Three and a half meals in Chennai

Was in Chennai over the weekend and for a change got to eat out a lot. My typical chennai trip consists of lots of meals at various relatives houses and not too much eating out. I mean to say no point telling you lot that the Garlic rasam at Bhanu Chithi's house rocks since you won't be getting any.

Some quick observations in general.
Sambar really rocks in Chennai. Compared to the sweet Udipi crap you get in Mumbai such a pleasure to get some real sambar with spice and flavor.
I hate the bloody government for shutting down Drive In Woodlands. It was bliss for breakfast and whoever thought of not renewing the lease should be drowned in Udipi sambar of the worst kind.
Chennai is odd. Most people go out and eat the same kind of food they get at home. Even in places like Saravana Bhavan the number of people still eating meals is insane.

Had a decentish meal at a place in CHennai Citi Centre. Sangeethas or something. While my cousins od ed on Paneer (Their meal was Paneer Tikka, Paneer Koftas and Paneer Parathas. Shudder!) I had something called a Cauliflower dosa. (Shades of mumbai coming here). Con job where instead of the Alu sabji which you get inside a masala dosa you got a Cauliflower sabji. Outstandingly average but saved by the aforementioned Sambar and some rocking Chutney

Lunch was at a Saravana Bhavan with seating and AC. (Chennai of course being one of the cities where you need a AC through the year. Exception being the 4 hours in December where the temperature sort of looks towards the 20s and the thathas get their Monkey Caps out) While various people indulged in meals, more paneer et al I ordered the Mini Idly and Kaima Idly. The mini idly is a great concept where you get lots of bite sized idlis (12-14) all drenched in Sambar and then served piping hot. (Key words here being piping hot - The idlis and not just the frigging Sambar). Each idli has sambar infused and tastes incredible. The Kaima idly is something which only Chennai could invent. Basically a fried idli crumbled up and then served like a Keema. The veggie varient of Keema (hence Kaima in Chennaiese. Anita - simple enough for you ?) Just a feast of carbs. Incidentally Saravana also has a super rich all natural ice cream range which is just too creamy and hard.

Then a meal at something called Cornucopia. Average vaguely continental food of the type done to show that you have cool tastes. Galloping Gooseberry does this much better in Chennai. Redeemed solely by some awesome lemonade (Had Cinnamon in it. Finished a pitcher) and a really good Passion Fruit Sorbet. Just go for the lemonade and dessert.

The half meal was at the Chennai Citi Centre food court. Extremely bleah food with absolutely no memory of what was consumed. The only thing I recall are the Cookie Man cookies for afters.

La de lah Idli

The tam brahm genetics is hard wired to Idli. As opposed to the Gujju genetic which is favourable to "Itli". Being a hardcore TB the pleasures of a Idli are many. One of the simple pleasures of living in Mumbai was to go to the streetside dosa wallah and have a steaming hot idli and molagaipodi. If you timed it right you could get your idli just when he was getting it off the steamer and it would be soft and awesome in too many ways to describe. But alas poor Perumal or Kandasamy the BMC has to play spoilsport and he has disappeared from Matunga. The muttai dosai was also awesome and so was his masala vadai. And his molagapodi actually had a kick to it. Anyway getting back on track the idli is so awesome. The pleasures of going by train to "native place" (My native place is Wadala but then...) was that in addition to puliyodharai sadham and thayir satham you would get Idlis coated with Molagapodi for breakfast. These Idlis would be soaking in the Molagapodi and oil overnight and were insanely great the morning after. Wonder why is it that no restauranteur makes it. I am sure if you mark it as day old both Thayirsatham and molgapodi idli would rock..

Hello Boys

Apologies for the delay but been a bit tied up with work. Lots of meals but standouts including a beach shack at Vagator (Awesome Calamari), Howrah in Mumbai and a extremely forgettable meal in a place I forget in Chembur. Hope to get this done soon. Till then milte hain

Meals Galore

Well coming suspiciously close to my last post about Vegetable Sets I did end up getting one from Manis the last week. The concept was pretty good with 1 a decent potato curry (dry), A very very competent avial, A ok Sambar (with small madras onions yummy!!) and a kickass pulinji. For a price point of 60 bucks it was insanely great value. Frankly the food was by no means very good but given the choice of having Udupified south Indian this was far better value.

