Can you believe it - despite living in Mumbai for most part of my...err.... considerable years ( :P), I had never eaten at an Irani's? That is to say, a true-blue corner cafe with a crusty old owner at the cashier, old ceiling fans whirring away, old dark wooden furniture, old posters framing the walls, old waiters - basically, everything old,everything from a bygone era. The Irani cafes are a Mumbai culinary landmark, a must-visit in a city that has precious little to offer tourists other than its fine colonial architecture and immense culinary diversity.
I filled in that vital missing piece in my foodie jigsaw yesterday, by having a late Saturday lunch at Koolar & Company at King Circle in Matunga (E).
Koolar has everything an Irani should have - an amazing location at the V-shaped corner where two streets meet, mirrored walls, ancient ceiling fans, wooden tables with red-and-white checked tablecloths, creaky wooden chairs and a kitschy mish-mash of curios for decoration.
At Koolar, the decoration included a hanging clock - the kind seen on old railway station platforms (ostensibly from VT railway station, but likely a fake from Chor Bazaar!), a metal lamp suspended from the ceiling (straight from the Arabian Nights, complete with elaborate lattice work) bumping shoulders with 2 other lamps with - get this - Pepsi-branded lampshades.
As for the framed posters-oh my! They included:
1. Marilyn Monroe in her famous white-skirt-flying pose from The Seven Year Itch,
2. The first-page of the newspaper carrying the headline of the sinking of the Titanic,
3. An unknown-to-me busty Hollywood blonde wearing the tiniest miniskirt known to mankind,
4. A Harley Davidson ad, AND,
5. Charles Bronson, in a dapper suit
Plus, the sheer variety of things available for sale at the counter was breathtaking. Get this- there was detergent, bottled water, chips, biscuits, bread, cakes, cola, soda, cigarettes, eggs, butter, deodorant, shampoo, mayonnaise - everything one could possibly remember as running low at home while on a Sunday morning breakfast jaunt!
Taking in all this glory made the already-short wait for our food seem even shorter. First up was the kheema pao.
The kheema (mutton mince) was served in a big white bowl - it was not too spicy,and with a surprising dash of sweetness. Thankfully it was not too oily either. It was served with 4 fresh pao (bread rolls), and some of the juiciest freshly-cut onion I have had in ages and the inevitable lemon quarters. Quick and fairly tasty. And at INR 90, pretty decent value for money too.
Next came the highlight of our lunch - nay, one of the highlights of ALL my eating history. The chicken cutlet was simply divine. Oddly though, it was served pre-cut - a jumble of golden brown pieces served in a bowl with sliced cucumber and tomatoes for company.
But the first bite made me clean forget the unusual presentation. Crunchy, evenly-golden thin crust giving way to a chunk of succulent, juicy, steaming-hot, perfectly seasoned chicken. Bliss! Worth every paisa of the the INR 80 price tag!
We wound up lunch with the must-have at every Irani restaurant- the double omelet (INR 40). This too, was served with pao and had a nice evenly tanned brown appearance. The omelet was not particularly fluffy but was juicy and tasty and the bits of onion and chilly inside packed quite a punch.
Other items on the menu include the Wrestler's Omelet (made with FIVE eggs), sandwiches, burgers, Irani tea (served without milk) and oddly enough - cappucino, among others.
In conclusion, Koolar, while not being exactly a cheap feed, is still awesome value for money when you throw in the old-world charm, the idiosyncratic decor and the quick service. Not to mention the simple-yet-tasty food! I am still drooling over that chicken cutlet.....
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Washoku 4 - A Japanese Street Food Festival
All it took was one banner hung from Dadar Catering College (lesser known by its correct name i.e. Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition) to set my pulses racing. A Japanese street food festival - at a stone's throw from my place! How much more awesome could it get?
In a rare display of initiative (normally I am inertia personified), I put a call through to the number on the banner - and voila - by evening, the passes for Washoku 4 had been delivered at home. Priceless!
I spread the word, and by the time the festival rolled around, had 2 foodie friends along for company. Or rather, one foodie friend (T) and one world culture junkie and obsessive Teriyaki lover M. :)
Armed with our INR 500 passes (worth 5 200-Yen coupons +1 free drink coupon redeemable at the food stalls) we marched in promptly at 7:00 PM. To be greeted by thermocol cut-outs of reproductions of Japanese paintings and a smiling kimono-clad pair at the door. (It was quite funny - being almost the first guests at the festival meant we surprised the Welcome Wagon as they strolled outside to check out the arrangements - and catching sight of us, hurried aroun the corner to their post by the door - in funny mincing steps, since the kimonos were wrapped so tight!)
The festival was held on the terrace of the Institute and efforts were made to bring a flavour of Japan in the ambience, from strings of paper lanterns and a giant screen showing glimpses of Japanese landscapes to Japanese music piped through the speakers.
