Movie / Food Log
Posted: October 5, 2009 Filed under: Food Leave a comment »Movie – The last dance(Mandarin - english subtitles) - a multi-layered movie with protagonist who is cursed to kill. Movie story telling takes places across chasms of time, a sort of nobody’s viewpoint. At times this gets unnerving as you do not know what is real, but dawns slowly you are on one way train which is heading for inevitable crash.
Food – Oye Amritsar has great portions but terrible service. The getup of the place is reminescent of roadside dhaba complete with movie posters and advertisements. The place has entrance made of guess what – truck’s parts. Koftas were honest attempt as was daal makhani. Apparently the meat is succulent and wonderful (but I can’t comment further details).
Toscanos – Great place – Awesome food – right from the soup with pieces of vegetables, bruschetta and choice of wines. Pizza was good enough for 2 people and done wonderfully. We did not go for sangria there though – we waited for Ani’s awesome Sangria !! Thanks Ani/Reshma.
Udupi – Krishna – next to Jyoti Niwas college - special food thali on sat is nothing but normal south indian thali + juice + icecream + dosai, + bhajji. Avoid it – go for the tiffin/tindi items directly. They are closed on sundays.
Bobby da dhaba
Posted: April 26, 2009 Filed under: Food Leave a comment »How can one describe a place where owner has choicest statements like following
“महाराज क्या खाओगे
महाराज परोठा क्या वेला ही खाओगे
महाराज एक नहीं प्लेट में दो पराठे मिलते हैंगे
मठा नहीं लोगे महाराज
ओये एक आराम नाल प्लेन मार
ओये छेती भुर्जी ते दाल दे ओथे २ नंबर पे
३०-४५ मिनट वेट है महाराज आपका नंबर आयेगा तो आपको ही बुलाएँगे
सबकुछ मिलेगा टेबल पर महाराज, आपको देंगे तो बाहर सबको देना पड़ेगा
महाराज मैं अपनी इज्जत तो बेच आया हूँ
पैक तो अंग्रेजी खाने को किजेगा, हमारे यहाँ आपको सब टेबल पर ही मिलेगा
पैक तो मैंने अपने बाप को नहीं कित्ता है
Food is heavenly and created by people who love their craft and are focussed on serving people great food at great cost. Ambience reminds you of all the railway station eatery joints (outside railway stations) or the forsaken dhabas. But the smell of butter and people’s undivided attention to the food on plate creates an aura of rare confidence. Certainly not the place where recently phoren returned or on vacation nri or indian resident high attitude locals can be taken. It just has 3 lines by 3 tables with stools to provide comfort to your behind. It has roof barefit of proper support and helps in providing sense of emergency , in case it just falls down while you are relishing the food. I would like to think that the atmosphere has been created to help you focus on food.
The cost for two never crosses 150 even if you go overboard with desserts/dahi/2 matthas/2 plate of parothas/side dish – makhani, compare this with bloody expensive pizzas, and subway sandwiches which literally extort the money out of your wallet. These franchises are extreme examples of exploitation of local cheap resources (people/food items) and then charging locals a bomb. These buggers should go and try a mattha which is family serving size and can easily serve 3 if you compare normal drinks “served” with expensive eateries. Best timings are weekdays, weekends are good if you reach before 1 in the afternoon and expect lunch wait times upto 1.5 hrs. later on.
http://bangalore.metblogs.com/2008/02/28/eating-out-try-bobby-da-dhabaulsoor/
Parantha is not certified unless shallow fried
Posted: February 17, 2009 Filed under: Food 2 Comments »Heck ~! after seeing and tasting the dough filled with favorite ingredient under going the dip in Pure Desi Ghee , I can claim real paranthas have to be fried. No short cuts please.Tandoori paranthas are disgrace to the name parantha 
. I know – I have been brainwashed to believe fried items are not good for health. I cannot disagree more – it is the way of doctors/health freaks to divest us of our opportunity to savour few earthly harmless delights.
Visit to Delhi and specially old Delhi – area around chandni chowk took a foodie turn to bylanes of memories in Merrut (revadi, chaat), Pathankot (paranthas, lassi in massive tumbler). It all feels like just yesterday. With the food sights and sounds of yester years passed by like a flash …
I could not visit many of the acclaimed places like Nathoos,Anupama or was it annapurna Bhandar, Rajinder in Safdarjung, Gole market and sadly Dahi Bhallas too 
. Since I am not into eating birds or animals etc, I did not visit Karims and other haunts of similar genre. But more of the disappointment later.
