Life before Gay Parades... Gaylord

Gaylord at Churchgate, is a Mumbai landmark.

It belongs to an era where Trincas, Peter Cat, Mocambo in Calcutta and Kwality here were aspirational.

An era where 'gay' meant being happy.

My first tryst with Gaylord was soon after I began working here in '97. I had some work in town on a Saturday. Office would pay for lunch, within 'reasonable limits', if you were working on Saturday. I asked my P G (Paying Guest) room mate to suggest a restaurant. My fellow out of towner, suggested Gaylord. I went there and ordered a single dish and fell of the chair when I got the bill. I don't remember the amount but it was not the seventy Rupees which continental restaurants in Calcutta used to charge in those days. Probably crossed a hundred and twenty Rupees or so.

I remember I had a tough time convincing my boss that I did not take a date or have a drink and that I had just ordered one dish. My voucher was eventually cleared and I felt suitably chastened.

We considered Gaylord for the family dinner for our wedding before we went in for Gallops.

The twenty first century marched on since then with a slew of continental restaurants opening up and suburbs such as Bandra, Andheri taking the focus away from South Mumbai.

Frankly I had forgotten about Gaylord till we went there for my father in law's Parsi birthday last week. It was fairly crowded for a weekend evening. The crowd was primarily what one would call the 'family crowd'... loyalists, not necessarily uber cool.

The decor was so different from what one sees. Very nineteenth century. In a good way. I am a sucker for the past after all. You had olive oil paintings on the wall... redolent of medieval Europe. I am sure that if I looked closely I would have seen a freeze of Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia hunting in the Quorn. Or Elizabeth spurning Mr Darcy. Chandeliers, white chairs with trellis patterns summed it up. I have some dubious cell phone pictures. I won't subject you to the food pictures as they did not come out well. But the picture below give you an idea of the layout.




The waiters looked like they were there from ages. They weren't young and urbane but knew their stuff which was heartening and rare. And it looked like they took a personal interest in your having a good time. For example a fish dish we ordered wasn't there but the person taking our order went at lengths to explain the merits of an alternate dish. Then again, while serving the food, he insisted on serving a dish to people who were in two minds, trying to tempt them to have a bite, saying that they would not regret it. This sort of insistence and forcefulness is very typical of Indian hospitality when you are a guest at some one's home.

The food? It ranged from inspired to patchy. I had a Portuguese chicken which was very nice. Cubes of chicken, which were unexpectedly leg pieces (praise the lord) in a nice pepper and sliced onion, brown sauce with rice and mash. Each bite was bouncy and, well, gay. My pa in law had a roast lamb. I quite liked the quality of the lamb (very tender) and the sauce. He felt it was a bit sweet and could have been spicier. Kainaz was in a kebab mood and had malai tikkas which were fairly tasty and sheekh kebabs which were surprisingly nice and tender. 'Surprisingly' because we are normally not too fond of sheekh kebabs.

My Mom in laws Goan prawn curry sucked. The curry was very spicy and more Keralite than Goan. She felt that the prawns weren't too fresh. Mama ordered an Irish vegetable stew which he seemed to enjoy. I didn't touch it! We ordered a cheese chilly toast as a starter which was a bit lame as the cheese was brittle and didn't infuse into the toast.

The prices of most dishes were around Rs 200 and wouldn't shock anyone today. As you could make out from our fare, they serve Indian and Continental food.

Booking your table in advance is not a bad idea given the crowd even on a working day.

PS Bengaluru and Chennai saw big Gay Parades on 28th June, Sunday. This coincided with the government finally speaking of revoking the archaic article 377 which dubs homosexuality as illegal. India's coming of age finally ...

Sardinia ... an original, light and springy pasta recipe

This recipe takes my gastrosexual, 'men are intuitive cooks', argument further.

Consider the facts. This recipe is the result of a medley of factors such as the memory of a non creamy pasta dish that I had at a restaurant, an idea to use chopped basil, a new herb/ condiment that I discovered while buying basil and some Japanese sardines which a friend had given and which I spotted when I returned from shopping.

So here's the story of the making of Sardinia, a Karmakar original pasta recipe.

I wanted to make a pasta which was not doused in white sauce but was just held together with sauce. A bit like what we had at the Salt Water Cafe the other day. I also wanted use some fresh basil which I like because of its sharp, zesty taste. But I planned to finely chop it rather than grind it a la pesto. I thought of buying some lemon grass to experiment with a touch on tanginess in a white pasta. Again inspired by the lemon spray that they put in S W C. That's when I discovered apcket of leaves at our local vegetable seller. These were 'lemon leaves'. I had never used these before but I picked up some. This was a great discovery as crushed lemon leaves gave nice, virginal, citrus freshness to the dish.

So this is what I had so far - faint white sauce base, chopped greens AND some spicy chicken salami which was in the fridge. I reached home with my shopping bag and suddenly spotted a tin of Japanese sardines in chilly oil which a friend of mine, Sushobhan, got for me from China (!). That's when I took the inspired decision (sounds pompous but the result bears me out) to use sardines instead of the cold cuts which we usually use. The rest was history.

So you have an Italian dish - pasta, cheese sauce, garlic, basil + Oriental ingredients such as lemon leaves used in Thai and Malay cooking and Japanese sardines + an Indian cook. I could hear M J singing We are the world in Neverland.

So here's introducing, Sardinia, a dish which is unlikely to take more than twenty minutes to make, and is differennt and light and fairly good if you want to impress someone. Kainaz was grinning like a Cheshire cat after this.

