Gold

2013-02-02T19:46:00.000-08:00

One hardly ever comes across anything worth talking about that has not already been talked about. Mumbai's bloggers are quite an active lot, usually out-writing me with ease. It was with some satisfaction, therefore, that I discovered hidden gold in the heart of Girgaum.

Of course, being entirely undiscovered was too much to ask. A MumbaiBoss column by Roshni Bajaj Singhvi first made me aware of Golden, but what really intrigued me was that no one else seemed to have even so much as mentioned it anywhere else. Stalwarts like Zomato and Burrp were silent, and every other mention on the great big cloud were rehashings of the same aforementioned column. All other search results spent their time insisting that Sharma Bhelpuri or some such other was better. This Golden, it seemed, was hidden even from Google.

Back on my bicycle last week, I headed straight to Girgaum. The directions in the article were a bit sketchy so a bit of asking around led me to Sicka Nagar (yes, that is indeed the name), a red art-deco landmark that must at some point have been quite a talking point. Enquiries (as Wodehouse might have put it) yielded more than I hoped – two golden bhel sellers (apparently a spinoff from the original was operating in the area too). Spinoff turned out to be steps away, and he did indeed have golden bhel – a thick yellow mustardy sauce coupled with flattened (rather than the usual puffed) rice. It was unusual and blazingly spicy but disappointingly pedestrian.

I nearly wrote off the adventure at this stage. You can’t make a tale out of pedestrian, even if it is hidden away from google’s eyes but fortified by a nice-ish roadside kesar milk, enthusiasm renewed, I set off again - in search, this time, of only the original. Roshni Bajaj Singhvi had warned me that the original managed to survive over seventy years – surely something more than pedestrian must be going on.

Vegetable guy told me that GBH was inside the gates of Sicka Nagar, but all I could see inside was an elaborately decorated building that turned out to be Modern School. After a few minutes of architectural admiration, I refocused my energies and found a kindly security guard to lead me to GBH – and discovered why it was so hard to find. It is, quite literally, tucked inside the awning behind the Sicka Nagar gate – there’s no way to come by it unless you know where to go. I approached a rather unrushed (and empty stall) run by a boy more interested in a DVD player than pushing any bhel my way; the ‘golden’ liquid in plain sight looking far more watery than spinoff’s version did. This looked a very unlikely bearer of any kind of bloggable legacy but at least it was cheap and hard to find so I ordered.

And the verdict – GBH is much better than spinoff. It is distinctive, flavourful and quite interesting indeed. The crispy flattened rice makes for a nice change from regular puffedrice bhel, and the chutney is quite different from the sweetish tomato punch of normal bhel. Spicy, complex, unusually textured – its certainly worth a 73-year legacy.

Monday: Castles and Casseroles

2012-10-30T00:27:00.000-07:00

Carcassone, I was told, attracted a million visitors a year so I decided to add myself to the millions and see what all the fuss was about. The day started bright and crisp and the GPS dutifully sent me hurtling towards my destination. Halfway through, I stopped at a nice bright boulangerie and discovered that croque monsieur was even better than previously experienced.

I found the centre of Carcassone without too much fuss, parked in a nice underground facility and walked about for a bit. There were the usual narrow lanes, the usual medieval buildings, the usual largish church. I found a nice fountain to photograph and a bar full of locals to have a coffee in. I was, to tell you the truth, a little bit disappointed; nothing here seemed worth the millions any more than a hundred other European towns. It was all a bit puzzling. I settled down with a coffee and set out to write an article on technology for a magazine. Wait and see, maybe Cinderella would appear at noon and start dancing, or something.

Next door was a brasserie where I, like all the others in the bar seemed to go for lunch, so I did too. And dutifully ordered what I had been told was THE thing to have - cassoulet. I thought the waitress gave the faintest of shrugs, but I stuck to my guns and eventually a large pot of the stuff did indeed grace my table. I knew it to be a white bean stew, and indeed that is what came, covered with breadcrumbs and baked to a crust. Inside was a leg of duck, a sausage and a piece of pork. I dutifully dug in, and discovered that I had stumbled upon the rarest of French experiences - a boring meal.

It was amazing how dull the cassoulet was. The right ingredients were all in - beans, duck leg, sausage, fatty chunk of pork rib - only the excitement had been left out. This was the top of the line version; you can get one sans confit - no duck, no sausage, I wonder why that exists at all. If anything it reminded me of discount cans of chilli-con-carne from an American supermarket - lots of promise on the label, bland, sweet and unending once you start.

This was turning out to be a bit of a strange day; neither sights nor tastes seem to have gone the way I expected. Scratching my head, I turned to Wikipedia for help, and was immediately informed that the town is, in fact, not the Carcassone I had come to see. That was a fort outside the city, a monstrosity of towers and walls that I had somehow failed to see on the way in. Armed with this insight, I made short work of locating it, and spent the rest of the afternoon walking the ramparts.

There is no myth in the million-tourist story; even the chilly depths of a cold wave on a Monday in October had not kept the hordes out. After days of having places pretty much to myself, I was finally faced with competition for views, photo angles, restrooms. The castle was quite worth the effort, thoug - very imposing, massive even by Indian standards and extremely well preserved. Unlike other places I had seen in France, Carcassone was a true monument - no one actually lived in the castle any more. It was full of restaurants, patissiers, cholocatiers, creperies, trinket shops...and lots of cassoulet.

This struck me first as odd, then increasingly as very wierd. For something I had just compared to gloop in a can, the French seemed to take it very seriously. Cassoulet seemed a bit of religion here; every other eatery advertised it prominently, indeed made quite a fuss about how great their version was. Whole restaurants where pegging their reputations on cassoulet, advertising awards for cassoulet, even displaying a route cassoulet (which seemed to imply pilgrimages of the stuff). Either the French had visited mickey mouse once too often or, again, I was missing something.

One word that seemed repeatedly to attach itself to cassoulet was Castelnaudary. I first thought it was something to do with the castle (an impression helped along by the innumerable signs for the stuff inside the castle) but I was wrong. It was, the road signs told me, actually a town - and obviously cassoulet from there was a really big deal because even the road sign showed a steaming bowl. Where other towns had drawings of churches, castles or mountains, Castelnaudary was firmly about the stew. Curious about the fame of the stuff, I steered off the highway and was immediately greeted by a McDonalds fighting with not one but two huge cassoulet signs - you certainly could not mistake the belle of the ball here. Six or seven more signs (and many promises of traditionelle later) I was in the centre of town. The shortest of walks from the parking lot got me to Maison du Cassoulet (cuisine de bistrot & specialites, six branches nearby).

This time, the dish did redeem itself. Still beans, leg of duck, sausage and fatty pork rib but this was not sweet, tasteless gloop. And everyone, including the people reading French newspapers and rolling the merci effortlessly off the tongue was ordering it (six of the nine people at that restaurant certainly, in what seemed the only open place in town). Unlike the mush I had previously been subjected to, these beans had some actual flavour. It wasn't sweet, it wasn't gluey, it was, in fact, quite nice.

Here's my verdict on the matter - yes it is indeed quite nice. The beans are soft, whole tiny bites infused generously with flavour. The duck and the pork, soaking in starch, are juicy, and melting. When in Castelnaudary there is absolutely no reason not to order it again. If the cassoulet were to tap me on the shoulder and say hello, I would greet it warmly - I would not, however, be standing under any windows hoping for a glimpse.