There was even a corner photo-op scene (get a kimono draped arund you and get a free snap taken) with paper pink cherry blossom trees in bloom beside a wooden fake-bridge over an invisible stream.
There were also stalls with free demonstrations (and do-it yourself sessions) of Ikebana (Japanese art of flower arrangement) and Origami (Japanese art of folding paper into fantastic shapes).
There were also live demonstrations of Sado, the traditional Japanese tea ceremony (once every hour).
A stall selling imported-from-Japan foodstuffs - not stuff you normally see in supermarkets - including sauces (soy, spiced soy, teriyaki, some dipping sauce i forget, Japanese mayo), ready to eat and dry noodles (udon and soba), silken tofu, green tea powder (matcha), bottled ready-to-drink green tea, golden curry sauce, miso soup sachets (made specially for Indian vegetarians, the packet proudly proclaimed), sushi powder, wasabi paste....you name it, and it was there. Expensive, but expansive as well. :)
And the food! Goodness me. 8 stalls covering:
1. Appetisers
Veg - Platter of: Vegetables Yakitori-style, Tofu with wasabi mayo, potato-and-mushroom krokke, Non Veg - Platter of: Chicken Yakitori (kebab-like grilled chicken chunks on skewers), Chawanmushi (savoury custard) and shrimp cake with spicy mayo. Droool.....
2. Tempura (Japanese fritters, wonderfully pale-golden and crunchy)
Veg - Selection of okra(ladyfinger), casava and onion-and-corn tempura
Non Veg - Selection of prawn, rockfish and monkfish tempura
This was one of the HIGHlights of the evening - the tempura was amazingly crunchy and delicious - especially when dipped in the tangy dipping sauce served on the side. I loved it, but T and M preferred the voluptuous swathe of spicy mayo to the the water-like consistency of the dipping sauce to dunk their tempura in. :)
3. Noodles
Choice of udon (fat, slippery-yet-chewy strands of wheat noodle) and soba (pale grey noodles made of wheat and buckwheat, with a slightly nutty taste) noodles with soup of your choice, topped with finely shaved veggies, chicken/fish, pickled ginger, pickled mushrooms, 7-spice powder, grated lemon zest, spicy soy sauce....)
We had the udon with chicken mince and the soba with veggies, and while both were yummy, I love the veggie option (surprise!), for its spicy, clean miso broth. Steaming hot, and highlighted with lemon zest it was potently herb-laden, almost to the point of being medicinal, and you KNEW it was good for you!
4. Soups and salads
Choice of 1 Vegetarian soup, 1 Non-Vegetarian soup (we had this - clear soup with clams and seaweed).....
....and salad (amazingly crunchy lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, onion, (the non-veg variant had cooked calamari (squid) pieces as well) all drizzled with a tangy sweet-sour dressing. If there was ever a salad which would make me go on a salad-only diet, this was it - the superb crunch of the veggies is still vivid in my mind...
5. Sushi
One CANNOT go to a Japanese food festival and not sample Sushi! At this stall, there was the Real McCoy - a tiny conveyor belt, holding black plastic trays of sushi, just like proper Japanese sushi bars! There were 2 mini tasting platters - one vegetarian, and the other non vegetarian. While they looked the real thing, (I loved the way the peeled tomato slice was held on top of the rice with a ribbon of seaweed, to mimic the look of salmon!) neither I nor T and M liked the taste so much. Except for the tamago (omelet) and cheese one, which was soaked with a sweet vinegar. Maybe its an acquired taste....
6. Curry Rice
This tasted exactly like airplane food - stodgy, dodgy, yet tasty! After the challenge to our tastebuds and cerebral cells with the sushi, this was like homecoming - with a sense of culinary relief, we hit the familiar shores of spicy curry and rice. :) There were 2 options each in the veggie and non-veg sections.
We chose to go with the simple rice-with-chicken-curry, though in my heart I was pining for the chicken katsudon curry and rice (deep fried crunchy chicken with curry and rice, instead of the relatively virtuous simple chicken curry that we had)
7. Okonomiyaki
Okonomiyaki is a delicious way to ensure we eat our vegetables - a pancake bursting with julienned veggies (and meat, if you prefer), all barely swaddled together by some batter, pan fried to golden-brown deliciousness.
Especially when topped with bright orangey-red confetti of chopped pickled ginger, a squiggle of Japanese mayo and Japanese Worcestershire sauce. Sticky, spicy, hot, crunchy, sweet.....all kinds of yum! :)
8. Dessert
There were 3 options to choose from here - green tea tiramisu, red bean pastry and vanilla ice cream with orange glace. We plumped for the first 2 (seemed more Japanese than ice cream!) and they brought the foodie evening to a perfect closure.
The tiramisu was very soft-set (read: barely set) and apart from a faint mustiness, did not set my olfactory sensors buzzing with any discernible green tea scent. (Maybe the green tea used in food is not the sweetly fragrant green tea used in cosmetics?)
