Foodie For Life :-p

Oral Orgasm...

2008-04-19T06:38:00.000-07:00

Kwality Walls (tm) vanilla ice cream with Dabur (tm) honey. Awesome!

I wanted to have vanilla with fresh fruits the other weekend. But the local fruit vendor only had hapus aam for Rs 250 a dozen! The "fruit cocktail" (tinned fruits in sugar syrup) were also out because I didn't have a can opener and neither did any shop in Bhakti Part. So I ended up picking a small Dabur Honey bottle instead.

Yummy!

The only problem is that the honey solidifies as soon as it comes in contact with ice cream. Next, I want to blend the honey in the ice cream and enjoy the honey "swirls".

PS: Last time I had brought a brick of vanilla from Amul (tm). For some reason it tasted awful and very artificial. That's why I specially mentioned "Kwality Walls" vanilla ice cream.

Khyber - Give it a miss

2008-03-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

Khyber was pretty empty for a Saturday night. Given the experience I had there, I'm not surprised now. We were made to wait for 5-10 minutes while the chaps prepared a dirty looking table. The white bedsheet they spread out on the table was not particularly clean.

The ambience was not spectacular either. When you can hear loud club music playing from Red Light next door you pretty much forget about the ambience. So, here we were eating overpriced Mughlai food, sitting amidst faux fountains and stone structures listening to "... I wanna fuck you, you already know!" Seriously!

The vegetarian starters were decent. We ordered Honey Mustard Paneer Tikka and Pudina Gobhi. The Virgin Colada Mocktail was particularly good. I ended up having two of them. (After my recent trip to Goa, I had promised myself to stay away from booze for the next fifteen days!) That's where the good part ended. The main course was atrocious. We ordered Paneer Korma and Murg Makhani - both bad. The Pudina Parathas were soaked in oil.

Four of us ended up footing a bill of three grand. And we had to remind the chap to bring us some saunf-cheeni. Khyber was pretty sad actually.

Hornby's Pavilion, ITC Grand Central, Lower Parel, Mumbai

2007-11-27T19:44:00.000-08:00

There's something about buffets that has started turning me off. You plan for them - almost fast for an entire day ahead of it. You drool at the sight of food once you get there. You heap up your plate for the first helping. And after the first few bites, you suddenly lose your appetite. And then you're simply gorging either for paisa vasool or peer pressure ("Abe tu to itne mein hi khatam ho gaya!") In the end you've paid a very high premium (sometimes a thousand or so per head) for a meal you didn't quite enjoy and which is going to be on your conscience for the next two days (calories!!)

I've had quite a few breakfast buffets at Hornby's Pavilion, ITC Grand Central. At Cleartrip we have this "tradition" (though the higher-ups are desperately trying to "de-tradition" it!) of going out for the breakfast buffet at the Grand Central after a big, early morning release. Add to that a couple of times we've rogered someone on a Sunday morning on the pretext of some treat or the other.

So, the other day, while going home, when we stopped at the ITC Grand Central on an impulse for dinner, I was pretty sure I didn't want to go in for the Rs 875 + taxes dinner buffet.

Instead we ordered for a jalapeño, capsicum, olives, bell peppers 12" pizza (Rs 395) and a vegetarian lasagna (Rs 425). The pizza, although not bad, was nothing to talk home about. It was decent. But the lasagna, was tops! It had Mediterranean vegetables, layers of soft pasta, interspersed with spinach and mozzarella. Now don't ask me what Mediterranean veggies are - that's what the menu said - I saw pieces of pumpkin there too! The taste was awesome. The spinach and med-veggies were giving it a lovely flavour. Just the right amount of cheese, tomatoes, and oregano as well. Most Italian fares that I've had, have an overdose of one of these three ingredients.

I had a look at the dessert buffet, but priced at Rs 600 + taxes, I didn't find it appealing enough.

The food was good, but for a five star hotel, I found the service slightly bad. The place was too crowded, and probably they were not equipped to handle the load.

Whatever said, all in all, a thousand bucks well spent.

Google Map for the ITC Grand Central, Mumbai

Mocha, Mumbai

2007-09-25T04:25:00.001-07:00

I discovered two more dishes at Mocha, which make the visit all the more worthwhile. Next time you're there do have the Maggi Arabiatta (Rs 95) or the Scrambled egg on toast (Rs 65). Complete mini-meals in under a hundred bucks each. Both yummy!

Food Inn, Colaba, Mumbai

2007-09-25T04:17:00.000-07:00

It's such an unassuming kind of place. You'd never think that this place can dish out such an amazing fare. That too, at such an unbelievably low price.