Day One in France - Lunch

2012-10-26T01:56:00.000-07:00

Having begun at the border of France, my first action was to step across the border and avoid bankruptcy by getting myself a local SIM. Ninety minutes later, I was locally simmed and the proud owner also of the ethylotest - breath analysers. French law insists every car has one. Obviously they take their drinking seriously, even when driving.

My target for the day was a tour through Alsace ending at tomorrow's target - Burgundy. Three of France's officially prettiest villages were on the list, but I greatly underestimated travel times in my quest to avoid highways. The drives were unquestionably more scenic, but also took forever. What with delays at St. Avold and the non-cancel reservation in Burgundy, I ended up with less time than I thought. It was going to have to be only one village; I chose Eguisheim, the centre of the Alsace wine trail.

But first, of course, was the serious business of lunch. I stopped at a village that happened to pass by around noon, with the somewhat improbable name of Puttelange-aux-Lacs. Between munches on an amazing baba au rum I asked the local patissiere what my lunch options were, and thus found my way to Chez Pierette.

It turned out to be just what the doctor ordered - a bright, cheerful cafe filled with locals (in any case, this is not tourist season so few people other than locals are around). The people were cheerfully tolerant of my inability to speak anything resembling French; the waitress gave me plenty of advice that I failed completely to understand. I went with seafood salad (how can that go wrong in the corner of France furthest from the sea) and the lapin (which I knew to be rabbit) in what turned out to be a roulade.

Two perfect mini gooey chocolate cakes followed, whipped cream on one end, vanilla ice cream on the other.

Pierette was a lively, friendly cafe bustling with locals who all knew the bartender and flirted with the sole waitress. Few people looked at the menu. The food, as I had been told to expect, was very nice - fresh enough to be alive, filling, tasty and comfortable stuff I could eat every day. Some simple touches - a kind of grated marinated carrot in the seafood salad, for instance - were unexpectedly lovely. Also, I love rabbit, and hardly ever see it on menus in India.

Wines and beers were everywhere but scared by all that ethylotesting, I stuck to that other French drinks - sparkling water.

Day One in France - Dinner

2012-10-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

Fortified by a perfectly local lunch, I headed towards more tourism - the Alsace-Lorraine, a region I knew little of except that it had some of the best Rieslings in France and a very popular eponymous quiche. The drive was littered with trees ablaze with the brightest reds and flashiest yellows. Dark, freshly tilled fields interspersed with green patches of rolling hills, striped rows of vineyards and occasional clumps of trees added contrast. Beautiful sunshine, stretches of fall-hued forests, postcard towns and winding, roller-coaster roads made for a wonderful journey.

I had planned for three villages, but time eventually forced me to choose only one, and I chose the one closest to my exit route to Burgundy. The chosen one - Eguisheim - was indeed devastatingly pretty. Half-timbered houses painted the colours of a pastel rainbow, standing slightly crookedly along narrow, winding cobblestone streets; It was as advertised, a fairytale museum-piece of a medieval town. Indeed, I should have planned for much more time in Alsace - it was just deliciously picture perfect.

Though the village had no shortage of wineries offering tastings, ethyloscared me left the wines alone with great regret. Indeed, the place was a gastronomic disaster; I arrived too late for lunch and way too early for dinner. Alsacce specialiten boards abounded, only to point to closed doors. The only thing I did manage were some regional sausages and a reasonably unexciting local variant of brioche made with almonds and raisins. Even the quiche lorraine was sold out.

Dinner was a long drive back west, to Burgundy. I had chosen, somewhat at random, a two-coquette Hotel-restaurant de La Paix in Tournos fronted by chef David Gider. I must admit I had no idea what two coquettes meant, but figured two was better than one and certainly better than none at all. I was not disappointed. Starting with the aperitif, a local drink with fizz and peaches, a four course tale of an amazing the prix-fixe dinner unfolded.

I spent a bit of time debating the first course. There was chicken, rabbit choices, but snails were apparently **the** thing in Burgundy; I finally went with the snails - and immediately regretted it. I've had snails a few times before and never quite got the point of them. To me they've always felt like an excuse to lap up loads of garlic butter than anything of intrinsic merit. They do, however, have tick-mark value. Nothing was wrong with the dish tonight, tender snails drowned in liquid herb-garlic butter as good as I've had anywhere, so I dutifully ticked.

The wine, of course, was a burgundy. The waitress suggested a demi of Ruilly 2010, grown not more than fifty kilometres away; it was indeed a lovely wine.

Second course was duck breast with raisins, white beans and mushrooms in a local Ratafia wine sauce. The dish made me weep with joy, bless the French and sing praises of the wine gods. The tender, juicy duck with a thin, crisped skin combined with the sharply sweet raisins and the soft, buttery beans in wonderful ways. I marvelled over how even the beans, usually classified with something such as humble or tender, were in this dish worth the effort. In short - before adjective overload happens - it was very very good.

The cheese course came in the form of fromage blanc - a fresh white cheese that people in these parts are very fond of; sprinkle a generous dollop of sugar on it and off you go. It tasted very like a childhood favourite of mine - fresh homemade paneer, similarly eaten with sprinkled sugar. This was a creamier, fancier version, and I loved it. Dessert was the final thing on the menu - a souffle made from some local liquor. I expected an airy cheesy thing; what landed up seemed identical to ice-cream with a strong liquor flavour.

I'm still dreaming of the duck.

Starting Off

2012-10-23T15:16:00.000-07:00

A windmill, flaming trees, some bucolic cows and a long drive later, I rest on a bed at at the edge of France.

Landhaus Warndtwald happens to be chosen for no particular reason other than it matched the price and distance criteria I had set, but the region seems of some interest. Apparently the Saar tossed back and forth between France and Germany multiple times, even being an independent country for bit before finally settling into German hands. It's known for, of all things, potatoes; Dibbelappes (potato hash) and gefillte (potato dumplings) are apparently the hot local things to have - we shall see what they make of it tomorrow before venturing into some of France's most picturesque villages (there are three nearby). One of them will feed me lunch.

Dutch Treat

2012-10-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

Here I am, in Amsterdam, preparing to run half a marathon so eating myself silly is not one of the options on the table. I did, however, begin the day with a pate and hazelnut sandwich out of a grocery store that got me thinking about how great bread, great meats and great cheeses give Europeans an unfair advantage on the sandwich front. Even a supermarket counter managed to impress a fussy foodie.

My first real bite of Dutch came at an airy, stylish modern Fitch & Shui Brasserie. All glass and metal tube, it offered on its menu an intriguing option - Hollands bitterballen. Since it was the only certified authentic dutch item on the menu (the others had names like Tallegio and tonno plastered all over) I had little choice but to order it. The waitress tried, with very limited success to explain what it was; all I gathered was that it was very good. And here's what landed up.

Bitterballen, it seems is the thing that foodies dream of in their dreams - popular in Holland but rarely found anywhere that Dutchmen fear to tread. With a crunchy shell hiding a squishy innard with bits of meat, it is indeed quite nice. Not I-want-to-get-on-the-next-plane nice, but certainly nice enough to be my first Dutch treat.

Shorshe Bhapa Chingri

2012-08-21T07:14:00.000-07:00

Stranded in New York far from ingredients and helpers, I learned to make quite a few Bengali dishes on the quick, none more successful than bhapa mach – this translates to the somewhat pedestrian "steamed fish" Its got a short ingredient list, quick prep and (horror of horrors) can be made in a microwave without any side effects and looks, as you can see, quite spectacular – one can easily imagine it the fruit of long labour and extensive technique.

Yesterday, I needed to produce something to compete with Sunanda's world-class tiramisu, feed friends and impress people, so this was resurrected, adjusted to frozen prawns (chingri) rather than fresh fish, and voila! Shorshe Bhapa Chingri, double quick.