Anyhow, it was a pretty dish, layers of green tea jelly, sponge, and green tea custard and was simple and sweet. The red bean pastry was your standard issue "pastry" (read: layered cream cake), except that the layers were sandwiched together not by cream, but with sweetened red bean paste. The top was satisfyingly cloaked with whipped cream though. :) This was easily the better dessert of the two, and my doubts about eating mushy beans for dessert were unfounded. :)
We also did some foodie shopping - I bought a pack of ready-to-eat meals (cooked udon noodles with seasoning mix) and sachets of miso soup (my tryst with miso stock in the noodles section was promising enough for me to blow up 250 Rs on soup sachets)
The icing on the cake was the pocket-book on Japanese cuisine that was thrown in for free with my purchases. Its a handy ready-reckoner with gorgeous photos, the kind thats specially printed for a packaged-foods company or a cookware manufacturer, not available in bookstores for sale.
It is so satisfying to end a memorable evening with tangible (especially edible) souvenirs of its memorable-ness! :D
In a rare display of initiative (normally I am inertia personified), I put a call through to the number on the banner - and voila - by evening, the passes for Washoku 4 had been delivered at home. Priceless!
I spread the word, and by the time the festival rolled around, had 2 foodie friends along for company. Or rather, one foodie friend (T) and one world culture junkie and obsessive Teriyaki lover M. :)
Armed with our INR 500 passes (worth 5 200-Yen coupons +1 free drink coupon redeemable at the food stalls) we marched in promptly at 7:00 PM. To be greeted by thermocol cut-outs of reproductions of Japanese paintings and a smiling kimono-clad pair at the door. (It was quite funny - being almost the first guests at the festival meant we surprised the Welcome Wagon as they strolled outside to check out the arrangements - and catching sight of us, hurried aroun the corner to their post by the door - in funny mincing steps, since the kimonos were wrapped so tight!)
The festival was held on the terrace of the Institute and efforts were made to bring a flavour of Japan in the ambience, from strings of paper lanterns and a giant screen showing glimpses of Japanese landscapes to Japanese music piped through the speakers.
There was even a corner photo-op scene (get a kimono draped arund you and get a free snap taken) with paper pink cherry blossom trees in bloom beside a wooden fake-bridge over an invisible stream.
There were also stalls with free demonstrations (and do-it yourself sessions) of Ikebana (Japanese art of flower arrangement) and Origami (Japanese art of folding paper into fantastic shapes).
There were also live demonstrations of Sado, the traditional Japanese tea ceremony (once every hour).
A stall selling imported-from-Japan foodstuffs - not stuff you normally see in supermarkets - including sauces (soy, spiced soy, teriyaki, some dipping sauce i forget, Japanese mayo), ready to eat and dry noodles (udon and soba), silken tofu, green tea powder (matcha), bottled ready-to-drink green tea, golden curry sauce, miso soup sachets (made specially for Indian vegetarians, the packet proudly proclaimed), sushi powder, wasabi paste....you name it, and it was there. Expensive, but expansive as well. :)
And the food! Goodness me. 8 stalls covering:
1. Appetisers
Veg - Platter of: Vegetables Yakitori-style, Tofu with wasabi mayo, potato-and-mushroom krokke, Non Veg - Platter of: Chicken Yakitori (kebab-like grilled chicken chunks on skewers), Chawanmushi (savoury custard) and shrimp cake with spicy mayo. Droool.....
2. Tempura (Japanese fritters, wonderfully pale-golden and crunchy)
Veg - Selection of okra(ladyfinger), casava and onion-and-corn tempura
Non Veg - Selection of prawn, rockfish and monkfish tempura
This was one of the HIGHlights of the evening - the tempura was amazingly crunchy and delicious - especially when dipped in the tangy dipping sauce served on the side. I loved it, but T and M preferred the voluptuous swathe of spicy mayo to the the water-like consistency of the dipping sauce to dunk their tempura in. :)
3. Noodles
Choice of udon (fat, slippery-yet-chewy strands of wheat noodle) and soba (pale grey noodles made of wheat and buckwheat, with a slightly nutty taste) noodles with soup of your choice, topped with finely shaved veggies, chicken/fish, pickled ginger, pickled mushrooms, 7-spice powder, grated lemon zest, spicy soy sauce....)
We had the udon with chicken mince and the soba with veggies, and while both were yummy, I love the veggie option (surprise!), for its spicy, clean miso broth. Steaming hot, and highlighted with lemon zest it was potently herb-laden, almost to the point of being medicinal, and you KNEW it was good for you!
4. Soups and salads
Choice of 1 Vegetarian soup, 1 Non-Vegetarian soup (we had this - clear soup with clams and seaweed).....
....and salad (amazingly crunchy lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, onion, (the non-veg variant had cooked calamari (squid) pieces as well) all drizzled with a tangy sweet-sour dressing. If there was ever a salad which would make me go on a salad-only diet, this was it - the superb crunch of the veggies is still vivid in my mind...