Two of us had a dal fry + steamed rice for our first helping. It was yummy but didn't suffice for two. Then we ordered for some veg biryani + dal makhani. Amazingly tasty - especially the veg biryani. I'm sure other stuff is as tasty.

IIRC, both of us were stuffed for under two hundred and fifty bucks! This is one joint I'm going back to for decent Indian food.

And yeah, just outside the restaurant is a paanwaala who maked amazing meetha paan. And he's from Kanpur :-) He recognized my bike's UP78 number. Give him a shot too.

Cafe Mocambo, Fort, Mumbai

2007-09-25T04:09:00.000-07:00

Cafe Mocambo is the place for club sandwiches and burgers. For a hundred bucks apiece (served with french fries and coleslaw) its value for money. Just one sandwich or burger and you're done for the meal. Do try the chicken club sandwich or the special. A thumbs-up for the Fillet-o-Fish burger as well - scrumptious!

Kitchen Square -- Where I Start My Day

2007-07-11T05:20:00.000-07:00

My office is located in Mathuradas Mills Compound (Lower Parel, Mumbai), which is the most godforsaken mills compound in the entire area. When I came for my first face-to-face interview with Cleartrip, I thought it was a slum!

Anyways, there are lots of places around my office, but none match the convenience, price, and taste of Kitchen Square. My day starts with a nice cup of cutting chai with either an omelette a plate of poha, upma, or idli-sambhar. I used to patronize the usaal paav till some time back, but now I find it way too oily and spicy.

Kitchen Square is a good place for snacks (breakfast or evening), but it sucks for lunches. It suffers from the same Red Curry Syndrome that ails 90% of all restaurants in Mumbai. Surprisingly though, it serves very good sambhar. The least sweet sambhar I've had anywhere in normal Mumbai restaurants.

The prices are rock bottom -- Rs 2.50 for a cutting; Rs 14 for a double omlette; Rs 12 for a plate of idli-sambhar. In the evenings you can get a vada pav for about four bucks I think. It's nothing to talk about but it's the closest vada pav from my office :-)

Monsoon Malabaar, Mocha

2007-06-25T04:32:00.000-07:00

Instead of the regular cafe lattes and cappuccinos, I tried a "Monsoon Malabaar" at Mocha's (Bandra) the other day. With an overdose of the Italian fare at the Baristas and the Cafe Coffee Days our palettes have forgotten the taste of good old Indian filter coffee. Monsoon Malabaar was different. It took some time to get used to. It had a distinctively strong taste. It was heavenly after I did manage to adjust my taste buds to appreciate it. At forty bucks a cup it's definitely worth a shot.

Tavaa (Bandra, Mumbai)

2007-06-25T04:05:00.000-07:00

Why is it that the overwhelming urge to blog almost always occurs when the incident in question is a bad one? A vast majority of the blog posts out there are cribs about something or the other, and I'm no exception. So here I am, back from my year long hiatus on the Foodie For Life blog, with a crib about an over hyped restaurant called Tavaa in Bandra, Mumbai.

Tavaa is located at prime real estate in Bandra. It's just a stone's throw away from Toto's, Hawaiian Shack (the place has expanded and so have the prices!), and Just Around The Corner. In fact, Tavaa is just around the corner itself.

I admit that we chose a rather bad day to visit a "walk in" kind of restaurant. It was raining heavily, and the place was not very clean - understandably so. But the service was still alright. With the kind of prices, you couldn't expect anything better. I feel, the best indicator of any restaurants "priciness" (a priciness index, if you may) is the cost of one tandoori roti. The ones at Tavaa were a comfortable six rupees, and dal makhani was priced at about Rs 70. You get the idea.

From the looks of the place (which I presume would've been rather decent, had it not been for the downpour and the Sunday night rush), I had expected the menu to be rather exotic and fancy. I was in for a disappointment when all I could see on the vegetarian page was Paneer X and Paneer Y. Apart from Mumbai's regular Veg Kohlapuri, there was Paneer Kohliwada as well! What's next, a Chembur Chana and Dadar Dum Aloo?

I'm S-I-C-K of that typical red gravy that most of the veggies in Mumbai are served in. It's not the regular tomato based gravy you could expect in a butter chicken or a paneer butter masaala up in the North, but something different. But, it's in ALL the dishes in this city. And Tavaa was no different. Upon inquiring, the waiter categorically told us that all the gravy items were in red! Can you believe it? Even a mushroom matter masaala was in the sickening tomato based gravy! Aaargh! Left with no choice, we ordered a tavaa chicken roti and a tandoori paneer tikka for starters. The main course was a vegetarian affair consisting of a dal makhani, a mushroom matter masaala, and boondi raaita.