The process is pretty much the same as bhapa fish – an old blog post I strongly encourage you to read. Its got all the theory, I'll just describe the twists that got me to this one.

Ingredients

Prawns: super-jumbo-tail-on, why not
Mustard: Colman's English Mustard Powder, with a bit of the local variety added in for effect
Coconut: helpfully grated by helper Susheela
Coconut cream: from a can
Green chillies: slit and deseeded
Kalonji: tossed in oil as tadka
A pinch each of haldi and jeera powders, for colour
Encouraging looks from Sunanda (optional)

Mix it all up, put into a microwaveable container with a sealed lid, and microwave. Usually six minutes does the trick, but depending on your microwave and the number of super-jumbos involved, more or less may be needed. Since I was serving guests, I zapped for three minutes in the afternoon, then put it in the fridge. The last three came minutes before serving it, all steaming hot and all.

Prep (discounting the coconut grating bit) about five minutes (two of which went into locating the mustard powder can). Cooking time, six minutes. Taste test, you say? Flying colours.

Haleem

2012-08-13T03:58:00.000-07:00

A conference took me to Hyderabad in the month of Ramadan; and it was clearly a city obsessed with haleem.

Its a city I had not seen in a while. The last time I was here, the ISB was just a gleam in Rajat Gupta's eye, the old airport was still called new and Saikat Dey (now father of two) was still an unmarried hunter-gatherer of biriyani. In those days we thrilled over Shadab, sneered at Paradise and felt reasonable satisfied with the corner chacha's stall, focused entirely on that magic b-word (biriyani – not those other x-rated alternatives your dirty dirty minds are pushing forward).

Hyderabad has changed beyond recognition. The scrappy, dusty city of my memories seems to have been replaced by some magic teleporter to a developed country. The expressway transporting me to ISB (Chinese infrastructure in a Sholay set is the best I can describe it) had posted speed signs of 120kmph - that's 75mph, you slow American commuters. The infrastructure was, frankly, nauseatingly well planned; almost treacherously un-Indian, certainly more Guangzhou than Gurgaon. And this seems everywhere in the city – roads narrowed only when we were inches away from the Charminar.

But back to matters of the stomach. While marvelling at a gleaming new airport I could hardly faul to notice the large flex announcing that haleem was now available at the food court. Pista House, a name I had first heard only a week ago (and not in the context of the nut) was the proud originator of the flex - promising 207 awards and the world's largest haleem-selling operation.

An auto ride through the city reinforced the h-word (haleem– oh you dirty minds) as king of the hill. The hoardings were everywhere; even those feel-good airtel billboards sulked a little at all the fuss. Irani origins were firmly established and purity seemed to be a very important part of haleeming - pure ghee, pure meat, even the odd pure veg. Poorer-cousin harees grabbed the silver, chicken seemed to be nearly as popular as mutton and beef rated the occasional mention. The odd Udipi chipped in with vegetarian promises; I even saw mention of a Chinese haleem (you decide if it was fusion food or a missed comma).

The auto, of course, was headed to Charminar. My experience has usually been that the old city is the best bet for traditional food; on the way auto-driver turned gourmet guide Ahmedbhai pointed out the city's most famous options. I passed Pista House and Shah Ghouse staring each other down across the usually wide Hyderabadi street, Paradise making its brash presence felt (twice). Bilal declaring ice cream love from a quaint English building and then suddenly, one odd turn here and there and I was in crowded old city teeming with hawkers and hawkees.

Surprisingly enough, the Charminar area turned out to be relatively sparse on food. This was no Minara Masjid jammed like sardines with temporary barbecue kingdoms; indeed the focus seemed to be trinkets and shoes and very (lets call it) cheerful fashion than food. There were stalls, of course, and many offers of haleem, but far less than I expected. Indeed, the primary foods on offer were fruits – hundreds of stalls in a fifty-sixty metre stretch offering pomegranates, apples, pineapples, watermelons, every kind of fruit there is. I quickly escaped that part of town. There were also a large number of dahi vada stalls and even two white capped muslims selling regular dosas. The dahi vada, in particular, was worth a mention; unlike the cold, uncooked dahi that is used everywhere else, the Hyderabadi version is more like a kadhi - slowcooked with a mustard and chilli tadka. Also no chutney on top, neither red nor green. It made for a nice twist.

Back in more meaty sections, street vendors seemed to be selling two main things out of carts – seekh kakabs that looked very like boti, bheja on a tava, a bread-egg production that we could call french toast, a soup that looked – well – like a soup but they called boti, and of course - haleem and harees.

Distractions out of the way, I finally settled down to the serious business of haleem. Lets be brutal here; you're not going to get a "best haleem" recommendation from me - that would take years, a mountain of calories and more than a few frequent auto miles. I discovered rather quickly, however, that best isn't that important – haleem in Hyderabad seems to all be very good (you could probably write home about finding a bad one). The average street food did not impress much, but the haleem is a decent number of notches above the other feeble attempts I've had elsewhere.

My first haleem was at the Charminar, chosen for nothing more than because it happened to be where the auto stopped. I'd never heard of Fiesta Green Bawarchi, there weren't any crowds lining up and those huge colour pictures of chickens and sheep did nothing much to whet the appetite. I figured, lets try the chicken here, leave the mutton for better places; the three eager servers promptly set out to make me the perfect plate. A huge dollop of white, sticky, pasty stuff was dug out of the ground, ladled into a bowl, topped with deep fried onions, chopped pudina, dhania, a handful of cashews, a squeeze of lime and finally a generous dollop of the ghee the meat was cooked in.

Chicken or not, it was delicious.

I promptly got ambitious. At 60% more expensive, mutton was clearly the haleem to have; a few delicious spoonfuls of the chicken later, I told him to pack it up and hand me a mutton version. It was indeed a little bit better but not by much; I can die reasonably happy even with the chicken version. The mutton version had a darker, deeper flavour, but the Green Bawarchi version had small, irritating bones too.

Next stop, a harees shop a few steps away. Harees is only wheat and meat - haleem without the dal. A little smoother, a little less complex, served with the same garnishings, still utterly delicious. Next stop was the giant in haleems in the city – Pista House. We went to the more convenient outlet in the Toli Chowki area rather than to the original old city outlet. This one was a stripped down outlet, serving only haleem in bowls, takeaway and even huge paint-can sized fifteen-kilo family packs. The haleem, as usual, was great – this time a little more polished without all those irritating bone fragments.

Bottom line, haleem is worth putting ass for. Obsess over where if you like, its all very good.

A Small Find in a Big Mall

2012-07-27T06:01:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Market City is possibly Mumbai's largest mall by size. Stuck in the boring side of Kurla (something I'm sure it intends to change), it isn't exactly easy to get to - and by the looks of it not that many are getting there ("sparsely attended" comes to mind). It does, however, one of the route options on my long commute back from Thane, so I decided to head inside for dinner yesterday.

My destination was Cafe Pico. Started by the folks from the rather nice cafe at Le Mill, the place promises food "born of a million little journeys" around the world. The menu lives up to the promise, mixing French, Italian and Mediterranean with the odd touch of the Caribbean, one or two Africans and even the odd foray into the east. Its peppered with dishes you normally do not see in India; strangolapretti, pissaladiere, goujon, duxelle, tagliata all appear at various points and sound nice, juicy names worth exploring, especially if the execution is good. Peering shortsightedly at the menu, I narrowed down on Korean pancakes and polpettone (try saying that quickly).