Ingredients

• 100 g pasta, boiled a la dente (firm), in thrice the amount of water, strained and kept aside. I use Bambino pasta which costs 30 bucks a pack. You need 2/3 a pack for two. I am not sure if the imported, expensive pastas would make a big difference. We prefer penne or fusili
• 2 table spoons - garlic paste, I used Dabur's Homemade bottled paste, fresh pressed garlic would be lovely
• Finely chopped, or grated if you have patience, cheese - 2 cubes, 20 g. It is not necessary to grate as it you are going to cook it so don't waste your time on that
• A hand full of fresh basil - finely chopped
• A hand full of fresh lemon leaves - ground slightly in a grinder
• A can of Japanese sardines (4 in a can) - finely chopped. You could substitute with Tuna (Tunisia), bacon bits (Baconion), tofu bits (I give up thinking up names!)
• Half a finely chopped tomato
• Half a finely chopped capsicum, green pepper
• 1 table spoon crushed pepper.
• 1.5 tea spoon salt
• White sauce base - 1/2 tea spoon corn flour dissolved in 1/3rd coffee mug of milk - this will smear the pasta but don't expect a very saucy pasta. Add more milk if that's what you want
• 2 table spoons olive oil, you can use less

Recipe

• Heat olive oil in a non stick pan
• Slowly sidle in garlic paste from the side, cover with a lid AND RUN. This will splatter
• Stir from a distance and let this cook for about two minutes till the colour becomes a bit darker
• Add the tomato and stir till it's translucent and soft
• Add the cheese pieces and cook till they melt. See, there was no need to grate it. Try not to faint as there is no aroma more heavenly than that of melting cheese
• Add the sauce base and slowly stir till the sauce thickens
• Add the boiled pasta, salt and pepper and stir till the sauce spreads across the pasta
• Add in salt and pepper
• Add in sardine bits and stir gently for a minute
• Add chopped basil and capsicum and stir for two minutes
• Add grated lemon leaves and stir for half a minute. You don't want to over cook and kill the lemon fragrance
• And you are done...about ten minutes from when you put the pan on the fire

I guess a chilled white would go well with it and try to finish it with a chocolate dessert. We had some lovely chocolate fudge.

I am not fond of fish or fish pasta but the flavour of the fish was very muted here and was a nice break from the usual cold cuts that we use.

On the Shantaram trail... Leopolds, Theobroma

This Friday was wet... the first real rains at Mumbai this year. It seemed like the weekend had started and my mind wandered as little me sat in a meeting with the company bigwigs.

I messaged one of my colleagues to find out whether there was anything good for lunch in the office canteen or whether going out made sense. My team figured out that the boss was is in a dopey mood and they all decided to go out for lunch.

I texted my brief to them, "any place with hot, oily and spicy food with big windows", while nodding wisely at the bigwigs.

Call me a control freak if you want to, but after giving the brief, I went down and gave the answer too, Leopolds! Well in my defence, they came up with Pizzeria which didn't meet the brief.

So off we drove down the amazing J J Flyover in the rains, down Fort with its old British buildings and the Gothic Marvel of Victoria Terminus, looking lovelier than Madhubala in the clouds, straight into the arms of Colaba Causeway. Colaba is where I first in love with Bombay, way before Gregory Roberts' book Shantaram put it on the world stage. There was a buzz, sense of decadence and freedom there which was just what I was looking for when I was young and restless. I could never get Mumbai out of my system after that and soon settled here.

So it was good fun coming back to Leopolds once again. This was Shantaram and Karla's Leopolds. But Kainaz and I claimed it well before that with our Friday lunches. Leos has an air conditioned section upstairs. But I feel that you get a real sense of the place downstairs. This could get a bit hot and stuffy but doesn't matter when you are in a group of friends as we were. Plus the wet weather meant that it was pleasant and cool.

You should go to Leopold's for the ambience. The food is patchy, ranges from good to average. I think it was much better earlier. Kainaz and I felt that when we went there some time back. We missed our good old brownies which were now crumbly versus their earlier puddingish consistency. Plus we were sitting upstairs which was not even the fun part. But age had made us fussy and air con ruled over Cupid.

Same story this time about the patchy food. The two chicken side dishes, chilly (as hot as hell) and crispy, were brilliant if lethal - soya sauce soaked, ajino moto dumped, deep fried, yummy with a yin and yang, salt and sweet thing going for it. As hot, oily and spicy as it gets. Perfect for a wet afternoon.

The rest was pedestrian, hakka noodles which were soupy (!), fried rice which was soggy ... so different from the crisp rice which K and I loved, the mutton in the biriyani had no salt and the prawns in hot and sour prawns were as stale as a bad pun.

When you are at Leos you get a taste of an institution which is more than hundred years old with its quirks such as the fairly strange pitcher of beer, the old posters on the wall, the grafiti, high ceilings, big doors which open on to the street and of course the romance of Shantaram and Karla. Go there if you are with a group of friends and want to have a ball. But don't go there if you just want good food. Or want a quiet romantic evening.

And spare a thought for those who died in the terror attacks of 2611. There is a bullet hole in the wall and a shattered glass from that night when terrorists opened fire on diners like us at Leopolds last year. A grim reminder of an inconvenient truth we seemed to have brushed away.

Lunch over, most of the folks headed back to the office. But there were a band of us who prolong the good times by heading to Theobroma for its divine desserts. A hot coffee and a sticky, sweet rum and resin brownie was just what I needed before I ran out into the rain to the car to drive back to work. I made it clear that I wouldn't share my brownie. But I had a bite from the millionaire brownie which someone else was having ... brownie doused in chocolate sauce...paradiso. Who cares if they call the boss a bully? I had tasted heaven.

This one's for Viru... 300 not out

I was planning for my 300th post ever since I finished number 299.

I felt it had to be bombastic enough. I wondered whether I should write about a recipe, do a review or just share some food memories.

I saw the follower list go up from 29 to 32 during this time. Thanks a lot. I can't say how much this means. I saw comments pile up on Microwave Brownie and Its Raining Food... which I will answer. Getting comments are the biggest highs of my blogging.