5. Sushi
One CANNOT go to a Japanese food festival and not sample Sushi! At this stall, there was the Real McCoy - a tiny conveyor belt, holding black plastic trays of sushi, just like proper Japanese sushi bars! There were 2 mini tasting platters - one vegetarian, and the other non vegetarian. While they looked the real thing, (I loved the way the peeled tomato slice was held on top of the rice with a ribbon of seaweed, to mimic the look of salmon!) neither I nor T and M liked the taste so much. Except for the tamago (omelet) and cheese one, which was soaked with a sweet vinegar. Maybe its an acquired taste....
6. Curry Rice
This tasted exactly like airplane food - stodgy, dodgy, yet tasty! After the challenge to our tastebuds and cerebral cells with the sushi, this was like homecoming - with a sense of culinary relief, we hit the familiar shores of spicy curry and rice. :) There were 2 options each in the veggie and non-veg sections.
We chose to go with the simple rice-with-chicken-curry, though in my heart I was pining for the chicken katsudon curry and rice (deep fried crunchy chicken with curry and rice, instead of the relatively virtuous simple chicken curry that we had)
7. Okonomiyaki
Okonomiyaki is a delicious way to ensure we eat our vegetables - a pancake bursting with julienned veggies (and meat, if you prefer), all barely swaddled together by some batter, pan fried to golden-brown deliciousness.
Especially when topped with bright orangey-red confetti of chopped pickled ginger, a squiggle of Japanese mayo and Japanese Worcestershire sauce. Sticky, spicy, hot, crunchy, sweet.....all kinds of yum! :)
8. Dessert
There were 3 options to choose from here - green tea tiramisu, red bean pastry and vanilla ice cream with orange glace. We plumped for the first 2 (seemed more Japanese than ice cream!) and they brought the foodie evening to a perfect closure.
The tiramisu was very soft-set (read: barely set) and apart from a faint mustiness, did not set my olfactory sensors buzzing with any discernible green tea scent. (Maybe the green tea used in food is not the sweetly fragrant green tea used in cosmetics?)
Anyhow, it was a pretty dish, layers of green tea jelly, sponge, and green tea custard and was simple and sweet. The red bean pastry was your standard issue "pastry" (read: layered cream cake), except that the layers were sandwiched together not by cream, but with sweetened red bean paste. The top was satisfyingly cloaked with whipped cream though. :) This was easily the better dessert of the two, and my doubts about eating mushy beans for dessert were unfounded. :)
We also did some foodie shopping - I bought a pack of ready-to-eat meals (cooked udon noodles with seasoning mix) and sachets of miso soup (my tryst with miso stock in the noodles section was promising enough for me to blow up 250 Rs on soup sachets)
The icing on the cake was the pocket-book on Japanese cuisine that was thrown in for free with my purchases. Its a handy ready-reckoner with gorgeous photos, the kind thats specially printed for a packaged-foods company or a cookware manufacturer, not available in bookstores for sale.
It is so satisfying to end a memorable evening with tangible (especially edible) souvenirs of its memorable-ness! :D
Monday, October 4, 2010
Knee-bucklingly good chocolate brownies - Not!
EDIT: The recipe for the brownies has been added at the end of the post!
A few (OK, several!) months ago, the beautiful, vivacious SD had brought a treasure trove of chocolatey goodies to work - something she and her sis-in-law "had just whipped up over Sunday". There were chcolate cookies - very nice on their own - but it was the brownies which made me pause, as a chocolate-induced endorphin rush flooded me and made my knees buckle. I
kid you not. I begged for the recipe right away, as I licked every little crumb from my fingers.
Madame obliged (going so far as to ring her SIL and jot down the recipe while cradling the phone between ear and shoulder - you know!) and voila! the key to chocolate heaven was with me. In typical fashion, I promptly failed to act on it and the sheet of paper with the recipe on it remained as a bookmark in my diary for a loooooooooooooooooooong time.
Till yesterday.
In an uncharacteristic display of determination, industriousness and organisational skills, I got together all the ingredients and whipped up a pan of brownies. Or, more accurately, brownies to-be-which-weren't. :(
While the crumb was spot-on (oh so tender with a whisper of crunch) it was the inside which was my Waterloo. Sticky, gooey, squelchy, rich, oozy.....you get the picture dont you?
The taste was awesome (obviously - anything that's entirely made of chocolate, butter, eggs, sugar and nuts CANNOT taste bad)but the texture was disappointing, to say the least.
And NOW we come to the main points of this post (Yeah, yeah, there ARE some.... :) )
Point 1: Identify your mistakes so you don't repeat them.
