A Taste of Home - Part III

And finally, going from worst to best - here are the three best meals I had in Delhi on this trip:

Flavors in Defence Colony: This one was a tough call. Back in the day, the owner of Flavors, one Mr. Tarsillo Nataloni, treated the brother rather nastily and we decided we would never go back. Fast forward about 10 years - a friend and I are looking for a place for lunch with outdoor seating and her first choice, Blanco in Khan Market is reserved for a private event. She suggests Flavors and I reluctantly agree. Good thing too. She had the risotto (what is it with women and risottos by the way? Is this some new Delhi trend that has completely passed me by?), I had a linguine Amatriciana and we shared an antipasti platter. Her risotto looked really good and she said that it tasted even better. The antipasti platter was really really good. I don't know if the salumi on it was imported or home-made (it wasn't priced as if it were imported and if it was home-made, my respect for ol' Nat just increased tenfold - as a salumist that is, not as a person). The Amatriciana was of course limited by the fact that Nat was using (per force, I'm sure) bacon instead of guanciale and linguine instead of bucatini but I had anticipated that and, within those limitations, it just about hit the spot. The sauce was appropriately chunky harkening to its rustic Roman origin, the sweetness of the onions and the fierceness of the red pepper flakes complemented each other beautifully and the linguine, which was perfectly al dente, wasn't drowned in the sauce. For a garnish, there was a drizzle of olive oil and shredded Romano cheese. All I can say is this - Mr. Nataloni could probably run a restaurant in Little Italy. I mean, he's already got the disposition to match!

Karim Hotel on Matia Mahal: Well, actually it's on Gali Kababian, if you want to get all technical about it, but Matia Mahal will do fine I think. Pretty much every non-herbivore foodie in Delhi knows where Karim's is. Everything that needs to be said about Karim's has already been said so there's little more that I can add. We used to go to Karim's fairly often when I was in college, to get their famous Nihari for breakfast and the place seems to have expanded since then. It's also a lot spiffier - less of the dhaba feel. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. What I can say with certainty is that their Tandoori Raan - an entire roasted goat leg, carved at the table (or not, if you prefer to use your fingers. And we did) is all that. And they probably make the best mutton qorma in the city. 'Nuff said.

Chez Mom's: My mother makes, by an order of magnitude, the very best mutton pulao in the whole wide world, bar none (yes, I'm looking at you Chef Imtiaz Qureshi). I don't know how she does it - I haven't been able to replicate her dish despite scrupulously following her recipe - but she does it, time after time after time. Her hit ratio has to be in the high 90s. If you control for the fact that she is a brilliant cook generally (she has a repertoire that would allow her to go three meals a day for a year without having to repeat herself), one reason for her extraordinary virtuosity with the pulao has to lie with her growing up in Faizabad and Lucknow (from where, incidentally, Imtiaz Qureshi also hails). Her pulao is a thing of beauty - each grain of rice is separate and seems like it was individually coated with the juices from the meat. The spices are perfectly balanced. The meat itself is falling of the bone tender. It's topped with the most perfectly fried crispy onions. She usually serves a raita to go with it - let the record show that I have never, ever eaten that raita. My standing request to her is that on these annual trips to India, my first meal and my last meal at home be her mutton pulao. Thus far, she's indulged me. I just hope that I continue to stay on her 'good' list.

A Taste of Home - Part I

It's been a couple of weeks since I got back Stateside from my annual pilgrimage home to India. As vacations go, this was actually a lengthy one – nearly three weeks 'in-country'. As with any vacation, this one had it's highs and lows but at the end of it all I had got to spend some quality time with perhaps the only five people in the world who love me unconditionally (even though, thanks to some spectacularly bad math on my part, two of them got less than 48-hours of the total, but that's groveling for another time) so it was all good.

The great thing about long vacations in India is that you get to eat a lot and culinary terms this trip was a particularly varied and rich experience. Here, in a semi-chronological order, are the highlights of that experience:

Let's start with Mumbai and lunch at the Renaissance Hotel Powai's buffet. We went there on a Sunday, which the brother, in an effort to lower expectations, told me was a slow lunch day. It must have been because the Renaissance clearly had its B-team on duty. The food and the service were, in a word, sad. Except for three things. The first was the Rahra Mutton, which was qualitatively so much better than the rest of the spread that I am wondering if it might have been stale – you know, leftovers from the night before when the alpha chef presumably still had the con. Then there were the Gol-Gappas (or pani-puri, as they call them in those parts), which were crisp and golden brown; the 'pani' was salty and tangy and the proper sewer green color. Finally, there was Nikita – the sous chef at the chaat station. I have never, in all my years, seen a female chaat maker before. It is easier for me to imagine a female president of the US than a woman in India making chaat professionally. That has to be the last male bastion left. I did double takes and triple takes. I stared. (The fact that Nikita was rather good looking and had a winsome smile is entirely besides the point.) Just for having the testicular fortitude to put Nikita on the chaat station the Renaissance gets a place in the highlight reel – even though their food generally sucked.