The bread and two middle-eastern dips were the first to arrive. One was nice, the other inconspicuous. The pancakes were next; I ordered it because the Korean pancake was one of the stops on my Seoul foodwalk - they call it panjeon and it is very popular with young and old. Pico's version, arranged rather more politely, was quite competent (maybe a tad low on the scallion) and quite recognisably Seoul but without the raucous shoju-drunk crowds milling around, it did seem somewhat less of a big deal.

The polpettone was up next, three slices of meatloaf Italian style with tomato sauce and a side of roasted crushed potatoes. Without being flashy or brash, this dish captured my heart. Meat, tomatoes, potatoes, all combined to simple, but comfortingly tasty. This is not the kind of food that will make anyone a celebrity chef, but I will die happy if someone feeds me this kind of stuff every day.

So here's my dilemma - can one base the whole-hearted recommendation of a cafe on one single dish?

Disclaimer: I know the owners and Sunanda has helped with the decor. However, to make me feel like a real journalist I visited anonymously and paid for my own meal.

A tomato in the pan

2012-07-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

I got addicted to pan-tomate on a trip to Barcelona. I have, since then, been trying to recreate it in Mumbai, with little success.

Pan tomate is one of those incredibly comforting classics – simple to the point of idiocy but magical nevertheless. I figured it would be easy to recreate it for Sunanda, who spent plenty of time in Spain growing up and is equally addicted. Crusty bread, crushed tomatoes, salt and olive oil – how hard can it be? Tomatoes are everywhere, oilve oil (even Spanish origin, if you're so inclined) is is everwhere, salt is everywhere, crusty bread is…

There, to repurpose Shakespeare, was the rub. Mumbai, the land of A1 pao and Wibs sandwich was sadly, sadly short of hard crust bread. I tried various kinds of breads but none quite fit the bill; squashing tomatoes on one of these usually produced a pulpy bread-tomato-alien-spawn mess hardly geared to impress anyone. Mumbai does sport a few tapas places but they all seem equally keen to steer away from it. I was thus in a bit of a fix there, till genius sparkled.

What I needed, it seems, was a mundane pinch of Mumbai's history.

I'm talking, of course, about the brun pao.

Along with amul butter (and sometimes mafco jelly) brun pao has been the sidekick of cutting chais ever since Iranis started setting out bentwood chairs for their patrons. Irani cafes, Parsi bakeries, all have long histories of this uniquely Mumbai creation that's not quite like any European bread you've come across. Its a little harder to get today than it used to be, but far from impossible. In Bandra, Sunanda loves the brun at A1 Bakery; I prefer the marginally chewier ones from South Mumbai. The most iconic is Yazdani's but Sassanian, Kayani and many others make mean ones too.

Today, some distance into a rather nice keema ghotala breakfast at Edward, I noticed the counter receiving a delivery of brun and ordered the obligatory brun-maska-chai. One bite, and the thought popped up and hit me on the head - this was it, the crusty-outside-chewy-inside pan I had been looking for my tomate. At two rupees a piece, the price of experimentation was rather low.

Back home, I acted. The olive oil came from Spain (via Nature's Basket), the tomatoes from across the road, French coarse-grained sea salt was involved, the pepper of provenance unknown. I sliced the brun, (toasted it ever so lightly too), crushed a fresh tomato into the surface, drizzled some olive oil of the nicest kind, sprinkled some sea salt and a dash of pepper and I was ready to impress. The results, freshly captured on a thousand-dollar camera were, as you can see, spectacular, and the girl was suitably impressed.

South Mumbai

2012-07-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

Viator rates the dosa one of the ten things to try before you die. I have my own periodic dosa cravings, but this isn't entirely simple in Mumbai. There's no dearth of options - udipis abound on every street corner peddling dosas and idli any hour of the day that Dhoble allows - but most are not very good. One has to battle a lot of sugared sambar and funny batters before one stumbles upon one that satisfies my Bangalore-honed tastebuds. Rescue, however, is at hand.

If you're looking for sambar with bite, idli with fluff, dosa that might bring Rajnikant back to Mumbai and coffee that is not nescafe then the best way South is East. Matunga East, that is.

Kings Circle is now called BN Maheshwari Udyan but it is still the birthplace of the Mumbai udipi and the only place in Mumbai to get a dosa fix. For decades, two ornate southern style temples in the vicinity have served as the city's anchor for Tamilians, Kannadigas and various other flavours of southies. The udipi revolution is named after the free feasts at the famous Krishna temple of Udipi in Karnataka; it came to Mumbai on the backs of immigrants in search of big city dreams. The sugar in the sambar, the nescafe in the coffee and those atrocious lassi-flavoured dahi-vadas were picked up later; Kings Circle continues to serve the orignals to all and sundry from geriatric regulars to giggly teenagers. All these places serve decent dosa-idli-sambar, but other choices vary. Neer dosa, set dosa, pesarettu, ulundu dosa, various kinds of idli, all these are hard to come by elsewhere but abound at this circle.

I've been wandering these streets for years, and finally compiled what I'm fairly sure is the definitive list.

Cafe Madras
A relatively new kid on the block, but in my opinion the best overall South Indian restaurant in Mumbai. You will rarely hit a miss on the menu, and specials like Madras Misal and Idli with white butter are must haves. No reservations and a perennial wait to get in is part of the experience. Remember to order their magical white butter on the side. Alternative outpost Cafe Gopal in Malad West is usually called a branch, but in reality that's where they started.

What to have: Rasam Vada, Madras Misal, Idli with malagapudi & white butter, coffee

Cafe Mysore
Another part of the venerable Nayak empire, this place is full of celebrity associations - especially Mukesh Ambani. I love those khotto idlis steamed in jackfruit leaves, but do not care as much for their "famous" coffee.

What to have: Khottu Idli

Idli House
This tiny place serves many different kinds of idli including a number of unusual varieties not found elsewhere in Mumbai – and nothing else, no dosa here. There are two kinds of poodi on the counters (each with its proper oil – til or coconut) and even a few dessert idli options make this a place much worth a visit. Also part of the Nayak empire.

What to have: Khottu idli, kanjeevaram idli

Mani's Lunch Home
Mani, like Ramanayaka Udipi, serves only thali for lunch but does the usual dosa-idli fare the rest of the time. The lunch is rather nice, not quite as good as Rama Nayak's but near enough and without all that queueing up. The dosa-idlis are as competent as anywhere in the area. They have a couple of branches – one a stone's throw from Poddar college, but this is the prominent one.

What to have: Lunch thali

Sharda Bhavan
Quieter and more isolated from the crowds that throng Bhandarkar Road, Sharada Bhavan shares the quaint old-world charm of its sibling Amba Bhavan but relies on young collegians rather than geriatric regulars for custom. Usually the easiest of the lot to find parking at. The kela baji is very popular, but I failed to see the point of it. The rasam vada is wonderful.

What to have: rasam vada

Amba Bhavan Coffee House
If you want great coffee, good dosas and no queues, this unassuming place is the way to go. It still looks like it could have been in a black and white movie, and manages to serve some unusual dishes such as coconut sevai along with competent renderings of the staples. A sibling of Sharda Bhavan, it shares some successes with that establishment such as that lovely kadhi vada. And don't forget the coffee.

What to have: rasam vada, limbu sevai, coconut sevai, coffee

Ram Ashraya
A crowded location at a corner of the Matunga market means the parking is a challenge, but this place serves among many competent dosa-idli choices an earthshaking upma that's the best in the city.