Possible areas of error could have been:
1. Got the quantities wrong: I didn't bother using scales to measure out ingredients by weight - and Mum did say that she felt that there was too little "binder" in the ingredients I'd assembled - something to hold the brownie together
2. Got the bake time wrong: My oven has no timer nor a temperature control or indicator. I go by the eye and the old-fashioned test of inserting a skewer and see if it comes out clean. I think I pulled out the pan 5-10 minutes sooner than I should have, terrified that the crust would begin to burn and go bitter. What I should have done was cover the pan with foil and cook further, allowing the interior to firm up while the crust stayed that glorious tender brown.
Point 2: Salvage the mess you have created - or know when its un-salvageable and trash it
There was no way I was going to trash all that richness, especially when it tasted fine. (I have thriftiness ingrained in my middle-class soul). So, the way out of the chocolate morass was: Ta da! Serve the brownie with ice cream! No one demands the perfect soft-set texture of a brownie when its swamped by a scoop of vanilla ice cream - all you need is a chocolatey sweet rich base - in fact, the gooeier, the better!
As for those bits which refused to get cut in neat squares and dissolved in sticky crummage - well, I rolled up my sleeves, and rolled them up in Indian-style mini laddoos - chocolate balls! The downside was all that butter and oil from the almonds started separating and gave the surfaces of the laddoos a glossy sheen. Problem solved by simply rolling them (gently!) in some powdered sugar/cocoa, like truffles. And served as truffles, too! :P
As Julia Child says, part of being a good cook is to know how to salvage culinary disasters - AND grin and bear it, without self-chastisement or self-castigation when they turn out to be unsalvageable.
All I can say is - given my track record of grinning - I am in the reckoning for being Mere Julia's favourite student. :)
EDIT: Recipe for brownies, courtesy SD:
Ingredients:
225 gms dark cooking chocolate/chocolate compound
250 gms butter, softened (at room temperature)
2 tsps vanilla essence
250 gm castor sugar
3 eggs - beaten (my 2 cents here: dont whip air into them, just beat them lightly - we dont want airy puffy brownies)
150 gms ground almonds
100 gms - walnuts, chopped
Method:
Melt the chocolate and butter ina double boiler. Once melted, remove from heat and mix well.
Add sugar+vanilla, mix well
Ass eggs, fold them in and then fold in the ground almonds.
Add the walnut pieces and bake in a greased-and-floured baking tin/pan at 170 deg C for 25-30 mins, till a skewer inserted into the centre of the pan comes out clean
Pull the pan out of the oven and let it cool under a fan.
Cut into neat squares, you can dust the brownies with icing sugar to decorate them.
Yields 25-30 brownies (squares of 1.5 inchesx 1.5 inches)
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Non-serendipitous Perfect Scrambled Eggs
A few months ago, I'd blogged about how I'd stumbled upon the perfect scrambled eggs, purely by chance. After countless attempts and even more permutations-combinations of ingredients and cooking methods, I'd managed to hit upon the perfect scrambled eggs. But I was still vary of the recipe - anything that happens by chance cannot be trusted, eh? :)
An aside - 'perfect' scrambles means - soft, just-set, perfectly seasoned, creamy, rich, no firm/dry-ish clumps AND NO RUNNY WATERY JUICES SEEPING FROM THE EGGS ONCE THEY'RE PILED ON THE PLATE.
Coming back, I was leafing through Julia Child's memoirs - 'My Life In France' - when I came across her experiences at the Cordon Bleu cookery school at Paris. Her teacher there, Chef Bugnard, demonstrated his technique for the perfect oeufs bruilles after being horrified by her brisk-and-vigorous approach to making scrambled eggs.
Chef Bugnard had a way different approach to plating up fluffly scrambled eggs and his style was gentler, almost meditative and his recipe was different too. It struck me as sound, so off I went to the kitchen to experiment with the lone egg left in the fridge.
And guess what? Despite not following Bugnard's instructions to the T, I managed to whip up THE perfect scrambled eggs - and no sign AT ALL of any runny juices oozing-out-of-the- once-perfectly-set-eggs-and-making-the-toast-soggy!! Halleluljah!
I don't know if there are any copyright issues about sharing the recipe here - I mean it is not Julia Child's recipe, it is her retelling of it - besides, its not even a recipe, more of a technique.
So going by my judgment, I am sharing it here. If any of you know for sure that it is a copyright infringement, do let me know, I will take it off the post.
Chef Bugnard's Technique to the Perfect Ouefs Bruilles (Scrambled Eggs):
1. Break open the eggs, season with salt-and-pepper
2. Do NOT whip up into a froth - just gently mix the yolks and whites together with a fork
3. Smear the sides and bottom of a frypan with butter. Set it on gentle heat (lowest setting on your stove)
4. Once the pan is heated (not too hot!), gently pour in the eggs.
5. Do not stir/poke/scramble the eggs immediately. Wait till you see the eggs beginning to thicken into a custard.
6. Once the eggs start curdling, GENTLY, start pulling the outer edges of the scrambles to the centre. Keep the curds "loose", do not pull them into tight clumps. Keep doing this - GENTLY - taking the pan on and off the flame - we do not want the eggs to keep on cooking while we're scrambling them
7. Once the eggs are almost-cooked (the runny shiny white is almost dry) - add the butter/cream (as much as you like - the more, the tastier!). THIS STOPS THE EGGS FROM COOKING FURTHER (for some time at least)
8. Take the eggs off the flame, plate them on a serving dish, garnish with parsley and serve.
This technique worked perfectly for me - my scrambled egg was gorgeously just-set, a beautiful pearly, creamy pale yellow in colour and as for the taste - oh, all kinds of deliciousness! :D AND there was NO SIGN of the much-detested runny juices - even after 10 -15 minutes.