The rava based golgappas in Sarojini market were delicious and the “water base – paani” of the right tangy-sweet taste. I think the sweetness arises due the right use of date and some other ingredient. Aloo tikki in Lajpat nagar can’t be beaten when had freshly made with dollops of Curd/Dahi and topped with sweet/sour garnishes of chopped coriander, onion and sprinkling of lemon(yeah I like lemon). A dash of chaat masala – does wonders to that. The moong badae(vade) had the freshly chopped radish/shalgam (yeah was surprised to see the latter – somebody was experimenting) on mint chutney. 5 of them disappeared without trace and opposition in the early morning.
The paranthas in the same named galli - were nice- but the accompanying vegetable etc was not that great. If given chance I will try out each of those variants across rabdi, lemon, khurchan(did not have space to eat more) across the 3 shops. It is always better to go to smaller place where you can stand outside and admire the passers by and feel the place. The kachoris and Samosas too were entrusted with delighting and they did not fail.Daulat’s chaat too was nice wrap up. The challenge is not to confuse the waiter with order details and not take what he has extra – most probably he gave wrong order/misplaced somebody else.
Only sweet that I dug into was the Jalebi - deep fried in Desi ghee and costed 30 Rs/piece. Needless to say I was overwhelmed with taste and had to wash down with light lassi .
As usual Almighty has ways to treat his faithfuls .
PS I am still searching for the elusive chole-bhature of the right taste. Here in Bengaluru – we are dependent on Kartik sweet’s Sunday morning expose. BTW I recently discovered best Jhalmuri in Bengluru is available at New Airport – Gangotri – for 20 bucks you get a song of dish. Advice for eating golgappas sounds so alien
Dish 4/5 – this is number game now – need to rack up six more
Posted: September 5, 2008 Filed under: Food | Tags: Aniruddha, Daal Dhokri, Dish Leave a comment »Daal dhokri
Aniruddh provided the insights into the pleasures of simple Daal dhokri. I was unable to resist the temptation of something so simple. We tried out this dish with help of sister. It came out ok for first time as I gobbled out on the essential piece – spicy batter. Reshma(better half of Ani) provided live help for the same. Thanks Reshma.
The actual dish recipe looks like this one at marriedtodesi.
Beetroot/Orange/Carrot crush – Get all things together after washing (without peeling off carrot’s skin ) and give a spin in the juicer with few ice cubes and dash of mint and bunch of lemon slices. Add blacksalt to taste and serve right off. There are cocktail versions of this – will reserve it up for later day.
I realized last two quarters were silent on my culinary imagination and experimentation and I am falling behind in my number target. I will be actively focusing on the same through remaining time to rack up the numbers.
Kolhapuri misal at Prarthana
Posted: May 9, 2008 Filed under: Food | Tags: Food, Kolhapur, Misal, Travel Leave a comment »“कोल्हापुरी मिसळ – Misal” was introduced to me near kolhapur Bus stand as dish which sort of represents Kolhapur. In those days I was not amicable to other fav of Kolhapur – tambda/pandhra rassa. I enjoyed misal back again from Kedarling(Jotiba).
Over years across Pune/Mumbai I have tried to find the right Misal taste, Prarthana is the closest to the ideal. Contrary to expectations, it is not hot(chilly) but is made of generous helping of usal(sprouted beans), kat, farsan, kanda, kothimbir, lal tavang. Hotstove has a great recipe.
In Pune side, they also add pohe, some people have added potato chips/churmure etc. Anyway talking about this presentation from prarthana in Kolhapur. It comes with two while slices fresh of white bread(nope no options of brown bread) . A pot of kat(sort of sambhar) and misal. It has the addition of nicely cut onions, kothimbir etc and lemon. The dish costs only 18 odd rs and leaves you with lingering taste.
Food – the beginings
Posted: October 1, 2007 Filed under: Food, Friends, Health | Tags: Food, Friends 4 Comments »I believe in working on core strength, from the birth I have done full justice to temptation of eating food. From the most benign with guava with salt and chilli (raw mango, sugarcane juice – recently one of the “high end restaturant” I tried 50 Rs sugarcane juice – which must be the record fleecing of any kind – thanks to Kanua) to the complete course meals. Unfortunately I was deprived of the joy of preparing and serving the stuff to others through growing years.