I gathered material - outings to Gaylords and Leopold, the new Sky Garden at Candies, my cooking biography... but just couldn't decide on what would be good for a number 300 post.

So I thought that the best thing would be thank each of you who have followed the blog, commented, wrote in, told me how you felt about it AND specially those who grumbled when I didn't post for a while.

Here's to number 301

PS For those who don't follow cricket, 300 runs is a big landmark in test cricket. Virender Sehwag is the only Indian to have scored this in more than a hundred years. He has done it twice!

Love actually ... the microwave brownie recipe track

Young Pavan recently asked on a discussion on brownies on Finely Chopped, "is it possible to make brownies at home? On the microwave? Has anyone tried?"

This reminded me of a story of something which happened once upon a time in a city called Mumbai.

There was a young girl who was born in Mumbai. She was the baby of the family and was used to having the world wait on her. Her wish was the command of all around. The only time she lifted a spoon was to have a bite of chocolate ice cream. Carefree as a Princess, she was brought up to be.

This little princess met a young man from a land far away. He was a new kid in town who managed to win her hand over prawn fried rice, beef chilly and chocolate brownies at Leopolds.

The princess left her palace and her Five Gardens to marry the young man. And they lived in a tiny house after an even tinier marriage.

That's when the reality of life kicked in. They loved to eat. They ate out every night of their courtship and were left with an account balance as round as the biggest of rasgullas. Loan EMIs, rents and maids to be paid became the order of the day. Eating out. What was that?

So life went on till one day the Princess remembered the young man's love for the brownie at Leopold's. She did the math and ruled out a trip to Colaba. She scoured the world wide web instead and downloaded the recipe for microwave chocolate brownies and took a print out on a bright yellow page.

Out she ran from her office and shopped for cocoa, butter, flour, milk and other stuff which we will never know about. She came home with her shopping bags and marched towards the microwave.

A few hours later he rang the bell after a long day at work. Only to see her sobbing quietly in the four feet by two feet passage they called their kitchen.

He asked 'what happened' as he prepared to apologise for whatever it was that made her cry. No questions asked. No strings attached.

She looked at the micro and sobbed even more. He squeezed past her and opened the micro, only to find shattered glass all over.

That was her first attempt at a brownie that evening.

He heard her story. Helped her clean up. Said, "give it another shot, I am in no hurry". He switched on the telly. Ignoring the hungry mice that ran all over his stomach.

A while later she surfaced again into the four feet by four feet room they called their drawing room. And at dinner time, their dining room.

She proudly held a plate with four brownies of indeterminate shape arranged on them.

He took a bite and gave a big, happy, smile of approval, bliss and contentment.

And finally her day was made.

Today if you ask him for the recipe of a microwave brownie, you are likely to get an empty stare.

But ask him for the recipe of a microwave soft centred cookie of indeterminate shape and he will dig up her file of recipes from eight years back and pull out the yellow print out she used that night.

The End

It's raining food

The first rains have finally appeared at Mumbai. Just as the government was speaking about artificially inducing rain. The rain's still flirting with Mumbai though. You get the odd teasing shower instead of a good burst of rain. Still I guess this is good for our farmers.

It rained for more than the usual two minutes this afternoon. It was quite romantic. The sky was overcast. There were heavy clouds and it felt so good to see the rain through big windows.

The problem with the 'romantic' part was that I was sitting in a presentation at work where words such as indices and factors and attributes were being bandied around. Not very poetic.

So my mind wandered to wet afternoons while growing up ... rainy days where there would be no school. The standard fare in Bengali houses during rain was the rice and pulse dish of khichudi, or khichdi as it is known in the rest of India.

I don't know the reason behind the khichdi and rain connection. Is it because rice and daal (pulses) are always there in Bengali households and one could cook up something even if one couldn't go to the market? Is it because it is easier to cook the two together rather than cook two separate dishes? Handy for the woman of the house when rain means drying clothes at home and keeping kids busy who are at home as schools are shut? Or is it because the hot, sludgy dish is a good comfort food when it is wet and cold all around?

Of course khichdi is not had alone. It is accompanied by bhajas (Bengali for fries). Popular choices would be fried hilsa (in the picure above - fried hilsa, hilsa oil and khichudi) , brinjals or cauliflowers dipped in gram flour batter and fried or even an omelet! A hot, oil soaked, deep fried, crunchy accompaniment is a must for khichudi. One of my favourite fries (pun intended) is alu bhaja or fried potatoes. This consists of thinly sliced potatoes, smeared with turmeric powder and a dash of chilly powder and salt, deep fried in oil till its nice and crisp. But not crunchy. I had some tonight even though the rain had stopped. For whatever its worth, we made it with olive oil and not the Bengali favourite of mustard oil. Hopefully this will mitigate the sins of deep frying.

I am not sure if the khichudi and rains combination is widespread across India. But fried snacks such as pakodas in the North and vada paos in Mumbai go pretty well with rain. As does hot tea or masala chai for those who love tea.

And I can vouch for rum and Coke, kebabs and biriyani for a rainy dinner.

What is your favourite rain food?

Brownie Biography

I will never forget the first time I had a brownie. In fact it was the classic combination of brownie and vanilla ice cream.

That was way back in 1998 when I'd come to an agency called Trikaya Grey from Calcutta to make a research presentation to the client. The folks from T G ordered food from a restaurant called Soul Curry at Phoenix Mills. At that time, Soul curry was the only restaurant in P M. P M was just a demolished mill with a lot of contruction work going on. And had nothing else other than Soul Curry.

Since then Trikaya Grey has become Grey. Grey is no longer at Phoenix Mills. I left Calcutta. Soul Curry doesn't exist. Phoenix Mills is now a busy mall with perhaps twenty eating joints, a multiplex and a bowling alley.