Yea, even Nikita's chaat unfortunately (the gol-gappas, although at the same station, were made by a different dude 'cause Nikita was on a break at the time, I think).

We had dinner at Mainland China in Andheri (I think) that night in order to sate my Indian-Chinese cravings. The service was prompt and courteous; the food was good; we ordered too much; a jolly time was had by all – in other words, it was your typical family outing to the neighborhood Chinese restaurant. I only mention it because it would be the only Chinese food I would eat on this trip. And for the fact that I discovered the secret to restaurant style crispy spinach upon my return (it's somewhat of a speciality at Mainland China apparently. But that's another post).

The best food I had in Mumbai were the bread pakoras that the brother's mother-in-law made for breakfast the next morning. Ab-so-lute-ly spectacular. They were crisp to the point of being crunchy on the outside while the filling inside was moist, almost gooey. They physics of how such a thing is possible is a bit of a mystery to me. They took me back to my childhood and my school canteen and the Moonlight sweet shop in Munirka, New Delhi. I ate at least half-a-dozen of those bad boys, maybe even 10.

Before I go on to the Delhi leg of the trip, a quick word about the Rajdhani Express, which I took from Mumbai to Delhi (my first train ride in six years! As the bro' and his wife will testify, I was as excited as a 6-year old!) – they feed you a lot on that train. I mean like all the time. It seemed like every time I turned around, there was a dude standing there with a snack or a juice or soup or tea or coffee or something! Amazing.

And the staff on the train was unfailingly polite, always ready to accommodate requests – for extra coffee, extra sandwiches, extra blankets, extra ice-cream, you name it – and always with a smile. And they had like six(!) choices for the dinner entree – vegetarian or non. If non, then eggs or chicken. If chicken, then Indian or Continental. You don't get that kind of choice in first-class on an international flight! The next morning, as the steward started to rattle off the seemingly endless choices for breakfast, I actually had to stop the guy and ask him to get whatever he thought best (he was so pleased he got me idlis and veg. cutlets!).

The fact that Lalu Yadav screwed up Bihar is probably indisputable. But that in the railways, he's found a calling is probably equally indisputable. Maybe the Indian Railways would be willing to teach the staff at the Renaissance a thing or two about customer service.

It's All Stir Fry

Food. There's a lot to be said for it. Especially when the quality – in terms of taste and, um, presentation – and the quantity – unlimited is best, are both available in spades. Then you can really shovel it down. Okay, I'm getting a bit carried away.

To return to the neighbourhood of the point, yesterday, a bunch of colleagues decided to head out for lunch. Nothing eye opening about that, of course. But we decided by a quirk of fate (20 minutes waiting at Lemon Grass Cafe) to chow down at the Noodle Bar. As restaurant moniker's go, by the way, that one sticks out as a truly creative one. It must have taken days, failing which, a committee of thousands of creative geniuses to come up with that one.

Anyway, we duly chewed our pencils up, ticking off the ingredients we wanted for the big wok job. I've already forgotten its given formal name, but in essence, you pick the veggies, meats, noodle variety, condiments and sauce(s), and they stir fry the lot (and a lot it is) and serve it in a serious looking bowl.

The thing is, most of us, took in the first forkful (or chopstick full in my case – and proud of it, I might add (you would be too, if you were clumsy, not especially motor-coordinated and still managed a full meal with smooth, slippery fake porcelain chopsticks)) and remembered wistfully, the lovely Gordon House Hotel and its glittering star, All Stir Fry. I've been there over, and over. And I love that place. And I'm about to tell you why.

The concept is simple. They have three glassed-off stir fry counters, manned ably by a trio of wiry chefs (neither of whom are in that pic, though). Outside the glass is a salad bar of sorts, with noodles (usually ramen and flat) at the corner, veggies in front and meats on the other side. You take a bowl (red ring say you're a <sneer> vegetarian and a black ringed bowl says all's right with your world) and fill it up. Or, if you're smart, you take two noodles (yes, just two noodles) and fill just a wee bit more than half the bowl with stuff, veggies first and take it to the chefs. There's a fair number of sauces on the board classified by how strong they are and you're free to experiment with them, including asking the stunned chef to add three or more sauces together. Plus condiments if you like. The result, somehow, is always extremely hot, extremely fresh and very tasty food.