What to have: upma

A Rama Nayak Udipi Shri Krishna Boarding
This venerable grandfather is the udipi that started all udipis in Mumbai. Only serving lunch thalis on banana leaf, it still continues to pack them in seventy years on and with very good reason. Interminable lines are to be expected, but this leads to a procession of simple but very well-made dishes, a couple of sambars and rasams and if you took the luxury option – a sweet - all guaranteed droolworthy. A triumph of simplicity in food; it makes the wait worth it.

What to have: the special lunch thali

Anand Bhavan Restaurant
I find Anand Bhavan's basic dosa the best in an area full of great dosas. Reputed to be the olderst, its been around for the obligatory three quarters a century and has gathered its own cohort of fanatic regulars who will, if asked, give free advice on what to eat and sneer loudly if you mention Cafe Madras or old rival Amba Bhavan. The coffee is as good as any on the circle.

What to have: dosa, set dosa, coffee

A Rama Nayak & Sons Udipi
The air-conditioned version of Cafe Mysore next door, serving the cafe menu rather than the banana-leaf thali of its namesake landmark.

What to have: the same things as Cafe Mysore

Ayyapan Dosa Stall
This crowded roadside stall attracts a lot of attention but serves fairly average dosas. Its poodi is nice though, and so are the dishes that use it (such as the poodi upma).

What to have: poodi dosa, poodi upma

The map says it all. Enjoy.

View South Indian Restaurants in Matunga East in a larger map

A Meal and a Song

2012-07-08T07:15:00.000-07:00

I'm always excited about new Bengali restaurants in Mumbai, and fast expanding Kolkata chain Bhojohori Manna has been on my radar for a while now. Initial negative reviews from a trusted friend had dissuaded me from making the journey to Oshiwara; a visit had thus to wait for me to venture nearby on another excuse. Finally, on rainsoaked noon a few days ago, the eponymous song already having been played on iPod, Sunanda and I stepped into the large, empty restaurant.

I'll make the review brief. Bhojohori Manna, if it can continue without any more dental troubles has overtaken Bijoli Grill at the top of my Bengali restaurant choices in Mumbai. With the exception of a somewhat disappointing posto'r bora and a disastrous rajbhog, the food was wonderful. Ethereal luchis, stunning cholar dal, a beautiful daab-chingri, lip-smacking shukto, sublime nolen-gur ice cream - there was much to like on the menu. Places like Oh Calcutta are scared of too much authenticity and routinely modify traditional recipes to local tastes (putting paneer in a paturi, for instance); Bhojohori Manna makes no such concessions but does not seem to have suffered at all. Sunanda – firmly Bandra and often bemused by the bhadralok's sniffings about authenticity – loved the food even as I certified it grandmother quality. The rich flavours, the light touch on spicing and a wonderfully balanced use of mustard all added up to a wonderful meal.

I find Bhojohori Manna an interesting concept. It is what I would usually sneer at - a pure chain with all its mass market implications, not an original standalone restaurant that proved itself before it grew into a chain. Further, it is founded not by a chef or restaurateur but film directors and steel executives. Its nationwide, yet sticks to authentic. Somehow, all these contradictions work.

Outstanding; that's a good last line for it.

Update: 15-July

I was back in Bhojohori Manna yesterday, this time with five other mouths (including an imported one). Kalyan of Finelychopped did the ordering, and it wasn't long before the first luchis landed up. I'm adding photos and a few what-to-orders in this update.

Starters
We oredered Luchi-Alur dom. Impeccable luchis landed up, accompanied by a decent (if slightly underseasoned) alur dom. Sunanda and I had tried the other option the last time – koraishuti kochuri with cholar dal and it was equally satisfying.

Main Courses - Veg
Bengalis pretend to sneer at anything herbivorous, but secretly we love our veggies. In this case, we decided that a few Maxi Thalis would take care of the veg cravings, leaving us free to indulge in select, carefully chosen non-vegetarian delicacies. On the veggie front, the Mochar dalna was excellent, as was the Shukto. The Panchmishali sobji was nice too, as was the Bhaja moong dal. The Aloo posto was decent, but not too exciting and otherwise competent Jhuri bhaja had broken into small bits. The Gobindobhog polau was quite traditional – slightly sweet, with nuts and raisins, all ready for the mutton.

Main Courses – Non Veg
An early discussion on the merits of prawns in the monsoon led us to eliminate them early on. This meant that we were concentrating our energies on fish – a Barishali ilish for those ready to tackle the bones, and a Bhapa bhetki paturi for the less adventurous. All to be followed – inevitably - by Kosha mangsho. The ilish was incredible – a rich mustard and coconut gravy that was for me the best dish of the day. The last time I was here with Sunanda, we did order prawns and the Daab chingri (jumbo size) was the highlight.

Other Stuff
We also ordered an Ampora shorbot that I really liked, Begun bhaja that I thought was cut the wrong way and a nice Amer chatni to provide the palate cleanse leading up to the dessert.

Sweets
The maxi thali comes with some very nice sondesh. I also ordered a previous favourite – the nolen gur ice cream, which is more souffle than ice-cream but very satisfying nevertheless.

Postscript
I must mention, for those who do not know it, that the restaurant is named after a hugely popular Bengali song about the adventures of a cook called Bhojohori Manna. Written by Pulak Banerjee, composed by Sudhin Dasgupta and performed by Manna Dey for the movie Pratham Kadam Phool, it has ironically nothing to do with Bengali food. In fact, the cook is described as travelling all over the world - Istanbul, Japan, Kabul, Paris - learning to cook everything but Bengali.

Seoul Food

2012-05-27T00:43:00.000-07:00

Last week I found myself in the land of the metal chopstick.

I used to think of South Korea as a sort of Singapore-style city state stuck between dim sum land and sushi heaven; it was somewhat of a surprise to discover a fairly big country stashed away beneath the kimchi. The CIA (who tend to know these things) tells me that 48 million people live on the peninsula, ranking #25, more than worthies such as Argentina or South Africa and nearly twice that of Australia. Geographic size is somewhat less - flying one end of the country to the other isn't enough even for an episode of Friends.

In one sense, though, the country is not unlike a city-state. Some 49% of the population is squashed into the Seoul Metropolitan Area – making it the second largest metropolitan area in the world (only Tokyo is bigger). Its metro system is only marginally smaller than Mumbai's massive suburban rail – daily carrying Singapore's entire adult population a couple of times over. By all accounts, it a gargantuan urban mass. See the whole city and you're half Korean already.

This is what I set out to do in right earnest, starting with breakfast at Incheon airport - I was soon in front of a long Korean menu, of which only bibimbap seemed familiar. Or so I thought - a large bowl with various vegetables arranged neatly in sections, accompanied by a soup, a red paste of some kind, a few types kimchi and a cup of sticky rice landed up on a tray. My bibimbap memories were a little rusty but I did not remember anything that looked like this – to me it had always been some kind of fried rice, not the ghas-phoos mix of salads and sides that this looked like. I racked my brains about how exactly to eat it and finally settled for taking a bit of each separate ingredient with some rice, fumbling away all the while with those flat, slippery steel chopsticks. Depending on the bite involved, it lay somewhere between barely edible and outright bizarre.

Much to my puzzlement, this continued. Dish after dish danced between bizarre and inedible. I used to think of Korean food as quite nice, what was I missing here? I staved off hunger with frozen 7-Eleven sausages while desperately trying to appreciate the boatloads of kimchi being put out in front of me. The spreads whenever I ordered anything were generous (at least six plates landed up at the slightest excuse) but even my very adventurous palate could barely stand more than a couple of bites of each. Finally, exhausted by the day's searching, I staggered into a food walk conducted by a local foodblogger and rediscovered edibility.