Oh, bliss!! :)
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Oriental Odyssey - Day 3 - Hong Kong
Day 3 saw us making the trip back to Hong Kong from Macau, but this time around we had a relatively comfortable journey - perhaps we were prepped for it by past experience or maybe we were better rested after 2 idyllic days in Macau.
If Macau was a pretty watercolour painting - all blue skies and golden sunshine - Hong Kong was a steel and glass sculpture, a pulsing metropolis spread on both sides of the Victoria Harbour with an underlying vibe of energy and verve. Space is THE most precious commodity at Hong Kong, and hence all buildings - without exception - are upwards of 20 storeys. The gleaming skyline of Hong Kong across the blue waters of the harbour, with the zillion skyscrapers piercing the sky remains one of the world's immemorable picture frames.
After a delicious lunch at a basement Indian restaurant (tiny, like all HK eateries), we set off for the HK city tour. First stop was the Repulse Bay Beach. Some of HK's most premium beachfront real estate is around this neighbourhood.
There was a scattering of sunbathers (surprising, since I'd thought all Chinese girls struggled to maintain their pale porcelain-like complexion and tanning was NOT an option - but then there WERE more guy sunbathers than girls :) ) under the HOT mid-day sun and after taking a few snaps, we were more than glad to escape the relentless heat and get back to the airconditioned comfort of our coach.
Next on the itinerary was a visit to Victoria Peak, the most famous of the several hills on which Hong Kong is built. The Peak, as it is called, offers spectacular views of the valley below - that is, of the densely crowded skyscrapers and the busy harbour.
Also located at the Peak is the HK outlet of the Madame Tussauds Wax Musuem. We took a little over an hour to traipse through the waxworks, with the mandatory snaps in funny poses alongside the wax mannequins.
I used this free time to also put a quick call to K, one of my friends (rather, a friend's friend) who had recently relocated to HK and had said she could meet me for coffee. Since I was more than happy to grab some time with a localite, at a localite hangout, I made the call - by the end of which K had VERY kindly volunteered to show me around Hong Kong the next day - those little sights, sounds and smells which a rushed 2-day itinerary skips. My heart was singing by this point, since it meant I could do something better than spend the entire day in HK Disneyland (which our tour itinerary had included) - having spent 3 days exploring the Disneyland at Orlando (USA), I had no burning desire to see the same magical land all over again - especially on a crowded Sunday in summer!
With my thoughts in a happy buzz at the idea of a thorough exploration of Hong Kong, I barely realised when our coach reached the next in our city tour - the famous Night Market. The Night Market is one main lane which is closed to vehicular traffic after 6:00 PM and the network of alleys and bylanes that branch from it. On either side of the lanes are brightly lit stalls selling every trinket imaginable - bags, robes, curios, brassware, toys, TShirts, kimonos, electronic goods, souvenirs, shoes.....AND some highly interesting-looking street food. :) It looked like a cross between Aladdin's Cave, Diagon Alley and Dadar's Kirtikar Market! :P
I picked up a skewer of grilled cocktail sausages to munch on (much to the wide-eyed consternation of the typical Maharashtrian Uncles and Aunties in our tour group!) and sauntered through the busy market, picking up souvenirs, gawking at the 'live' menu in a restaurant (live crabs/mussels/fish to be chosen as your snack) and clicking a zillion snaps. Though none of my snaps did the place proper justice, methinks. :(
Last stop on the city tour was the Laser Show at TST (Tsim Sha Tsui - one of the districts of HK, across the harbour from downtown HK). Every night at 8:00 PM, there is a free laser show near the Avenue of the Stars (HK's version of Hollywood's Walk of Fame, only the Avenue of Stars has a prettier location - a promenade by the harbour) You basically crowd near the waterfront, trying to get as close to the railing (which separates you from the dark waters below) and see the colourful laser beams soaring across the bay - being projected from the tops of all the glittering skyscrapers of downtown Hong Kong. The exteriors of the buildings also get lit up in a series of musically-choreographed flashes.
The night-time view of the lit-up skyline across the black waters of the harbour itself was magnificient - the colour-and-music of the laser show came in a poor second. :)
After this we trudged back to our hotel, the Excelsior, which I joyfully saw, was located bang in the heart of downtown Hong Kong. All I had to do was simply step out and embrace the electric energy and urban chaos that is the identity of HK.