And a few random thoughts - Why do we not get peeled Madras Onions here ? The SPencers and the ilk in Chennai and Bangalore seem to have them but no sign here. Madras Onions are so intensely flavorsome that they must be amongs the top 10 veggies of all time.

Vegetable Set and Match

Back in the days when Sion, Matunga, Wadala and Sion Koliwada were South indian ghettos (as opposed to the Gujju Ghettos that they are now. Soon I'll need a permit to eat non veg I tell you... Down boy)  there were three great bastions of meals in Matunga. You had South Indian Concerns, Society Mess and Mysore Concerns. And for all those who pipe up and say Udipi Rama Nayak @ Matunga station - Shaddup always was, is and will be a gujjufied Udipi meals place. There was a synchronicity to their meals across the week. Thursday was Potato Curry and Onion Sambhar at Society and Friday was the same @ Concerns.  Families used to select their meals on the menu...

And the glorious concept of vegetable set where you got only the veggies and made the rice at home ahhh that was bliss. Anyway that was then and now Concerns has stopped with the food, Mysore Concerns is now a Country Liquor bar and what was Society is now taken over by Mani of Podar college fame. Mani's is now the only place in Matunga where you can get a "meals" ala South India.

Down Kalbadevi Road

Thanks to some friends I did a trip down old memory lane. In the past few years (Almost a decade plus actually) thanks to not being in Mumbai and not being in fort I missed going for Gujju thali. Gujju thali was a longstanding tradition in my slightly penurious state at that point. The best way to get a completely fulfilling meal and then take a nice double decker bus home on the upper deck dozing away. Anyways Friends Union Joshi Club was revisited. Nothing much had changed. Prices of course had gone upwards but the food was still awesomely great. There was a garlic chutney which was worth the price of the meal by itself. Its one of the few places which offers both the non sweet dal and kadi as well as the sweet ones. The Chapatis and Rotlis and Khichdi was excellent and the chaas was just so chaas.....

Happy New Year

Greetings and salutations to you in the new year. May the best meal you ate last year be the worst meal you eat this year. (Nice but not mine unfortunately. Paraphrasing something that Sandy says). Anyway new year, new challenges and all that. Unfortunately this new year has been somewhat dry. A combination of me feeling under the weather, people traveling and other stuff has meant that the new year has so far yielded nada. Anyway suffice to say that the highlights of the past weeks have been boti kababs at Ayub, Gulab jamuns from a shop off Mohammad Ali road, Malpuas from ditto and the rediscovery of Guru Kripa. Three quick trips there made me wonder. The Gulab Jamuns are still divine (Hint for the unwary is that they taste better after being stored for one day. Don't ask me why but I can't stand sugary sweet Gulabos). The samosas are as crunchy as ever, the sev puri still kicks ass and the gol puris (weird cross between gol gappas and pani puris) are awesome. Taking a recovering punjabi with me there ensured some good karma points. Never seen someone so enthusiastic about the chole and apparently the chana bhatura there is more authentic than any other place....

I Spikka di Italiano ?

There is this rather nice restaurant called Italiano in Gurgaon. Oddly enough it's located a bit off the beaten track and is nowhere close to any of the normal hangouts. Enough about the geography and on to the food. The short eats viz. Bruschettas, garlic bread are decent. The Pizzas were good but not quite in the same class as Vera Pizza. The revelation was the sole which was done just right. While the food was not standout by any chance it was competently done Italian. A word about the wine list and alcohol though - Just because the wine is Australian does not mean its good and of course the maitre'd was completely clueless and kept repeating. And 800 bucks for 2 pegs of 100 pipers ? Now thats being cruel.

I spy Ivy

Ivy is a nice pleasant place much like Banyan Tree. The only difference is that Ivy is by the Indage guys and supposedly to propogate wine drinking. Well we did end up having 4 different wines (by the glass mind you) but the experience was so so. While the wines were reasonably priced with the most expensive topping out at 175 bucks a glass the storage seemed to be indifferent. While the more expensive wines which perhaps were not selling well were a wee bit corked the cheaper wines were decent. The food was competent although the olives in the spaghetti seemed to have a herd instinct and the feta cheese in the salad was a wee bit inadequate. The bruschettas and garlic breads were done well. The desserts are from Prive and hopefully good. One sour note though was that they have a impressive listing of wines for sale but the non Indian wines were largely unavailable and what was available were all stuff produced in house. Anyone tried Tiger Hill and found it to be tart or is it just me ?