Mom always believed I was qualified for cleaning vessels or at the most cleaning the rice, pealing the cover of peanuts, cutting the “shankar pale“/”karanji“/”mixing the chivda“, or at best rolling the laddus(besan, ravae).
Anyway coming to present times , I was blessed to have friends like Ram, Keshav who were urbanized version of maharaj of ancient times. Ram’s gojjus, tovve, upma, Keshava’s dosai, idli, sambhar, rasam are stuff of dreams. Prakash Anna’s paneer dishes, dosai(s) with chutney/potato filling, italian fares and suahasini’s Bengali style vegetables/rice/daal – something I have not had success of emulating to her quality levels.
One thing I learnt was that, it is labor of love, one needs to like and love cooking as an art form to do justice. I was complete nubee with all these gaints around and part of it rubbed on me and I have been giving fair shot at trying the items. I can not forget Krishkp’s pongal/avial – it was literally like god serving you the food. I am not exaggerating about the quality level here.
Imagine seattle in winter with drizzling rain and friend suggests let us cookup bhajjis , we have done that many of the times with various right accompaniements. So this post is for all the foodies and the host in them who takes the pain to cookup those delightful foods. BTW check out PBS’s food series.
Belgaum Kunda recipe
Posted: September 25, 2007 Filed under: Food | Tags: Food 3 Comments »1. Take a can of Milkmaid
2. Bring it to slow boil with little addition of water/milk(2 cups) and now wait for evaporation of water. (time spent – 15-45 mins)
3. Serve it hot or coldify it using friendly blast of refrigeration.
You can add “other” additions but the taste of this dish is merciful without effect of dry fruits.
“Woodlands – Udupi” serves soup with south indian full meal
Posted: September 2, 2007 Filed under: Food, Travel | Tags: Food, Hotel, Travel, Udupi, Woodland 3 Comments »Gasp – In the recent trip I found that udupi’s old woodland dishes out soup, north indian subzi and pulav in full south Indian meal !!! What the world has come to?
In the home of the udupi food, one of the supposedly good restaurant serves up a mish mash which is how bad it was . Pretty pathetic affair, TD should have listened to me and managed with tindi in Mitra samaj (it is just next to the Krishna temple). Alas I had to suffer throug the food and live through to tell the tale.
The lunch next day at Mangalore Woodland was better than Udupi food. We also bumped into small bonda/bhajji specialist nearby venkat swamy temple. Those bonda/Bhajjis were just awesome.
Pabbas adventure led by TD for icecream did not live upto its name as it was under construction .
Food roundup
Posted: July 4, 2007 Filed under: Food, Travel Leave a comment »One thing which was lingering long after the travel was the smell and taste of the various food items I had chance to sample this time to Belgaum.
Belgaum to Bangalore – On the way to Belgaum by 4 wheeler, the major pitstops were unfortunately at only Reliance A1 places. Over the last 2 years I have found there are good and bad variations to this chain. One near the Chitradurga is good and provides better menu for both non veg/veg choices. They can make bhurji, bhajji, puri-bhaji(with what ever choice) , usual indo-chinease affair(best to be avoided) and north indian spread(roti – order the tandooris), tadka daal, korma etc. The one before Hubli is unfortunately way below par even the normal roadside ones. It has awful upma and does not really work the full time, in early morning at 8 am – they just had one dish – upma.
When you are near Hubli/Dharwad – it is better to take a trip to the city and enjoy better food. Dharwad has amazing pedhas(Mishra), wadai/idli and usual tindi stores(maitri paradise,bombay , brindavana ), if you get chance visit the university and gorge on awesome chilli bhajji in the evening with local chutney and cuppa half-cut tea with friends for company. The view/location/food is good. Hubli is good for full meal kind of stop. Chitradurga is blessed with better culinary items but unfortunately you need local home access to taste it. Every other restaurant has become “pan-indianized/secularized” serving everything from other country dishes(read the up north chinease ) to north/south offerings thus diluting the local offerings. Davangere has better name in terms of the food – benne/kali dosai, kara-mandakki ,menasinakaayi etc. In Bangalore/Belgaum one even finds shops with the name Davangere benne dosa. Well sad part was I missed the kamath after Tumkur which has decent tindi items.