But I will never forget the taste of the brownie and ice creams that I had that day. I was a trainee and a year into working. The head of my office was there. As was the head of T G and now of G. The client has some bigwigs too. But that didn't stop me from asking for a second helping. And I must say that my hosts were very gracious and I had much better luck than Oliver Twist.

My acquaintance with brownies grew after a chocoholic called Kainaz came into my life.

We started with splitting a delectable, puddingish sliver of a brownie at Leos while we were dating. Unfortunately they still serve the brownies from the same batch at Leos. The brownie was fairly crumbly and stale when we went back to Leos ages after those heady days.

We then tried the wickedly named Brownie Point at Bandra. They have a range of brownies which are not too expensive, big and coarse. K and I have given it our thumbs down and stay clear of it. After all size doesn't matter when it comes to brownies. Their stuff is too primitive and rudimentary for our tastes.

The brownies of Theobroma at Colaba have a strong fan following. For obvious reasons. They have this amazing range of very well flavoured, soft and petite brownies. You just take a bite of their brownie and wait as it melts in your mouth. Chewing is not required here. We always make a pilgrimage to Theos when we are at Colaba. I love their rum and raisin ones the most.

Brownie Cottage would be a strong contender to Theos. This a chain with little outlets at malls and at Carter Road at Bandra. They have a wide variety - chocolate chips, a range of nuts, fancy chocolates such as Lindt, Toblereone, Ferroro Roche, After Eights. Though their basic chocolate brownie is what we, in Mumbai, call 'cheapest and best'. These are pure mushy bites of heaven.

The brownies at Theos and Brownie Cottage are smaller than those at Brownie Point but are leagues ahead. As they say, great brownies come in small packages.

But the winner in my brownie stakes is Candies. They have simple chocolate brownies. They too are in the small family and cost Rs 25 or 30 (0.5 USD). They get over like hot cakes and are difficult to spot as the day progresses. They are soft. They are sweet. They are sticky. They are chocolatey. They are full of walnuts. They are yummy. They make me happy. I try to make each bite last a lifetime.

And, I am going to have one after dinner tonight.

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The high stakes of trend setting ... Steak House

It is not easy to break in with new trends when it comes to food.


But if any city is ready for that, then it has to be Mumbai. Mumbai is the true melting pot of India with people from every region of India, and now of the world, coming here to carve out their fortunes here. Only a few succeed. For the rest of us the city becomes addictive and, like Hotel California, you can enter but you can't leave.


A number of trends have worked well here - Lebanese, especially hummus and Paneer Shwarma, Italian, with its vegetarian pastas and Jain pizzas, Gelattos, fat free and vegetarian and deceptively fattening salad bars. And I won't even write about our garam masala Chinese.

The point I am making is that a number of new food trends have made it here, especially when they are localised. I have mentioned 'vegetarian' quite a few times as there are certain communities such as Gujaratis and Jains who are largely moneyed, like to eat out, but eat vegetarian food due to religious reasons. Maharashtrians, the dominant local community, from what I understand from my Maharashtrian friends, have weekly vegetarian days as well as vegetarian periods of the years.


The meat eating charge is led by local Christians and Muslims (no pork), Parsis and us Bengalis. The numbers of the latter two don't amount to much. There are others who eat meat but not as religiously as the above.

And then there are the anti red meat and cheese fascists with their whites only rhetoric. They play on the heightened sensitivities of our near and dear ones and keeps us limited to white meats and fish.


The objective of this amateur sociological treatise (I did graduate in Sociology but then who payed attention to studies in college?) is to make the point that a concept restaurant called Steak House seems to have a hope in hell in Mumbai. Even when opened in an avante garde locality like Bandra.


Steak House opened a few months back at Pali Naka, Bandra, close to our house. I wish I could have done a review bur even we haven't gone there. Kainaz likes steaks. I am not too fond of steaks. I like a bit of carbs with my meal rather than just meat. Plus I am not supposed to have a real beefy steak. As far as I am concerned, a fish steak, or a chicken steak, is as ridiculous as a 'paneer shaslik' or tandoori mushroom.


I guess I am not the only one and the Steak concept hasn't worked. I recently noticed that they have added and Chinese to their fare and they have added a 'Not Juss' qualifier. It's sad that their pioneering spirit came to nought. But Ce est la vie.



BTW has anyone been to Steak House? Is it worth a visit? Please let me know.

7/9/09 went there last night. Very avoidable.

My wife loves someone else... Salt Water Cafe, Bandra

This is a post about discoveries and realisations.

The first was about my new phone, E71. I liked everything about it except the camera. It is very important that my cell should be able to take good photographs as I might be at a restaurant without the camera and would depend on the cell. I was quite disappointed with the pics. And it was a super expensive gift from K so I grumbled in private. Then a friend told us that you need to press the letter 't' to focus the camera. Well take a look at the pictures in this post. Straight from E 71. The irony is that this friend who has unlocked the key to great photos has gone off food and off non vegetarian food in his successful quest to lose kilos!

The other discovery was a more of realisation that the Salt Water Cafe is emerging as a strong contender to Out Of The Blue's position as our favourite continental place at Bandra.

We had cold cuts and cheese in our last visit to SWC. So we thought that we will check out their cooked stuff. And man, the food was mind blowing.

I like the yellow lights and light coloured wooden look which they have. We sat in the first floor, by the bar, as I wanted a chair with a back rest and we had a great dinner.

We started with a ham mousse with salsa. I don't know if you have had a ham mousse before but I haven't. It is like a ham pate. Served cold. Tastes very light. Feels as if you are playing with a ball of soft cotton in your mouth. The flavour of ham is very polite and understated. And yet brilliant. A bit like Jeeves. (I've been reading good old Plum again after ages). The salsa gave a nice, juicy, flirty change of taste to the more dignified mousse. A masterpiece. As Kainaz said, anyone who loves ham will love it. And I'd say that anyone who doesn't would get converted after the first bite.