If Macau was a pretty watercolour painting - all blue skies and golden sunshine - Hong Kong was a steel and glass sculpture, a pulsing metropolis spread on both sides of the Victoria Harbour with an underlying vibe of energy and verve. Space is THE most precious commodity at Hong Kong, and hence all buildings - without exception - are upwards of 20 storeys. The gleaming skyline of Hong Kong across the blue waters of the harbour, with the zillion skyscrapers piercing the sky remains one of the world's immemorable picture frames.
After a delicious lunch at a basement Indian restaurant (tiny, like all HK eateries), we set off for the HK city tour. First stop was the Repulse Bay Beach. Some of HK's most premium beachfront real estate is around this neighbourhood.
There was a scattering of sunbathers (surprising, since I'd thought all Chinese girls struggled to maintain their pale porcelain-like complexion and tanning was NOT an option - but then there WERE more guy sunbathers than girls :) ) under the HOT mid-day sun and after taking a few snaps, we were more than glad to escape the relentless heat and get back to the airconditioned comfort of our coach.
Next on the itinerary was a visit to Victoria Peak, the most famous of the several hills on which Hong Kong is built. The Peak, as it is called, offers spectacular views of the valley below - that is, of the densely crowded skyscrapers and the busy harbour.
Also located at the Peak is the HK outlet of the Madame Tussauds Wax Musuem. We took a little over an hour to traipse through the waxworks, with the mandatory snaps in funny poses alongside the wax mannequins.
I used this free time to also put a quick call to K, one of my friends (rather, a friend's friend) who had recently relocated to HK and had said she could meet me for coffee. Since I was more than happy to grab some time with a localite, at a localite hangout, I made the call - by the end of which K had VERY kindly volunteered to show me around Hong Kong the next day - those little sights, sounds and smells which a rushed 2-day itinerary skips. My heart was singing by this point, since it meant I could do something better than spend the entire day in HK Disneyland (which our tour itinerary had included) - having spent 3 days exploring the Disneyland at Orlando (USA), I had no burning desire to see the same magical land all over again - especially on a crowded Sunday in summer!
With my thoughts in a happy buzz at the idea of a thorough exploration of Hong Kong, I barely realised when our coach reached the next in our city tour - the famous Night Market. The Night Market is one main lane which is closed to vehicular traffic after 6:00 PM and the network of alleys and bylanes that branch from it. On either side of the lanes are brightly lit stalls selling every trinket imaginable - bags, robes, curios, brassware, toys, TShirts, kimonos, electronic goods, souvenirs, shoes.....AND some highly interesting-looking street food. :) It looked like a cross between Aladdin's Cave, Diagon Alley and Dadar's Kirtikar Market! :P
I picked up a skewer of grilled cocktail sausages to munch on (much to the wide-eyed consternation of the typical Maharashtrian Uncles and Aunties in our tour group!) and sauntered through the busy market, picking up souvenirs, gawking at the 'live' menu in a restaurant (live crabs/mussels/fish to be chosen as your snack) and clicking a zillion snaps. Though none of my snaps did the place proper justice, methinks. :(
Last stop on the city tour was the Laser Show at TST (Tsim Sha Tsui - one of the districts of HK, across the harbour from downtown HK). Every night at 8:00 PM, there is a free laser show near the Avenue of the Stars (HK's version of Hollywood's Walk of Fame, only the Avenue of Stars has a prettier location - a promenade by the harbour) You basically crowd near the waterfront, trying to get as close to the railing (which separates you from the dark waters below) and see the colourful laser beams soaring across the bay - being projected from the tops of all the glittering skyscrapers of downtown Hong Kong. The exteriors of the buildings also get lit up in a series of musically-choreographed flashes.
The night-time view of the lit-up skyline across the black waters of the harbour itself was magnificient - the colour-and-music of the laser show came in a poor second. :)
After this we trudged back to our hotel, the Excelsior, which I joyfully saw, was located bang in the heart of downtown Hong Kong. All I had to do was simply step out and embrace the electric energy and urban chaos that is the identity of HK.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Restaurant Review : Cafe Mocambo, Fort
My date with Mocambo was as eagerly anticipated as a wallflowers's first date with the coolest guy in school . I was flushed with excitement and anticipation - I'd heard such so much about him..errr...it! :P
On the long drive to Fort from Shivajio Park, my cousin A (whom I was going with) warned me that it "was not a hip, youngsters kind of a place- it was rather middle aged". There came my first surprise - I'd always assumed it was a swish cafe (at least it had seemed so from the outside, the numerous times I'd walked past it!) where the swinging set would feed and water themselves.
Once we reached, I could immediately see what A had meant - the decor was far from coolly sophisticated, it was more like a cross between the "family restaurant"s of yore (complete with a yellow lighting, heavy wooden chairs AND a mezzanine floor) and a has-been swish cafe. What was endearing was that the clientele was not terrifyingly sophisticated (well, not all of 'em) but also included old Parsi extended families, the mandatory lovey-dovey couple in the corner, a rumbunctious group (growingly rapidly tipsy) at the next table - in short, an eclectic bunch of people.