The only thing good was the tavaa chicken roti. It was a sparse matrix of mince chicken meat in egg covered with roti. The paneer tikka was marinated in the same bloody red gravy. The dal makhani was half done - it's supposed to be left overnight on simmering coals to cook and thicken - guess I was expecting too much :-). And the mushroom mutter masaala, as expected, tasted awful in that red gravy. To top it all off, even the boondi raaita was pathetic. I mean, I can make better raaita than that. Seriously! But that's a topic for another post.

So, even after having such a bad experience with the main course, we attempted the dessert. A dry fruit rabri and falooda kulfi. Both B-A-D. The rabri was sour and the kulfi was a molten mash-up of the remains of a kulfi.

It could be that we ended up ordering vegetarian at a primarily non-veg joint, but I can't believe someone can get something as basic as boondi raita wrong. And the desserts? Sour rabri?

Anyways, we spotted Razak Khan aka Makaudi aka Pappu Kanghi (I had a hard time fishing for his name and pics!) dining there. Quite a P3 joint this, eh? :-)

Italian food!

2005-10-27T03:23:00.000-07:00

Mocambo Cafe, Fort, Mumbai
Italian Cuisine

If you have a penchant for food(mind it-not proper indian food!) and dont mind trying out new stuff then mumbai is the place to be. Italian, continental, chinese, mexican- name it and you have a place to meet up your expectations!Mocambo cafe is one of the well known places in mumbai which serves you continental and italian cuisines. Its a small place with two levels of seating and is generally full at all times-thanks to the yummy food :-p they serve! A lot of sophisticated people and phirangs around-so in case you are not having fun with the people you have come, you can spend your time watching people and not to forget eating!! And this is for the guys-for a change you have a sweet female all decked up, standing right there at the entrance to open the door for you with a warm smile on her face!!

I had been there twice. First time it was just me and a friend so had to be careful about the bill and all. But still we had a lasagne-layers of cheese with mushrooms and other vegetables stuffed in between and a portion of garlic bread. But the second time, I went there with my office mates(7 of us) and we had a coupon worth 3000 bucks with us-fokat ka khaana yippie!! All of us had to literally hog to consume the food worth the price of our coupon!! We ordered the starters first which included-lemon mushrooms, babycorn sticks, a portion of mashed potatoes, garlic breads with cheese and a lot of non veg stuff which I dont remember as I am a vegetarian! Our main course included-Penne pasta in white sauce with lotsa garlic and cheese, spaghetti in Arabiatta(red) sauce and an italian rice dish in white sauce. The food was amazing-especially the lemon mushrooms-we had ordered for two more plates after the first one :-) Pastas were good too-only problem being all dishes in white sauce were tasting the same,but nevertheless they were tasty!We had pizzas too which were so different and better from the regular dominos and pizza hut pizzas!They were so tasty by themselves that no seasonings were required to make them better! We finished off our dinner with gooey double chocolate torte which was yummy again :-p

Best part-inspite of eating so much our bill came out to be around 1800 (which included the drinks too!). So we ended up buying a chocolate cake for ourselves which we had taken to the office!!So all in all a reasonable and good place to be!

Punjabi Kachra

2005-10-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

Punjabi Tadka, Sahara Mall, Gurgaon
Punjabi food

This restaurant is a dhabba on the name of Punjabi food and the rich cuisine of the land of five rivers. If you're in the mood for some Punjabi food stay miles away from this restaurant.

I was meeting up a good friend for lunch today and we happened to go to Punjabi Tadka. We ordered a Veg Lunch Buffet (Rs 167) and an Amritsari Thaali (Rs 107). Both were pathetic. The dry vegetables were waaay to oily. Ma ki daal and daal makhaani - two dishes that are quasi-staple diets in sadda-punjaab were tasting like crap (I'm sure if I happen to taste some - it'll taste the same!)

The food was high on price, and abyssmally low on taste and quality. Skip it!

Full Full Indian!

2005-10-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

Khaaja Chowk!, Plaza Mall, Gurgaon
Distinctly Indian

It's strange that I've been in Gurgaon for more than four months and I've never been to this place! Khaaja Chowk is THE place to be for Indian cuisine. The food, the ambience, and the price - everything is just too good!