Kainaz followed this with a duck carbonara. This comes with linguini which she doesn't like. She asked for farafelle and fusilli which they didn't have. So they made it with good old penne. They brought it to the table and sprayed it with a bit of lemon spray. I took a bite and fell in love with it. As Agent Green Glass had reported, it was not doused in sauce. I believe that the sauce in a pasta is meant to be 'seen not heard'. It should be in the background. And so it was here. And it had such a wonderfully refreshing and virginal taste - faint cheese, a bit tangy, a bit sweet - pretty much close to the poet's idea of manna. Saucy and yet, loving. And I love duck meat for its slithery, playful bite.

Salt Water Cafe is one of the few places, apart from Out Of The Blue, which offers leg pieces in chicken continental dishes. The doctor says I should have white meat. I hate the breast of chicken. So I order pork chops or spare ribs or lamb shanks.

The guys at Salt Water Cafe ensured that I had no excuse to live on the edge. I ordered their seared chicken leg with porcini. They really grill their stuff here and don't heat it in the micro. So we had to wait a bit. But it was worth the wait. It was the most divine continental dish that I have had. I am sure that Aunt Agatha's chef, Anatole, wouldn't be able to better it. (Sorry, but I have P G Wodehouse in my head right now). The sauce was heavenly. I can't even describe it. But I will. It was slightly sweet. It was slightly buttery and creamy. It had the robustness of fried onion. The chicken was succulent. Each bite had a bounce to it. It was served with lovely baked potato cubes. And deserves a Nobel Prize for humanity. No white meat dish has ever tasted so good in the history of mankind. Yes, I know I am carried away but it is so difficult to get a pleasing white meat dish in a continental place.

Kainaz was stuffed but how could I abandon the beauties in the dessert counter? So I had a baked blueberry cheese cake which kept up to the high standards of the other dishes. The cheesecake was very demure and subtle and not overtly sweet. That was left to the blueberry sauce which darted through the cheese cake.

Truly a dinner which deserves a standing ovation.

And the phone camera didn't let me down. The lighting could have been better but you get an idea.For all the rimes that I've derided the E71's camera, it was just a question of figuring out which was the right button to press. No wonder Nokia is the Most Trusted Brand of India according the Brand Equity Nielsen (ahem, a bit of professional plug) study.

Notes:

• SWC charges a service charge so keep that in mind while tipping
• 2 main courses and an appetiser and a dessert cost us slightly less that Rs 1300 or USD 26)
• So far three people have gone to SWC on my recommendation. Each loved it.

What a fall there was my countrymen...Mc Nuggets

Young Pavan wrote to me on Facebook the other day asking me why I hadn't reviewed McDonalds' newly launched Chicken Mc Nuggets.

Soon after that I read that most outlets were running short of McNuggets. I asked young Pavan whether he was to blame. He denied it saying that he was waiting for my review before whipping out his wallet.

Now, I know that it is the done thing in food circles to look down on Mc Donalds and other American fast food chains. Back home, in Calcutta, these are dubbed as evil manifestations of American Imperialism.

I say, my left foot, to this. I am quite fond of Mc Donalds. I love their fries. I like their fillet of fish. I love their fries. I love their coffee. I like the pizza Mc Puff. I love their fries. I love their Mc Shakes. I love their fries. Mc Donalds brings out the child in one. Which is good in a pressure cooker world.

So I set off on an expedition to try out the Mc Nuggets.

And here's my review - I AM NOT LOVIN IT

Imagine biting into the chicken patty of a McBurger without any sauce or burger bread to break the taste. A bit like biting into a rubber slipper. The flavour of chicken was sucked out of the nuggets. You could barely feel the chicken. It was more like an unidentifiable white alien moon rock. A bit like a fossil of a chicken. I have rarely eaten anything so devoid of taste. The barbecue dip which came with it was the only solace. And the fillet of fish which I had ordered.

If you put a premium on deep fried stuff then go for the Fries if you plan to live on the edge. Don't clog your arteries with such tripe.

BTW Kainaz liked the Mc Nuggets and said she wouldn't mind trying it again.

You know you are dieting when...

... Amore, Waterfield Road called up saying that I have not ordered their gelatos in a long time!!!!


Pssst... don't tell them about my donut orgy

Erotica at Carter Road, Mad over Donuts

At the risk of having someone 'flag this blog for objectionable content' I must write about the sensual experience that we had this morning.

Kainaz and I had just finished breakfast at Crepe Station. We had a nice Farmers Breakfast - egg white omelet with chopped potatoes, potatoes and chicken ham, perfectly salted, in the 'air conditioned' section where the sweat hung heavy as the AC was yet to wake up.

I suggested that we step across to the newly opened Mad Over Donuts shop at Carter Road, Bandra. It shares a shop with Gelato Gelato. We had gone to Mad over Donuts (MOD) at the Oberoi Mall at Goregaon in the past and had quite enjoyed their stuff. They had an assembly line there where one could see the donuts getting made. Fascinating stuff.

This our first visit to the smaller, Bandra franchise. There was a huge array of donuts - chocolate, strawberry, jam and even cheese! It was like being in a donut heaven. How did one choose?

With a prayer in my heart I pointed at something called Hazel Dazzle (Rs 40/ 0.9 USD). The menu card described this as 'Nutella Bavarian Cream on the inside and hazelnut flavoured chocolate on the outside. The Donut is sure to dazzle'.

K asked them to heat the donut for twenty seconds. That done, we took it in a plastic plate to a table outside the shop. What we then experienced for the next few minutes was pure sin. Such pleasure can't be right. We indulged in pure debauchery in the middle of Carter Road in a dusty, sunny Sunday morning.