We had two starters - Spice-N-Nice French Fries and the Paprika Chicken. Both were yummy, but not in a "WOW - Blew me away!!" way. The fries were drenched with a tangy spicy Schezwan sauce and drizzled with a disappointingly sparse amount of molten Mozarella. The menu description had me imagining fries snowed under gooey stretchy strands of melted cheese!
The chicken nice tasty too - not very spicy but toothsome and tasty, with bits of chilli and garlic scattered throughout the chicken morsels.
For mains, A and his friend R sampled the Fusilli Arrabiata (with special request to make it spicy! :) ) while I decided to conquer uncharted territory by ordering the pork ribs. (It helped that the ribs had a rave review on Burrrp.com !) But both mains turned out to be disappointing - the pasta was lacklustre.....
.....while the ribs were, to my novice tastebuds, fairly revolting.Maybe pan-fried ribs are MEANT to be this way but I could not stomach chewy strands of meat cavorting with soft, melting fat. :(
The roast vegetables (potatoes, carrots and peas) were nice, though. AND the pepper sauce that accompanied the ribs in a thoughtfully separate sauceboat was zingy too.
For dessert, we shared a slice of the Chocolate Mousse Cake - yummy and chocolatey. But again, nothing new.
Service was slow and almost distracted. We asked the waiter thrice to come take our order, to no avail. Ditto with asking for the cheque - we could have walked out without paying and no one would have noticed. :D
In short, the 'date' was a let-down - or maybe I'd pitched my expectations too high. Or maybe we ordered the wrong dishes. Or maybe the kitchen was having a bad day. After all, there's no smoke without fire and Mocambo's reputation is immense. So will reserve judgment for another day!
Date Report Card:
Mocambo Cafe and Beer Bar
23/A, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta Road,
Fort, Mumbai
22870458, 66065264, 9821053066, 9820051364
On the long drive to Fort from Shivajio Park, my cousin A (whom I was going with) warned me that it "was not a hip, youngsters kind of a place- it was rather middle aged". There came my first surprise - I'd always assumed it was a swish cafe (at least it had seemed so from the outside, the numerous times I'd walked past it!) where the swinging set would feed and water themselves.
Once we reached, I could immediately see what A had meant - the decor was far from coolly sophisticated, it was more like a cross between the "family restaurant"s of yore (complete with a yellow lighting, heavy wooden chairs AND a mezzanine floor) and a has-been swish cafe. What was endearing was that the clientele was not terrifyingly sophisticated (well, not all of 'em) but also included old Parsi extended families, the mandatory lovey-dovey couple in the corner, a rumbunctious group (growingly rapidly tipsy) at the next table - in short, an eclectic bunch of people.
We had two starters - Spice-N-Nice French Fries and the Paprika Chicken. Both were yummy, but not in a "WOW - Blew me away!!" way. The fries were drenched with a tangy spicy Schezwan sauce and drizzled with a disappointingly sparse amount of molten Mozarella. The menu description had me imagining fries snowed under gooey stretchy strands of melted cheese!
The chicken nice tasty too - not very spicy but toothsome and tasty, with bits of chilli and garlic scattered throughout the chicken morsels.
For mains, A and his friend R sampled the Fusilli Arrabiata (with special request to make it spicy! :) ) while I decided to conquer uncharted territory by ordering the pork ribs. (It helped that the ribs had a rave review on Burrrp.com !) But both mains turned out to be disappointing - the pasta was lacklustre.....
.....while the ribs were, to my novice tastebuds, fairly revolting.Maybe pan-fried ribs are MEANT to be this way but I could not stomach chewy strands of meat cavorting with soft, melting fat. :(
The roast vegetables (potatoes, carrots and peas) were nice, though. AND the pepper sauce that accompanied the ribs in a thoughtfully separate sauceboat was zingy too.
For dessert, we shared a slice of the Chocolate Mousse Cake - yummy and chocolatey. But again, nothing new.
Service was slow and almost distracted. We asked the waiter thrice to come take our order, to no avail. Ditto with asking for the cheque - we could have walked out without paying and no one would have noticed. :D
In short, the 'date' was a let-down - or maybe I'd pitched my expectations too high. Or maybe we ordered the wrong dishes. Or maybe the kitchen was having a bad day. After all, there's no smoke without fire and Mocambo's reputation is immense. So will reserve judgment for another day!
Date Report Card:
- Prices - Mid to High (starters hover between the 150 - 240 Rs mark, mains between 250-350)
- Ambience - Nice, can get a little crowded and loud. Nice to people-watch, though.
- Food - Nice but not exciting
Mocambo Cafe and Beer Bar
23/A, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta Road,
Fort, Mumbai
22870458, 66065264, 9821053066, 9820051364
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