The problem (I discovered) was that Koreans don't serve food – they serve cooking classes. Unlike other cuisines, you cannot simply up and eat what they put in front of you. In nearly every case, some assembly is needed. Stir, mix, chop, cut, fry, roast, steam – the full range of skills have to come into play (all with those damned steel chopsticks) before any semblance of food emerges. Even basics like salt and pepper need to be added (not just touched up, mind you – all the salt needs to be added). I wouldn't be surprised if more rustic places made you slice veggies and pluck chickens.

This cooking business seems an article of faith than any genuine necessity. Bibimbap, for instance, just required me to add the ingredients and stir – it is still a mystery why the mixing could not have been done behind the counter. I'm guessing the Koreans, with the hardest toiling students and the longest working hours in the world, are just used to rolling their sleeves up and doing stuff. In the convention centre canteen the counter lady excitedly served me "special" seaweed sheets – it turned out to be for roll-your-own-sushi. Even convenience store coffee can be complicated. The shrink-wrapped coffee you buy does isn't just flip and drink – no no no. There is a filter, some coffee-grounds and milk/sugar packets in the package - put the filter in the cup, the grounds in the filter, head to the hot water dispenser, add milk and sugar and make your own coffee. And all this at a "convenience" store; think of what the inconvenient version would be. It is rumoured that McDonalds in Korea asks you to fry your own fries.

Armed with this revelation, I did finally end up with actual dishes and started to enjoy the experience. The occasional waiter helped things along, doing the cooking for me after observing my obviously idiotic attempts at the process. A few meals later, I got the hang of at least the basic dishes – what to chop, what to cook, what to mix with what. Properly done, a Korean meal can be quite a delight of taste and textures – and spicy enough to make my grandmother happy. The barbecued meats (usually rolled up paan-style in lettuce or sesame leaf) were fantastic, the bibimbap changed my opinion of salad, while their soups - Chinese in look but very different in taste – managed to load enough flavour to cure most hangovers.

The kimchi, though, was still as unexciting. Koreans treat kimchi like fine wine, passionately discussing the merits of each eatery's version; indeed the quality of the kimchi often decides the rating of the food. Unfortunately, how rotting improves an already dull cabbage is beyond me. A decade ago, Germans had vainly tried sausage bribes to feed me sauerkraut, Koreans fared little better. A few options I did find edible – sesame leaf, soya sprout – but most I would leave inconspicuously alone.

I will certainly eat better on my next visit.

Bicycle Tales: Frostbite

2012-04-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd covered all surprises in Mumbai, but distant Dahisar had more in store than I thought.

After finishing off a particularly satisfying keema ghotala at Western Dhaba (next to the more famous but currently shuttered Dara) my eye fell on what looked like a howler of a misprint on the ice cream page - a section called "veg" listing options such as green chilly, coriander and garlic. Just before putting the photo on the funny pages, I decided to point this out to the waiter and discovered the joke was on me.

They did indeed have green chilly ice cream available.

Yes it was actual ice cream. Yes, cold. Yes, chillies. Yes he would get it.

And so it came, a plainjane vanilla ice cream studded with small bits of green chilly - not very spicy, just a mild, pleasing bite amid the aroma of chilly. One weirdo down, I asked for the coriander hoping to get some more exotica ingested (only for you readers of my blog, I promise). Unfortunately, the green chilly flavour was the only one on offer; other flavours on the veg front were not to be found outside the menu.

I wouldn't abandon all and rush here for the next scoop, but it's certainly worth a blog post.

Bicycle Tales: A Belgian Bite

2012-03-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

What would you say to a shop located on the blind side as you turn from Siddhi Vinayak to the more mundane parts of Prabhadevi? Cycling is a good cure to blindness; that's probably the only reason why I managed to stare at the completely unpronounceable name without killing anyone. Two minutes of stammering later I'm ready to go back to modaks – someone should be warned that isn't really the land of spelling bee champions; its the land of their language-mangling parents.

Lets just bite the tongue and spit it out; Debailleul. Its not quite clear how you say it, but apparently mashing the two middle 'l's into a 'y' is involved.

Mumbai Boss was the first to warn me about a Belgian pastry chef who was bringing an entire patisserie flash frozen from the land of real chocolates. Chef Marc Debailleul is the man behind the magic, a much decorated pastry chef (I wish he had liked his first name more than his second, but no more name jokes). Its a beautiful, inviting space – small, but with a few tables for two and the lovliest, most droolworthy display of chocolates you are likely to see in a while.

Now straight to the bottom line. The citron macaroon was wonderful, the chicken quiche tasty but not memorable, the coffee perfect and the two chocolates tiny but delectable. The hole in the pocket was noticeable, though not as huge as feared.

Ok, the bottom line (second attempt). The chocolates are beautiful (and really very nice) but not Mumbai's best chocolate. I thought both the Taj and the Grand Hyatt do a little bit of a better job at similar prices and easier pronunciation. Yauatcha manages a wonderful job too; none, however, look anywhere near as elegant. Isn't that part of what you want to pay for? There's a reason why the seating is all for two.

Bangalore Brunch

2012-03-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

I landed in Bangalore starved from the early morning flight and a lack of breakfast, and was greeted straightaway with something I thought was uniquely Bangalore – a branded variant of filter coffee. Hatti Kaapi even did the whole meter coffee ritual, and handed me a perfectly acceptable filter kaapi; only the double steel containers were missing. Of course, Bangalore also invented Cafe Coffee Day; that stared reproachfully at my fickleness from the other side of the parking.

Kaapi done, I discovered myself on the loose end after a friend ditched me for lunch. Given that it was going to be my sole lunch in Bangalore in a long while, I needed a touch of special. A bit of research dug up modern Indian at the Pink Poppadom, but it was dinner only. Caperberry and its molecular tapas beckoned, but I figured, do I really expect Ferran Adria to hang about Dickenson Road? I needed something Bangalore and bit of thought later I narrowed the choice to the biriyani at Nagarjuna Residency.

Its not much of an exaggeration to say that Bangalore is the centre of Andhra food (not to be confused with Hyderabadi food with its Nawabi airs). This cuisine combines Arab traders, Guntur chillies and Reddy palates into some of the spiciest food in the world; challenging most Indians and making even the average Thai sit up and take notice. For some reason Bangalore is the only major city that has Andhra food coming out of every pore while the rest of the country remains blisslessly untouched by it. There isn't a single Andhra eatery in Mumbai, and not that many even in Hyderabad. Nagarjuna, with its Andhra biriyani and thus seemed fitting.

Nostalgia aside, Nagarjuna is also one of the great biriyanis of the world. I've written about the Chennai biriyani wars and Cochin's choices, but Nagarjuna remains my favourite biriyani of its kind; short grained aromatic rice and noticeably different spicing from the dum variants further north. It comes heaped on a plate, with a raita and a kurma (a coconut based gravy) – a rich, subtle dish loaded with flavour.

Then there was Nagarjuna's Chilly Chicken where green chillies are used in the same way that lesser civilizations use onions (I counted no less than thirty in my four-inch plate); the result is a blazing fire of a dish. However, its not just fire for the sake of it; these Andhras really know how to sing while the fire is burning. For all the torture, the flavour is utterly addictive.

What would be your Bangalore onlymeal?

Cafe Cool

2012-03-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

No one can accuse Cafe Zoe of being easy to locate. Embedded deep in the heart of Mathuradas Mills, the entrance tucked out of sight behind parked cars and the local omelette-pao place, Zoe tries very hard to be a 'find'. And succeeds.