The donut was hot. They don't give you and knives or forks or spoons here. So it was quite a physical experience as various senses - touch, taste, smell, sight - came together for the orgy.

I tentatively poked the donut. At the risk of repeating myself, it was hot, real hot. I tried again and slowly caressed it till I got used to the heat and then slowly broke a piece. A stream of molten chocolate sauce oozed out the moment I touched the donut. I slowly licked the sauce of my fingers and tasted the most heavenly, sweet and mellow chocolate sauce with a wickedly tempting hazelnut flavour. I was in paradise. I followed this with a bite of the donut. This was really soft, fresh ... like a really loving, tender embrace. Every bite was pure ecstasy and we couldn't stopped moaning in delight as we shared the donut. Sundays couldn't get any better.

Nigella would approve.

Notes:

• Nomad's research shows that 8 seconds is the right amount of time to heat the donuts. Having tried that since with Hazzle Dazzle, Black and White and Double Trouble... I agree
• MOD doesn't deliver yet
• Most donuts cost Rs 35 or 40. There are some bulk discounts too
• They have a coffee machine
• In fact they make their donuts fresh at Carter Road too.

From the Files of Agent Green Glass - Salt Water Cafe

Kashi, Abhishek ... yes it's been a while.

The truth is that the last couple of weeks have been fairly drab food-wise. Hardly gone out anywhere new to eat. That's why I have barely posted anything except the odd recipe.

And add a festering stiff back, which just refuses to go, to this culinary dormancy. A stiff back is probably second in line after a fractured hand as a roadblock for a blogger.

But as the cliche goes, the show must go on. So even if I don't write there are kind souls out there with dishing out the goodies for us.

For example, there is Agent Green Glass and her 'Review for the Knife'.

If you remember, I had written about Salt Water Cafe sometime back. That time Kainaz and I had cold cuts and cheese and raved about the place. We didn't have any of their main dishes though and were planning a trip back to check these out.

Well here's the report on Salt Water Cafe from the Files of Agent Green Glass. She has written about the lovely liver pate, layered grilled fish and the prim and proper pasta that she had as well as the eat before you click, Tiramisu. Check out the piece. I am quite sure that like me, you would like to make a beeline for Salt Water Cafe too.

Thanks AGG!

Quick and easy pulao

I am particularly proud of this one. It's pretty close to my heart as I love a nice pulao. I am very clear that pulaos have to be light, delicate, fragrant. I hate heavy, oily, greasy pulaos or biryanis.

I made this the other night when I made kosha chicken and paneer for our friends who dropped in after work. Now Kainaz claims that I repeated this story thirty times that night and blamed it on the beer that I sipped while cooking. Well, to start with it wasn't that much beer. Secondly, perhaps fourteen times. Definitely not thirty!

Anyway I just had green tea now so don't worry. You will hear the story only once.

I thought of making this while chatting with my friend K and cooking. He asked me what was for dinner. I said 'kosha moorghi'. He said 'oshadharon (outstanding)'. I tentatively showed him the paneer. He said 'oshadharon'. Then he said 'and biriyani'. I said 'no, plain rice'. And his face fell.

That's when I came up with the idea to cook up this cross between a biriyani rice and peas pulao. I used the layering technique of biryani and was mighty pleased with the result.

So here's my recipe for the Really Easy Peas Pulao

• Boil rice - soak basmati rice for at least half an hour in water. Pour out the water and add water which is twice the amount of rice and bring to boil. Then reduce the flame and keep taking a bit of rice out in a ladle to see if it is cooked (should be soft, bigger and elongated compared to when you started BUT NOT soggy). Once the rice is done, pour out the extra water. I do this by covering the lid of the pan with a steel pan, holding it on two sides with cloth dusters/ pads and pouring the water out. A strainer would be as good. I had some frozen peas at home so boiled them along with the rice.
• Heat a bit of ghee (2 spoons for every cup of rice that you cooked. 1 person needs half a coffee mug of uncooked rice) and add some whole garam masala - 1 spoon, a bay leaf, a bit of salt and heat this. I heated it in a small stainless steel bowl
• Delicately insert a ladle in the rice, and put in a tea spoon of the ghee and masala in the gap that you created. Pat it back and dig the ladle again and pour in some more hot ghee and masala in the new gap. Repeat this process till all the ghee is over. In effect you are creating little steps and pushing in the ghee mixture.
• Then I remembered I had some kesar at home. I soaked a tea spoon of kesar (saffron) in a small bowl of milk and heated it. You need very little milk, about 4,5 table spoons. Then repeated the furrowing technique with the kesar milk in the rice
• I didn't do this but try garnishing with some deep fried slivers of onion or some roasted dried fruits like cashews if you have some at home

The result was a lovely, fragrant, crisp and light pulao. I think it complimented the chicken and the paneer quite well. It is particularly useful to have a flavoured rice like a pulao if your side dish is dry.

Kosha Murgi (chicken)... the middle aged's answer to Kosha Mangsho (mutton)

I got an SMS from K in the middle of work on Friday. A few of our friends had suddenly decided to drop in at night. I guess the idea was that we'd order pizza, Chinese, biryani, beer or other standard informal meet stuff and chat late into night on life and beyond.

We watched horror films the last time we met over pasta at the place of another couple from this group. What's your take on horror films? I don't find them scary. I get bored. Watching them is the most horrifying part. Human savagery ...The Pianist, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, The Full Metal Jacket, The Killing Fields ... now that's scary.

Anyway I had other plans. No horror films. No ordering food. I suddenly felt like cooking even though it was after a work day.

The menu was my Renaissance Paneer, which I embellished with fresh chopped basil, and kosha chicken.