Pot full of Pourri

Pot Pourri at Bandra is sort of like the place we never go to because everyone raves about it. Anyway finally did go there and the food frankly was decent. The Chicken wings were done very well (Actual chicken wings mind you not the bloody excuses u get elsewhere). The Salads were nice (Zucchini actually did taste good) and the mashed potato was just done so right. The beef was so so and I believe the beef burger was also good since all I got was the bread. The patty was consumed by a unnamed friend of mine. The Goulash was not as gruesome as it could have been and the lamb was ok. Uncannily enough the sauces were good enough to mask any deficiencies so wonder if Underneath the Banyan Tree learnt from Pot Pourri or the otherway around ? The desserts at Underneath The Banyan Tree were way better. I wonder why all the desserts at Pot Pourri were so chocolate based ????

Underneath The Banyan Tree

The Banyan Tree is a very nice place to be. While their meats are a bit so so their sauces are insanely good. And with a great sauce everything tastes wonderful. Their desserts are bliss. Nice small place with a eager to please staff. One of the few places in mid town where you get half decent pancakes and waffles at breakfast with a good choice of breads.......

Mahesh

I have fond memories of Mahesh. Some of my first sea food experiences have been at Mahesh (Thank you Arvind!!). For some obscure reason I stopped going there when it became cheaper to drink at a quarter joint and then do Vandana for dinner. Whatever happened to Vandana incidentally ? Great sea food at Mahim it used to have. Anyway last weekend went there and was somehow disappointed. Its not like the food was inedible or bad but just bleah. It was competent but nothing stuck in my mind. The Bombil fry was done the bawa way with the whole fish being fried and not flattened but Brittania is much better, Ladyfish fry was so so and the pomfret in green sauce is way better at Excellensea. The only thing that stood out for me was the yellow dal which was a weird hybrid between Sambar and Dal oh and of course the wine list had some very decent wines. We had a nice tart Chilean white which cost us 1200 bucks which was a steal.

It's all Crystal Clear

The best kheer in Mumbai is available at Chowpatty. On a clear Sunday you step on to the beach and then keep walking towards the Air India building. This old lady who sits somewhere on the beach opposite New Yorker does the most amazing kheer. According to her it's stirred for about 7 hours by Bihari dwarfs.

Oh all right enough with this. The best kheer in Mumbai is available at Crystal. The place is near Wilson college on the same side as Wilson on Marine Drive. While the kheer is definitely one of the highlights I love it for the palak paneer, Chole and Baingan Bartha. Actually screw it anything punjabi including the chaach is awesome there. Some poor misguided Gujju souls still wander in for the Pav Bhaji but who really would eat anything other than Punjabi @ Crystal. The decor is not the most uplifting but listening to Manna Dey songs is part of the charm. The door to the kitchen is firmly closed but I really don't want to see in what conditions is the food turned out in. Suffice to say this is one of the few vegetarian places that I would walk a mile to. Which incidentally I almost did thanks to Jayesh's idea of parking....

Shanbhar Barobar

A million miles away from Mumbai (Seems like anyway) is the sylvan bird sanctuary of Karnala. It's nice and green but this is a food blog so lets focus on the Shanbhar Vishranti Gruh. Its about a couple of kms or so before Karnala coming from Mumbai. It's a bit of a drive but the food is seriously worth it. It's the perfect way to spend a Sunday. Leave at 11ish and hit the place by 12.30 ish. A couple of beers with some insanely great prawns and then the serious business of eating. The Pomfret is awesome, the Surmai is about as good as it gets (I'm not a great fan of Surmai), the bombils are delicious. But the trip is worth it for the prawns alone. And a honourable mention to the Kharvas. This underrated sweet is just about sublime at Shanbhar. All in all worth spending the hours commuting for the bliss of Shanbhar.

On a aside forgive if this is beginning to sound way too much like Rashmi Uday Singh but sort of tired and sleepy after dinner at Crystal and lunch at Brittania. There you have something to look forward to...