Push past the large door, and you are suddenly transported into a cool, minimalist world of comfortable spaces and calm furniture. The ceiling soars, the sunlight pours in, colourful sofas invite you to laze about and widely space blondewood tables seem meant for gossip. Bunches of bare bulbs hang from unconcealed cables, the bar is made of old crates, a long bare brick wall adds to a carefully cultivated sense of industrial clutter. Cutlery comes in glass tumblers, water and gazpacho in glass milk bottles, salads in tall glass containers that look just like plastic till you touch them. This could be New York – a bistro in LES one of those cool Brooklyn places that have sprung out of gentrification, men in suits mingled with tousled female hair and hippe jeans.

The food is quintessentially bistro – competent and comforting rather than spectacular. Having run through nearly the entire menu in three visits, I find a good deal to be satisfied with. The melon gazpacho is definitely one of the hits, the salads quite worth trying, the truffle cappelini delectable, the pastas properly toothsome and the desserts (with the exception of a poorly set panna cotta) satisfying. Even the bread is satisfyingly hardcrust.

Go, 'find' it.

Dalmore Dalliance

2012-03-06T00:45:00.000-08:00

It was with some interest that I read the invitation Rushina had sent me. The text mentioned Dalmore, and I knew only two pieces of trivia about Dalmore. One was its owner - via Whyte and Mackay our very own Vijay Mallya – and second that someone had purchased in Singapore Duty Free a Dalmore worth about rupees one crore – apparently the most expensive regular whisky in the world. To those who want to do the math, its about one lakh rupees a small sip.

My hopes of coming anywhere near that bottle were understandably slim, but Dalmore makes other stuff worth drinking too. The twelve, the gran reserva and the fifteen were promised but the invitation promised still more - a food and whisky pairing that combined the talents of Mallya's minions with Jamavar's Chef Surender Mohan.

While wine-food pairings are a dime a dozen, this was the first time I was about to try a whisky-food pairing that did not involve a dive bar. Whisky is hardly a stranger to food; the enduring popularity of the chicken tikka derives from its ability to make cheap whisky better. This one was different – Dalmore hardly requires help going down, and Jamawar seemed quite capable on its own as well.

We started with the Dalmore 15; this, in my opinion, is of the finest scotches in the world (in my price range, of course). Mellow, sophisticated, lots of flavours and aromas jumping in and out as you hold it in your mouth, its a pleasure to drink in slow, measured sips over evening conversations. Served in champagne flutes to enhance the nose, it was paired with a jumbo prawn baked in cheese, lamb seekh kababs and tandoori broccoli. The Dalmore 12 returned to regular tumblers, paired with the main courses of fish alleppey, badami chicken korma, bharwan gucchi and paneer pasanda. Biriyani and dal also floated in and out. The final whisky – the Gran Reserva – was paired with the pista kulfi dessert.

The food was outstanding. The tandoori broccoli was to die for, the biriyani wonderful and the bharwan gucchi worth the wait. The whiskys were equally good – the Twelve was nice, the Gran Reserva sweet and complex, the Fifteen I have already been fulsome over. Though both were robust flavours and aromas the selection was good; they did well not to clash with each other.

The big question is, however – what did it add? A great cheese lifts a wine to greater heights, and the right wine does the same for the cheese. Here, however, the pairing was more pleasant company than dance partner. I still find whisky a wonderful standalone drink. Call me a purist but I firmly believe the incredible complexity of the Fifteen or the Gran Reserva should be savoured without distractions.

Don't read books while listening to Bach…

Bicycle Tales

2012-02-27T10:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's ride, to a neighbourhood I had not visited in a while, threw up some interesting spots. Huffing away at my trusty bicycle, I ended up after a while at Yari Road, that part of Mumbai where Kolis still proudly live in villages and drying fish competes with filmstars for attention. Its also the new cool street for restaurants populated in generous numbers by PYTs and Shahid Kapoor clones.

The first place that caught my eye was a bright purple wall that announced its new-age credentials by casually blending and being too cool to spell – Chaicoffi

I seem to remember it being a Barista in the past; the new avatar was … well … a new avatar of a coffee shop, mixing desi beats into the very hip and fancy cofeeshop. Cutting Chai, Brun Maska, Keema Pao, Sev Puri all happily cohabitated with Quattro Frommagi Pizza, Cafe Latte, Marzipan Carrot Cake.

I ordered a masala chai and a cous cous upma (just the kind of arty farty thing most restaurants mess up royally). A properly desi-hip khullar chai (namebranded sugar pouches on the side) landed up, along with the most lip-smackingly delicious upma I've had in a while. Cous cous it was, but it came loaded with curryleaf and rai, peanuts and tomato bits – as upma as you could want it. Cous cous is not very far from semolina (both are broken wheat) expect that the texture was basmati rather than sushi rice. And yes, the masala chai was nice too. Pleasant seating, lots of eye candy, nice chai, great snacks – no wonder the place is packing it in. No wi-fi or power points, though

My exploration continued down the road, deep into the heart of the koli village that still looks like it lives in the nineteenth century. Narrow lanes (some would challenge bicycles) and colourful houses of occasional vintage makes for a nice ride. Those gobi balls that Mumbai's fishing communities seemed to have snatched from the Chinese were to be found here and there, but I stuck to my goodbye resolution and avoided them (deep fried, after all). All of a sudden, I was in front of an incongruous sign.

I have this theory that the Bengalis will inherit the earth (the bible called us meek, but that's another story) and this is living proof. The Kolkata roll has hit deep, deep in the heart of the unbelievers. I have no idea who Hingla Devi is (maybe some celestial variant of Hangla) but she's clearly committed to the Kolkata roll. Unfortunately, it was closed on account of it being Sunday evening (run by bongs, after all) so a taste test will have to wait. Its on the way to the ferry, so all you can try it at your leisure.

More rolling was to follow. A few more turns of the pedal later, I was back in Bandra, and back in front of a sign that combined Kolkata and Roll with the yellow colour.

Bong Bong is a brand new eatery just off Shiv Sagar, on your right if you're headed to Pali Naka. The Bangalicious shop offered rolls, rolls and more rolls – not to mention biriyani that smelled like the real thing, kassa, chaap and other promised goodies that may have promise too. Still in full goodboy mode, I had to avoid Foursquare's hot tip, the aloo roll, not to mention the real options - mutton and chicken. This left me with just a tiny corner of the menu – a paneer double-egg roll.

While waiting for my roll, I ruminated on how the new rash of bong restaurants seemed to ignore entirely both mustard and fish. A few minutes later, I was biting into a fat generous sized roll, properly wrapped in paper. Its hard to make much of a taste judgement when all you have to work with is paneer, but based on a superior paratha and the spicy tawa-tossed onions I would hazard that the mutton would be worth trying.

My last stop of the day was Kailash Parbat, newly opened three steps from Bong Bong. It still has Mumbai's best pani puris (before some smartass comments, I was at Tarabaug last week and sorely disappointed). Yes it comes on a do-it-yourself plate but the water is Mumbai's best - spicy, tangy, tasty, quite unlike the usual green drainwater that the average guy peddles. The sweet chutney is loaded with tamarind and chillies, putting in the right amount can at least put you on Kolkata Mail, if not actually get you there.

All in all, a fruitful bicycle ride.

Aunty Esme's Potato Chop

2012-02-15T22:02:00.000-08:00

Sunanda's mother Aunty Esme briefly tempted me off my diet with the most sinful combination of all that is not allowed; potatoes, meat and deep fry. With superhuman exercise of will, I restricted myself to just half but the drool covered the entire floor. The object of temptation was something that landed up from foreign shores, but became distinctively Indian – in this case East Indian.