Kosha mangsho is a slow cooked Bengali mutton dish which is quite legendary and popular. Though it's been recently pointed out to me that it is an Oriya dish. Frankly I won't argue with that as Oriyas (those from Orissa in Eastern India) are supposed to be great cooks.

I wanted to make kosha mangsho for the gang as it was quite popular the last time I made it for some other guests. The problem though was that this we were a group of thirty somethings this time with our aches and pains and red meat taboos. So I decided to make it with chicken. This was a challenge as chicken doesn't taste as good as mutton. Plus 'kosha' means slow cooking over a long period and involves drying the dish. How do you do this with a flimsy meat like chicken? But then what's life without a challenge? I had never cooked chicken for six before and this added to the fun.

The end result was quite good. I couldn't dry it as much as I wanted as chicken breaks if you cook it too much. But I think the result was quite satisfactory and works well if you can't see red when it comes to meat. Here's how I made my kosha murgi (Bengali for chicken) for six.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 kg boneless chicken cut into 4 inch pieces (in retrospect a kilo was enough for six as we had a paneer dish too). We used boneless because one of us had just become a non vegetarian and wasn't comfortable with bones. Otherwise on the bone is good too


• Marinated for half and hour (I didn't have any more time) with 2 table spoons of curd, 3 tea spoons each of red chilly powder, dhania (coriander) powder, jeera (cummin) powder, garam masala powder and 1 tea spoon each of sugar and turmeric powder.


• 2 tea spoons salt


• 3/4 dry red chillies + bay leaves/ tez patta


• 3 table spoons ginger paste. 1 table spoon garlic paste


• 1 table spoon whole garam masala


• 2 table spoons ghee/ or white oil. I would recommend ghee for guests. You could even use no oil if you use onion paste and are cooking for family


• 2 table spoons ketchup or two ground tomatoes (we ran out of tomatoes, hence ketchup)


• Paste of 4 onions/ shallots (ground in a mixer). Lots of onions is at the heart of kosha


• A large pressure cooker/ pan

Method

• Heat the ghee


• Add the whole garam masala and bay leaves and red chilly. You will get a lovely aroma and the ghee will turn slightly yellowish


• Add the onion paste and stir till it becomes brown. You can skip the ghee and start with the paste if there are no guests and you want an oil free dish


• Once the onion browns, add ginger and garlic paste. Stir till this becomes brown


• Add tomato paste/ pulp stir till colour becomes dark


• Add the marinated chicken + salt and stir till the skin of the chicken, or the meat if you have removed the skin, darkens


• Add half a cup of water, chicken emits water/ juices when cooked so don't add too much


• Pressure cook it for two whistles and put it on simmer for another 5 minutes (chicken is a delicate meat and breaks when over cooked)


• Open the lid of the pressure cook when it cools.


• You will see that there is quite quite a bit of gravy. Now, kosha needs to be dry so put the vessel on a high flame and don't cover it


• Let the gravy boil (bubble) and thicken as much as possible. Check that the chicken doesn't disintegrate. Stir occasionally so that the chicken doesn't stick to the pan


• Garnish with chopped coriander/ cilantro and whole green chillies and put some powdered garam masala on top


• Best had with roti, paratha or pulao. There is too little gravy to have it with plain steamed rice

The next day, 6th June, was my father's twenty sixth death anniversary. So my friends unknowingly saw it in. I am sure he would be smiling somewhere - cooking for friends was his thing. My cooking was a coincidence as I hadn't thought of this angle when I decided to cook up that evening. This sort of supernatural stuff is just the sort of thing which the rest of the group would have loved. Pity they didn't know

Desperately seeking hummus ... Falafel

We have grown quite fond of the Mediterranean trademark dishes of hummus and pita bread. Especially when we want something light. The chick pea paste based dish and coarse bread is the antithesis of the Punjabi Channa Bhature which are made with the same base ingredients - chick peas in the channa and flour for the bhature. But while the hummus and pita bread are held together by dainty olive oil, the Punjabi combo has its hale and hearty origins in ghee, the robust clarified butter of India.

We like the Hummus and pita bread of the Bombay Blue chain. Maroosh (Phoenix Mills, Carter Rd) is pretty good too. They have a smooth, moist hummus and their pita is quite nice and supple too. We often call home from their Bandra outlet. But they act quite pricey about home delivery and make a fuss even though we live close by. We called up to order some hummus and pita bread from Maroosh, Carter Road on Sunday for dinner. But they said that they would not deliver. I guess they must have had enough walk ins to not bother with us. So much for praising people. I felt like a jilted lover. Unrequited, unstated love at its worst. My point is that you should either have home delivery or you should not. But you can't advertise 'home delivery' and then act pricey!

By then our heart was set on hummus and pita bread and we didn't feel like anything else as we had a late lunch and were quite full. Maroosh had left us high and dry. That's when I remembered Falafel, the 'vegetarian hummus shop'. They have an outlet at Hill Road, Bandra. I had the number and called them. And they delivered within twenty minutes without any fuss! As they say, there is plenty of fish in the ocean.

And the hummus was really good. Very delicate. Very light. The taste was quite ethereal and was just what we needed that summer night. There was shreds of some sort of green herb in it which gave it a nice springish touch.

We had ordered a whole wheat pita bread which was coarser and possibly healthier. The pita at Maroosh tastes better. But then remember brown, in food, is healthy but not always tasty. Actually the whole wheat pita wasn't too bad. We tried a zatar pita bread which they recommended. This didn't work for us though as the herbs and spices were too minty and sharp for our tastes.

I think Falafel is owned by Israelis. I vaguely remember reading this is a press clipping in their shop. That probably explains the fairly authentic tastes of their stuff. In fact, unlike Maroosh, they sent some pickled vegetable with their hummus.

