Year: 2013

The Monkey Bar Burger Festival (Residency Road, Bangalore)

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Monkey Bar has some tricks up its sleeve for the next two weeks – their Gourmet Burger festival! I mean, who better than the Gastro pub pioneers in the country, to bring us something out of the ordinary?! If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s book – Outliers, you know the ‘10,000 hour rule’. It simply states that mastery in any field can be achieved with close to 10,000 hours of practice. Well, MoBar can aim to get on the master bandwagon – after all, they claim to have churned out 10,000 burgers since they opened! J MoBar has always been out-there when it comes to their interpretations of classics and I like that they push the envelope a little bit (ok, a lot!). How different can a burger get? Well, they promised us it was ‘the most fun we could have between two buns’ (ahem…), and I for one wasn’t planning to pass up an opportunity to try their creations. We were a little spoilt for choice – 8 different gourmet burgers to choose from, between …

Aquafest 2013 @ Karavalli (The Gateway Hotel, Residency Road, Bangalore)

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One of my favorite restaurants in Bangalore – Karavalli at The Gateway Hotel, runs a seafood festival every year. This year’s Aquafest runs from the 15th to the 30th of November and is truly a gastronomical delight. For those of you who have never heard of Karavalli (face turning blue), it is an award winning restaurant that focuses on home-food recipes sourced from the coastal regions of South West India. (Think Mangalorean Bunts and Konkanis, Kodavas from Coorg, Malayalees, Calicut Muslims and Syrian Christians of Travancore, Havyaka Brahmins of Vitla and the Portuguese of Goa). The only restaurant in India to feature in the Top 50 list of The S. Pellegrino Asia’s Best Restaurants, Karavalli has always lived up to its legacy of creating fantastic food and amazing memories for me. Last week I had the chance to dine with the most affable, humble and accomplished Chef Naren Thimmaiah during the preview of the Aquafest menu. I have to thank dear Monika Manchanda of Sin-A-Mon Tales, for taking me along as her date for the …

Pathway to Heaven with Bacon Wrapped Prawns

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There are many pathways to heaven they say. With most ending with some bearded gentleman manning the pearly gates. (Or in my case a portly gentleman sitting on a Buffalo who has a really long ledger of life events). And you would have to be good and do good and all that jazz to really even be considered for a chance to get there. Then steps in bureaucracy, where they make you wait at the gates (in a queue mind you…) before they proceed to check your files and then certify your eligibility to enter. Why, some may even be turned away due to a totally negligible mistake (Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, apparently!). So the chances to enter heaven for people like us are slim to none. Since the final destination seems like a distant dream, are we to moan and groan about its inaccessibility? Hell No! (Oops… swearing I’m sure is not allowed. Especially when it involves Heaven’s direct competitor!). So again, you see the chances are really-really teeny-weeny. As …

The FPD Quickie: Drinks and Dimsums @ Yauatcha (M.G. Road, Bangalore)

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This restaurant has been spoken about in hallowed hushes and reverent tones ever since it opened its doors to us poor Bangaloreans. The branch of a Michelin starred restaurant from London? Here? To grace us? *gasp, stutter, swoon*. Take a second – breathe. Now hear me out. For all the brouhaha – Yauatcha does not claim to be some super sexy, high-on-a pedestal brand. What it does claim to be and rightfully so (considering its pedigree) – is a contemporary dim sum teahouse offering an international experience. You would not wince to spend $70 on a nice meal for two abroad with the same quality of ingredients, similar setting and almost ditto execution of the dish – so why flinch now? All things said and done, I do understand that Bangalore is a price conscious city. We love to have our cake and eat it too (at the ‘right’ price :P). So it’s perfectly normal that the social food circles are abuzz with the higher wallet factor while dining at Yauatcha. So the restaurant has …

Cranberry & Chocolate Chip Wholewheat Muffins

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Cranberries are not grown in India. So all those gorgeous recipes with Cranberries in them were pushed to the back, because let’s face it – I don’t want to pay an arm and a leg to import them. Nor do I want to grab onto someone else’s arm or leg and beg them to get some from their trip abroad. The dried version however IS available here and I recently happened to pick some up for the heck of it. Foodhall offeres two types – one that looks all red and juicy (which is what I would expect a cranberry to be) and the other which looks like a mini blueberry. Of course I gravitated to the more familiar one, only to be told that they were not whole cranberries and are treated to some extent, with sugar and color to make them pretty and sweeter. I took the bait and bought the more expensive but tart, Whole Cranberries. The idea was to keep them at my work desk and have them as a snack, …

Fizzy Batter Fried Fish

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Chemistry was an exciting subject in school – at least the part that required us to don lab coats and act like scientists. No matter that the only thing we were actually allowed to do, is heat some substances (washing soda/ copper sulphate) and note down the properties. I don’t want to give you the spiel about how recreating a recipe is nothing but chemistry, but in this case it’s true. I was supposed to use carbonated water or soda, in combination with soda bicarbonate powder to get the desired ‘fizziness’ to make the batter light and crispy. It’s anticlimactic that the actual reaction was nowhere near the explosion that I expected, but more of a tame bubble bath! But the end product was right as promised – crisp, light and almost see-through-lace like batter. Now that’s an experiment recipe worth repeating. Fizzy Batter Fried Fish Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 10 mins Serves 4 What you need: 125 gms Plain Flour 1 tsp bicarbonate of Soda/ baking soda 1 tsp Paprika 150ml cold, …

Of Picket Fences and a Lavender Door – Cafe of Joy (Whitefield Main Road, Bangalore)

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Now ‘quaint’ is a word that is loosely used with a lot of cafes in Bangalore – a practice that must stop, after visiting the Café of Joy. This café can now claim monopoly of the term, with its picket fences, an all white theme with lavender accents and the most interesting knick knacks! If not for the in-your-face-signage of Bhagini restaurant next door, I could almost imagine that I stepped into a gorgeous café in the German countryside. And I’m not saying that because of the cute figurines of the German baker couple, or the little white cow milk pourers, or the cow butter dishes, or the fact that the board says Brot.Gateaux.Biscotti. (Ok, that is very German :P) But I’m game for a little round of active imagination and if their desire was to transport me to a European café – game well played! We heard that apart from cakes, artisanal breads, and baked goodies (produced at their on-site bakery) they also serve lunch. So on Saturday, a really talented baker friend and …

Coq Au Vin for easy entertaining

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I have not been lazy. The fact that my last blog post was a month and a half ago should not lead you to the obvious conclusion. The reason for not posting is because most of my cooking these days is done in the evening. That leads to the sad fact that there is no natural light to shoot my pictures. (This is the only time I wish I lived in a temperate region where the sun sets late!). This leads to me not posting the recipes because I always feel a recipe is enhanced by pictures. (Which is why I struggle to buy cookbook without pictures, unless it was something monumental like the Larousse Gastronomique!) I make Coq Au Vin pretty often. That’s because it’s easy, can be made in large quantities, it freezes well and the leftovers always taste more brilliant than the day you actually make it. Another more practical reason is to use up leftover wine. (Not that there is too much, but the rare occasions of opening two bottles for …