Southward Ho

Was in Chennai and points south. (Kumbakonam, Pondicherry, Mayavaram if you must know) on a 2 day 20- temple tour. The only spiritual benefit for me was putting up with all the relatives. Anyway on the food front nothing spectacular. Galloping Gooseberry prolly deserves a seperate review but frankly nothing exceptional. The lovely roadside stall with divine idlis deserves something exceptional but for the life of me what do I say the location ? Fourth level crossing when u go from Pondicherry to Kumbakonam. Suffice it to say that the quality of food is pretty good as long as you stick to core competencies of South Indian food and not try and experiment with Chole Batter or Alu Parotta.....

Soul Fry Casa da Case

Soul Fry Casa is a nice place to go. I guess it would be the upmarket equivalent of the Irani. If ever there is something like a Irani diner then Casa would be it. The caveat here is that the food is not exactly inspired or exceptional but fairly competent. The non veg section is fairly large but the vegetarian selection is also quite good. The Fried Calamari was exceptionally fresh but the mutton sukha was average. Having gone there with a vegetablarian I had a taste of the Mangalorean Potato Spinach (Tasted like Aloo Palak but who am I to comment) and Okra Coconut Fry was quite good.

I do like to have my meals in peace but there was a live band on. (Somewhere a Mack wedding was missing it's singer). Standard rock numbers were being mutilated but the diners in general were having a blast singing along. I guess it's just me being reactionary....

Goa Portugesa : No Sa

I really hate it when a supposedly speciality cuisine restaurant serves you food which is so very clearly tweaked for the mass market. If I wanted that I would have gone to a blooming multi cuisine restaurant or a frigging five star. Not that the food was bad but my basic issue is that when I go to a Goan food place I expect to get authentic Goan food not Goan as done by someone who has never left Mumbai but read a lot about Goa. The crab cakes were delish but the rest of the food was good. Liver, Brain and Pomfret along with Squid. All done well but again not quite goan.

Incidentally I perhaps am becoming a cynic (Probably am) but really the thought of knowing who the host is or how he met his wife and what all he does is sickness inducing. All i want to do is know about the awards won or what he suggests we eat.

In one respect at least the place is Goan as the service was very Susegad.

Crappy Chinese

Given that Chinese is now a recognized ethnic Indian cuisine can we please try and do better Indian chinese. The amount of places that do extremely crappy chinese is phenomenal. So much so that my expectation when ordering Chinese is the crappy sort. I can handle Punjabi Chinese (My explorations in La Land for Chicken Manchurian not withstanding) but all I ask is that it be done competently. So far my experiences in ordering Chinese have ranged from having coconut drizzled on top of my fried rice (It was a Udupi restaurant so somehow should have expected that) to Veg manchurian with fried aubergines as there was no cabbage available.

Anyway the main point of this extremely pointless post (oh all right Pointless blog too) is to say that the Chinese restaurant opposite Wanton house on Hill Road is quite quite crappy. Unpleasant experience to the level where I forgot the name of the restaurant, what I ate there and why. It's the kind of food where you feel extremely relieved post your next visit to the restroom that it's all come out safely without any major side effects.

Thai @ Shivaji Park

In the quest for Thai curry like the one Thai Me Up used to do we (Me, Rikhav and Sandy) have experimented with Thai curry at the weirdest locations. The fiasco at Fu Yong stands out fairly strongly. Tamnak Thai @ Shivaji park stands out as something which is almost but not quite. The Raw papaya salad is smokingly awesome especially if you ask them to make it slightly spicy. The prawn curry, sfried vegetables, the lamb, the chicken oh well the list is endless. And amazingly enough they have a fairly decent wine list. Incidentally anyone know whatever happened to Thai Me Up ?

Inappropriate Times

Now that the monsoon is upon us it seems to be a perfectly reasonable time for me to write about Fresh Catch. Fresh catch does sea food so well that I'd prefer it to be completely unknown. Situated as it is in one of the bylanes of Mumbai it's amazing that it's survived for so long. Tiny as it is the food that comes out is just (insert your hyperbole here). The bombils are done just so. Not over fried or over crisped but just right for you to get the initial crunch and then let the flavour take over. Some of the best shell fish i've ever had . The Dal is just so very varan like that I like it. Ambot Tik done well and then some righteous fish dishes not easily available else where. The Solkadi tends to be easy on the tongue but then everything can't be perfect. On the veggie front (why bother) the dishes are also typically very konkani style and I can actually be tempted to order one.

On a completely different front why on earth would anyone want to have Vada Pav with Szechwan sauce ? I mean Kakhra with Szechwan flavor was bad enough but don't mess with the Vada Pav.