We are definitely going to try them again, the next time we have hummus on our mind. I am sure that will be soon.

Too bad Maroosh, playing hard to get is not always a good idea pal. Problem is that Maroosh makes a bloody good chicken shwarma too. No Shwarmas at Falafel. So I guess as they say, 'Never say never again...'

The phone number of Falafel at Bandra is 26458000. The cost of hummus and two pita bread is about Rs 110 or 2.1 USD. Two people will need three pitas though.

Gastrosexual by birth

There was an interesting article on what the Times of India termed as gastrosexuals yesterday. I don't know if 'gastro' and 'sexual' go together but I guess it sounds catchy and newsworthy. The piece was on men who cook - a smattering of celebs who cook, men joining cooking classes and so on.

One opinion voiced in the article was that men cook by rules, follow recipes to the step... wouldn't know that you can dilute coconut milk powder in water if there is no coconut milk and so on. The argument stated that women are more instinctive when it comes to cooking.

Come again? I think that is a sweeping generalisation. I hate following elaborate recipes. Most of the stuff I cook up are by instinct, visualisation and a sense of balance of spices. And I know that I am not the only one.

I can think of at least two cases to the contrary. We had once gone to a friend's house who while sipping beer concocted a wonderful dish with chicken, coconut milk, mustard oil and pepper corns. Since then he has got married and has inspired his Gujarati wife to take up Bengali cooking. That's inspired! The other occasion was more recent where we had visited another friend who put some bottled sauces together with cheese and whipped up quite a nice pasta. Again, his own recipe.

And when they came over on Friday I added basil and Italian herbs to paneer to come up with quite a different tasting paneer dish. And converted my kosha mutton recipe to kosha chicken as we are a bunch of thirty somethings who aren't allowed red meat. And, no, I did not get the mutton recipe from anywhere. Just had in mind how fish kaalia is made... then quadrupled the amount of onion and garam masala... cut turmeric to the minimum, kept the rest the same and hardly added any water.

So there you are... three men who follow their instincts in the kitchen. I rest my case.

What is your experience? Do men who cook go by the book? Or do they go by their gut?

Continental seduction ... Mocambo, Mumbai

No restaurant visits. No cooking experiments. It has been a bleak week of daal and vegetables and slimy bhindi ... hence the silence.

Ha ha who am I kidding... there have been lows but there have been dalmuts that I have sneaked while K wasn't around, my mom in law's birthday treat at Mocambo and friends who suddenly dropped in and got the Knife to take out the ladle after office.

We went to Mocambo at Fort, Mumbai last Sunday for dinner. It was my Mom in Law's birthday and she took us out. Her first birthday this year. Parsi max their birthdays - religious birthdays, calendar birthdays - any occasion for the war cry of jaamva chaaloji (let's go to eat) will do. And I am not complaining.

I often praise the Parsi food at Mocambo which they serve for lunch if you can wrestle out the menu card from them. Their Goan food is quite lovely too. Specially the roast tongue!

Now the problem is that the owners of Mocambo (who own Churchill too) had relaunched it as a continental place. That's what they want to push. And here is this crazy blogger who writes about everything but that!

Well Sunday night with the Bilimorias, Kerawalas, Balsaras and the Missus was a continental night at Mocambo.

And I must say that the food was quite nice. It tasted good, the quality was good, no fancy ornaments such as parsley sprigs or barbecue sauce doodles .... simple, hard working, pleasing food.

We had a cheese chilly toast as a starter which was a delight to eat. The elegant crust of grilled cheese doesn't work for Mocambo. Here cheese means a generous dollop of melted cheese on crisp toast. And it was peppered with tiny bits of devilishly hot and spicy bits of green chilly. I didn't take any photos that day but imagine Monica Belluci on a soft, sink as you lie, feather bed and you will get the idea. OK you can substitute that with Daniel Craig as appropriate. After all, all of us - me, pa in law, mom in law, aunt in law, wife - wanted second helpings!

I had a 'Royal Chicken' after that. This was a dish with slices of chicken with a red wine and spicy tomato sauce served on a bed of buttered rice. I went for chicken as I had mutton for lunch. So I conscientiously spurned the advances of the steaks and pork chops on offer. Frankly, I wasn't disappointed. The chicken was a breast cut but was thinly sliced and therefore not chewy. I hate chewy chicken! The sauce was a nice change from the usual continetal stuff on offer a Mumbai and was quite sharp fiery. An interesting option if you are forced to spurn the seductive advances of white, cheese sauces. A dash of Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady.

Kainaz had a Prawn Newburg. The sauce was quite nice... had a touch of sweet tanginess with a hint of scandalous garlic. If such a combination exists. The Lolita of sauces? The prawns were fresh but smaller than the ones served at Mocambo's sister, Churchill.

I didn't try the other sauce but pa in law seemed to have reached seventh heaven with 'holy lamb' (an Oriental lamb dish in a spicy, brown sauce with buttered rice) and the birthday girl seemed to be quite happy with her cheese sauce based prawn dish.

The verdict? Mocambo does come across as a nice option for continental dishes in the Fort area of South Mumbai. The food tastes great without being esoteric. But that's to be expected as it is run by Parsis, a community that loves to eat and loves to feed!

The ambience is nice and it has a cheerful, pubbish feel to it.

Notes:

• Mocambo is in the alley beside Citibank in DM Road, close to Bombay Stores
• It serves Parsi food for lunch only
• Continental main courses range from Rs 250 to 390 (USD 5 to USD 8) depending on the meat
• If you love the legendary desserts at Churchill then you could get lucky here as they serve the same desserts here
• They have a clean loo... I know this is not appropriate table talk but chances are that you would have come here after a long drive!
• They are fairly empty on week days. Lunch hour is crowded on work days. And it is a good idea to book and go for dinner on weekends or on Friday