Start a meal with their most excellent crackling spinach and a beer, follow it with a quick wok. Which is involved, involving and very satisfying process I just described. You can go back for as many bowls as you like. And while wasteful, should a particular bowl turn out not to your expectation, you can always skip and get a more appealing one. I've never once visited them without hurrying to the services halfway through to loosen that belt one notch or two, and I've never once managed to put together a combination that I didn't like. Even as I write this, sunbursts of flavour are going off in my head – I've taken many a long wok in there – the devil's sauce and its fiery arrogance, or the marginally milder burn of the mongolian sauce... I think I need to go back for another fix.

I do believe they now have a much bigger menu, but frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. Didn't someone already say that? Well, it applies.

Dessert? Forget it. There's never space. And they do have lovely fortune cookies that say things like, 'You're about to get lucky.' As in what? The trouser tops will suddely turn elastic and you could squeeze in a bowl or two more? Sigh, that would be nice, come to think of it.

I do believe a restaurant review is supposed to include stuff about staff friendliness, knowledge, ambience and so forth. Well, let me see. Staff is nice. They bring the menu to you. And fresh bowls when you finish the last one. And the beer also. They know where the wok bar is. Ambience. That's good too. There's place to sit. A green wall with lots of woks mounted on it. High windows so you don't look out and focus on putting the stuff away. I cannot remember the music, but there must be some. And yeah, the Quick Wok costs Rs 300.

All Stir Fry | Online Menu
The Gordon House Hotel, Battery Street, Colaba
Council Hall, Mumbai - 400039
Phone: 022-22871122

Images mooched from mars-world.com

King's beer: I'm lovin' it

A very dear person just returned from Goa, bearing the sweetest of all gifts from that lush land... King's Beer. As I noted in this post, King's is one of the nicest beers I've ever tasted. Kautilya and I, were in Goa on a college trip, sometime in 1995 or so. We left our classmates to go have a gander at this island thing. As luck would have it, he and I arrived at the ferry literally minutes after the one we wanted to catch had pushed off, headed for its umpteenth trip across the lazy Mandovi. With not much to do, we found a run-down shack near the jetty and ordered a beer. He only had local brew – Kings. I am happy to state the forty minutes (or was it an hour) were spent in a happy state, tasting a really, really good beer, enjoying very good company and great scenery in lazy, lovely old Goa.

Of late, though, King's has become really hard to find. This person, evidently, spent a fair while searching for my five bottles worth (heck, I even love the shape of it, now echoed by the almost equally elusive Kingfisher Stubby).

Well, I'd like to thank her for taking the time to look for it. Oh, and I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm going home to five super-chilled bottles of the stuff. Yippee!

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Budweiser in India

The first time I had Bud(weiser) I was at Delhi's TGIF and it sucked. Big Time. It tasted more or less like diluted water and I was left wondering at what Bud Light would be like – as in would I be able to taste it at all? So when a colleague told me that Bud was in India, I was wondering if it had made Anheuser-Busch wiser or not? Well, it has. I've just downed my fifth (I think) pint of Bud in the last four days, and I think I like it. I still don't think it topples my favourites (in order) – Kalyani Black Label, London Pilsner, Royal Challenge and Kingfisher – off their respective pedestals, but it is nice. It has a nice flavour, tastes like beer should and yes, I'm going to be drinking some more soon. Other faves? Corona (minus lime), Heineken (original German import only), Carlsberg, Stella (you can call her by her first name if you know her well enough) and Modelo Negro Especial (strange but true).

No, I haven't had Chillingtons, Guinness and other stalwart brands yet... but there's always tomorrow, right?

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Goa: Off-season food hunt

The wife and I also went to Baga beach to taste the life at the famous Britto's, but it closes for the rains, as do many other places in Goa. So, if you're intent on a specific restaurant/hotel/shack, try to dig out a number and call ahead. Also, we heard that most seafood, prawns apart, is frozen in the off-season with a fishing ban enforced during this part of the year, so ask before you order. A lobster caught in May and frozen is not going to taste as good as a fresh one.

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Goa: Bem Venite

Okay, that's a really bad one. I admit it. But, Hotel Venite, in Panjim isn't. In fact, it served up some of the best Goan grub I've ever had. It's on 31 January Road and you have to have a meal there. Staff is friendly, ambience is laid back-great, food is tasty and reasonably tagged and you'll be happy to return to it for a second round of gastronomy. The Beef-Sausage fry combination is brilliant. Ask for King's beer. It's going out of fashion, I hear, but what a beer! Desert must be bebinka with ice cream.

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