The restaurant's tag line is "Full full Indian" - and it really is! From the moment you enter, you feel you've entered a different place. The interiors are bright red, with the walls plastered with cheesy posters and hand mirrors you might find at a dhaba. The tables have motifs of 'Ship' matchboxes and some maalish ka tail on them. Some tables have those fake stones in sindoor ki dibbiya you might find at a grameen mela! And you just can't miss the bright red auto-rickshaw - that's where I had my dinner today. Howzzat :-D

The food is decently priced - two of us got a stomachful of yummy food for Rs 175 only. And the dishes are innovatively named as well. Sample this: Biwi ki daal tadkewaali, Maa ki daal makkhanwaali, Anand ki anda bhurji. For dessert try out the Rocket kulfi tilli pe and Mango mishti doi - Simply amazing!

Skip the Pizza Huts, Dominoes, and Barista's next time when you're in Gurgan - head straight for Khaaja Chowk! Plaza Mall (Third Floor). Oh! Just in case you didn't know Plaza Mall is right next to IFFCO Chowk - most people don't know of it's existence - neither did I!

My First Pub @ Gurgaon

2005-09-10T15:46:00.000-07:00

Thai & Chinese Cafe, JMD (Opp Sahara Mall), Gurgaon

Pub serving (surpise!) Thai & Chinese Cuisine

Well, after staying here at Gurgaon, for more than three months, it was about time I had been to a pub. And today (technically yesterday, it's 4:23 AM right now - hehe), the pub-visiting happened dhoke se. We were planning to go eat 'something different' and then probably go out for a movie. I suggested a Thai joint at JMD Towers (I used to have my office there earlier). So all of us went to the Thai restaurant only to later realize that it was a pub!

We arrived there at around 8:30 PM - which is rather early for the 'pubbing circuit'. Just a couple of people around. And yeah - HAPPY HOURS till 9:30 PM.

I wasn't in the mood for having a drink (we had one helluvan EVS party last night!) so ordered a mocktail called 'Mystery'. As part of the 'happy deal' I got another Mystery free. The drink was okay, some orange based concoction which was nothing to die for.

The non-veggies (moi included), then ordered Lamb in Mankan Sauce (or some similar sounding sauce) with steamed rice. Now, if you're planning to order the same thing, I have a word of advice for you - DONT! You don't want to spend 250 odd bucks only to get mutton (not lamb, mind you) cooked with potatoes in a gravy full of oil. I'm sure you order something from the road-side dhaba and they're gonna come up with something similar... probably better! The dish tasted more like "Mutton Curry Masaala - cooked in 1 Litre of oil I got free from Big Bazaar yesterday!"

Anyways, as for the veggies, they were better off with "Vegetables in Thai Curry" - the standard coconut based white curry. It was the regular Thai stuff.

We left at about 9:30 cuz none of us were in the mood to drink or hang around (thanks to the EVS party the day before!)... but I guess 9:30 or 10:00 is just about the right time to go there... they had just started with Pink Floyd and the place was getting more crowded...

No take on the music, cuz till the time we were there they were playing the standard soft rock stuff... nothing noteworty!

Overall, not a very good experience... food was bad and overpriced. The ambience was nothing great - no central theme. Probably we should've gone later in the night - so that we would've ended up concentrating more on the girls rather than the food, drinks, and ambience :-D

Yummy Biryani!

2005-09-01T23:39:00.000-07:00

Sirf Biryani, Sahara Mall, Gurgaon

Biryani joint

When you're in the mood for a quick meal and don't want to spend 200 odd bucks on a crappy Pizza Hut pizza, Sirf Biryani is where you should be heading to. And just cuz the name has 'Biryani' in it, it doesn't mean that they actually serve you biryani. They've got the weirdest and the tastiest biyrani I've ever had.

They've got this 'Biryani Combo' for sixty odd bucks where they give you a plateful of flavored rice along with a chicken piece in yummy gravy (they call it a kebab, for reasons unknown). Make sure you ask him to give you more gravy cuz it's awesome - that's what differentiates 'Sirf Biryani' from the others. And the chicken piece is super soft - you'll love it!

And to add another feather in their cap, they give you Aquafina for 12 bucks only! No overcharging... that's what I like - I simply hate when you've spent 200 odd bucks on eating from a joint and they frikkin' charge you an insanely high amount for the water as well! For people who've eaten at your place, water should be free - period!

Now, go eat :-P

First Post - w00t!

2005-09-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

So, kicking off a new blog about one of the most interesting things in life (after sex, that is) - FOOD!

What'll this be about - where to eat, what to eat, and the damage! With my (patent pending) ramblings to spice up the act of course!

There's one thing about Blogger/Blogspot which irks me - I can't add categories to posts. It would've been really cool if I could've categorized the eating joint reviews by city and type (restaurant, pub, rasta joint, etc.) Right now I'm making do with CSS and <span></span> tags. So in case you want to look for joints @ Gurgaon use the search bar at the top of the page...

Without further ado...