Its the Potato Chop.

The actual item is rather simple, a mashed potato shell filled with mince of some kind, coated in breadcrumbs and fried. A great potato chop is a perfect balance of the fatty smooth goodness of the potato contrasted with the crunch of the outer crust and the chewy, spicy flavour-burst of the mince inside. Maybe it was all that self control, but yesterday's potato chops were the best I've had in a while. The potatoes seemed more luscious, the mince juicier, the crumbed outer more perfect.

I find the naming of "potato chop" quite amusing. The East Indians of Mumbai as well as those Indians who actually live in the east – Bengalis – have both adopted this form enthusiastically if in slightly different ways. The East Indians focus on the humble shell of mashed potato while the Bengalis highlight the fancier filling – mutton chops, or prawn or veggie. Both communities inherited the name from a fundamental misconception; when the British mems taught their desi cooks the popular breaded veal chop, the cooks got the dish right but the terminology wrong. The "chop" the mems referred to was a cut of pork or veal; the desi cooks applied it to the form rather than the substance - any potato encased crumb-fried stuffed savoury, even vegetarian, became "chops". They should properly be called croquettes.

There aren't that many places to buy a Potato Chop in Bandra. An old lady sits on the Chimbhai side of St. Andrews Church at around 7pm selling a range of them, as does a man on D'Monte Road (if you can find him or the road). Kalpana Snacks in a Bandra bylane behind St. Peters Church makes some, Mikneil tucked away in a tiny nook on St. Pauls Road will have them, A1 Bakery has a passable imitation, Bandra club will sell passable ones if you can get someone to take you, Bandra Fest and Christmas Fair will have some stalls – that's it.

Basically, make sure to be on Aunty Esme's right side. Because its worth it.

Indian Accents

2012-02-14T21:19:00.000-08:00

Its always wonderful to find a hidden find, tucked away in hard to reach places but still worth reaching. One such was Indian Accent, a restaurant folded carefully into a nook in a gated community of quiet lanes and expensive bungalows. The Manor Hotel that houses the restaurant is itself a silent, comforting place with kurta-clad staff, cozy lawns and understated decor. How did I find it? Embarassingly enough, like half of India I read Vir Sanghvi. And BBC's new Good Food Magazine. And the Times Food Award.

I and fellow culinary explorer Atul headed into the recesses of Friends Colony; it took us a few wrong turns before we were settled into the dying minutes of lunch service. Napkins on lap, cellphones on tablecloth, we sat down to the serious business of studying the menu. Too late for the tasting menu, a la carte it was going to be.

I liked the name, it seemed to imply that the food was like your global desi – hugo boss suits and frequent flier miles, but with a desi tang to his drawl. As expected, tne menu married traditionals like punjabu kadhi and misti doi wth exotics like zuchini and cannoli, added dollops of presentation and served it all coursewise.

We got ordering out of the way and settled down to the salivating when the blue cheese mini naans landed; Chefs bites - all very Michelin star, thank you very much. Excellent. The amuse bouche came out a few minutes later – a classic dahi sev puri but dressed up to party, perched singly in fancy crockery atop a bed of sev.

So far so good. While we discussed life and the universe, the starters we had ordered landed up on two beautiful black stone plates. First, foie gras-stuffed gilawati kabab with a strawberry chilli chutney that had sounded horribly promising on the menu.

As you can see, it looked much better than Tunde Miyan's gilawatis. Biting into it, however, wasn't as satisfyng – the base kabab, though good, was nowhere near Tunde Miya's and the foie gras that was supposed to have lifted it to seventh heaven seemed to have slunk away to sulk in a corner; the spices had completely overpowered it. A bit of a waste, that foie. The other starter was another matter – baby brinjals topped with pine nuts, salad greens and kesar yoghurt was wonderful.

Main courses followed – a vegetarian option for me (a la goodboy diet) of stuffed zucchini flowers in punjabi Kadhi with ghee rice. Outstandingly presented, a well-executed sea of kadhi in which islands of zucchini flowers were anchored to a ghee rice tower. Quite nice, well executed individually and quite delicious as a combination.

Atul's peanut butter chicken with methi crisp was very satay. Wonderfuly tender chicken morsels, and the methi crisp did well when soaked in the chunky peanut sauce. Much more plainly presented was the side dish – a wild mushroom kulcha with truffle oil – that nevertheless packed immense flavour. It was a fusion that worked really well; we could easily have eaten a few more portions of it.

Then came the desserts. The first one we ordered was a Kashiphal cheesecake with basil something or the other. Kashiphal, it turns out, is the fancy name for a pumpkin (which for some reason North Indians also call Sitaphal – no wonder Mumbaikars don't like them). In any case, the cheesecake was well executed but hardly the stuff of dreams – a pumpkin by any other name and all that. Nice texture, nice punch from the basil swoosh on the plate but basically we needed more (goodboy diet be damned). Mishti doi cannoli with amaranth laddoo seemed promising, so we ordered it. It turned out to be a revelation; easily the best dish of the lunch. The mishti doi was as good as the best in Kolkata, the cannoli perfect and the combination could make a grown Bengali weep.

So here are my final impressions of Indian Accent. Expensive (five thousand for two, and not a drop to drink) but a very nice special occasion meal with exquisite preparations, lots of surprises and every once in a while a knockout dish. Nouvelle Indian is still evolving, but Indian Accent is as good a place as any to watch it evolve.

Maratha Mandir

2012-02-12T09:00:00.000-08:00

Back on the bicycle after ages (and still on my goodboy diet) I find myself speeding through the non-veg dens of Mahim towards safer vegetarian territory in the heart of Sena land - Dadar Shivaji Park - and a break at one of those rare places in Mumbai to serve Maharastrian food. Stuffed into a corner beside better-known, branch-in-dubai oriental sibling Gypsy Chinese is tiny Gypsy Corner.

Unlike the average misal-vada-poabhaji place that passes for Maharashtrian food in the city, Gypsy serves full meals with names properly ending in "chi" or "li" (nope, still no chinese). Malvan fish restraurants abound in Mumbai and Kolis have their Festivals but the Ghatis, prevented from lounging on the beach by the Western Ghats, have their own vegetable, mutton, chicken choices all spiced up with loads of coconut and some very nice local chillies. While Mumbai pretends that all of Kolhapur cooks only one kind of vegetable, the Marathas tickle their tastebuds with quite an array of dishes. Only four places in the city, as far as I know, allow you to indulge ala Shivaji - Purepur Kolhapur, Diva Maharashtracha, Aaswad and my current location - Gypsy. The last two are pure vegetarian and all are short walks from each other (though Purepur has a branch in Vile Parle and Diva Maharashtracha apparently in Andheri). Thane has some options, and there's the strip of roadside stalls between Kamala and Todi mills on Tulsi Pipe if you're willing to look past the beaten path.

Gypsy has a small but frequently changing menu with lots of exotic-sounding daily specials (I suspect they sound more pedestrian if you speak Marathi). This is the tale of me giving up the Sunday special batata patalchi bhaji (which violated my dietary sensibilities) in favour of bhareli vangi; it combined diet-friendliness with my love for brinjal. Three stuffed baby versions in a thick coconut gravy that just could not have been good for me soon landed up, accompanied by two fat gravy-soaking bhakris. The bhakris gave me a moment of guilt (partly rice, after all) but by the time my mind had played out the debate the bhakris were - well - gone. The man at the counter wanted to tempt me with a modak and tup (apparently that's a dollop of ghee on top) but I stood strong and hightailed it out of there.