2. Belgaum
Belgaum is blessed with good food joints like new grand, pranam(opposite globe), kamath, “ajanta” , “milan” . The food from these udupi restaurants is delighful and varied in offerings. Every place has different idli, vadai, dosai. I have never tasted non-veg in Belgaum so Jyoti(my wife) has exposed us to recently “khyber” food which according to connossieurs of the good nonveg is delightful. I am not including Tilakwadi etc since I have never had food on other side except the road side stuff. BTW the cold coffee stall near the GIT college on khanapur road is history replaced with hip liquor and grocery shops . The toast is peculiar offering of Belgaum where 2 slices of bread are toasted and applied with butter and toasted again. On top of it a little bit of “chutney podi” and dash of regular coconut chutney. It is served with surprisingly onion rings(raw), but it tastes heavenly with cup of tea/coffee. Vada pav of Balu in front of Ramdev is also very famous, with right fried color and ginger based Potato curry and fried green chilli. The pavs being fresh are just gobbled up smoothly. Highway hotel(irani)/Kakati/CBT bus stop(irani) has good tea and lip smacking snacks. The irani tea taste is a secret I have been trying to replicate and understoo one of the process step being – just boiling the conoction over and over again. The idlis/dosai from Ajanta/New grand are wonderful preparation with just right lingering taste of udad pulse and local groundnut chutney(thicker version compared to watery bangalore version). Belgaum also has the sweetmeat shops – nagauri etc who provide kunda/kardant(although gokak is famous for it – you get similar stuff in belgaum) etc. Belgaum also has the freshest of the vegetables of all kind and delight for veggies. The usual fare is jowar roti with brinjal curry and dollop of butter. The methi/palak/red palak etc too is abundant. Jyoti was the one who also got the Kaaps ( fried cut veggies) introduced in our household available in some puneri restaurants. I was unaware of the dish till I ate it first time.
New grand is pretty old establishment on the college road with clean/small place for years. The chairs are old style laid with sunmica and pantry covered half with treakwood almirah with glass for sweet storage. It also has efficient cleaning service. Another item which has gained popularity with masses is Puri-bhaji – fluffy light puris with “usal” based bhaji is good tiffin item to splurge on. The taste of bhaji will be tad sweeter than usual ones and stand out because of “usal” base rather than potatoes.
Ajanta was renovated in nineties and converted into cosy place with trolleys for cleaning and nice seating places. It sees massive traffic and serves great dosai, upma. Restaurant has done nice thing – it has kept one big chunk in the front open and empty to allow for light and “take home” folks to sit around. The idlies here are delight simply becuase of the lightness they bring to the senses. Niether chutney nor sambhar overpower the senses so as to kill the taste of idli. Idli retains the original taste down to the last bite.
Pranam opposite the globe has tastiest chakalies(murruku) on the planet. Try the chunkier, lighter version with small hole in the middle. The taste will be amalgamation of ajwain, chana flour. It also has good idli and dosai in early morning. I am not big fan of upma – but Belgaum upma are usually sweeter and have less of peas etc and full of “chana”/”udad” pulse garnished with “sev” and “coconut grating”. It just melts in the first bite and taste stays with you forever.
3. Gadhinglaj
A place where my sister stays has fabulous store – mahalakshmi for bhadang which is served after 5 pm till 7 pm strictly. It has the neatly laid out row of benches with narrow table in between. Vada pav too has stall owner who likes to serve it hot on the goa road. It has the folks from rajasthan for chaat/paani-puri etc. My sister makes heavenly misal pav which I miss terribly.
4. Kolhapur is famous for rassa, sugarcane products, milk and misal. I like sugarcane and walking across to “jaggery makers- gurhal” and having bite into fresh jaggery. The misal-pav is again local “usal” based and description can be had from earlier Gaurav Sabnis’s excellent entry. This misal pav is more closer to Puneri style with bigger portions. Everything in Kolhapur is more of bigger portion – vehicles/houses/people and their food. The mutton/chicken preparations are beyond me. Good hotels to try out are Hotel Victor Palace, Panchshil(veg), Pearl, Vrushali,Rayson and Yatri Nivas etc. This time though the chances of meateaters did not have chance as we were on piligrimage to jotiba/mahalakshmi.
Special – Somebody has collected local specialities for each station/place.
Tindi – eatables/light snacks
Reviews like these make the mouth ….
Foodies
Vikram Karve’s unofficial food guide to pune/Mumbai.
Nupur’s Hotstove - awesome content/recipe/photos. (you need to bow down to the creator for this much of perfection)
