What do you do with a plate of food that looks pretty? I mean, like not just pretty, but a little too pretty. Like really really pretty! It took a while for me to take my eyes of the plate and think about all the things on it. The salmon looked beautiful. With nice fat lines this clearly was an expensive salmon. I don’t know where it stacks up on the world’s best, but while it may not be the best, it appeared to be among the top few. A pretty pink slice on tuna shone through. A couple of more sashimi, half a dozen tuna maki sushi, some pickled radish along with the ginger and wasabi completed the really pretty plate. I might have gotten full simply staring at it.

It felt like tearing into a piece of art, but once I was convinced that the art was how the food tasted and not how it looked, taking that pair of chopsticks was slightly easier. When something looks as pretty as this, you might be forgiven for judging it well even if it tasted a notch lower, but the chef at Leela clearly didn’t leave it to that. I’ll have to rephrase that. This is something that the chef’s had little role to play, since it was great quality sea food that wasn’t adulterated by anything. Not even the chef. The chef only made it look pretty and I must admit that he did a great job of making fish look pretty!

The single piece of salmon left me wanting for more. While I am a terrible eater of fish, sushi and sashimi, though paradoxically, are things that I’ve really learnt to enjoy. This salmon was simply brilliant. There is no other way to describe it. The flavours of the sea were intact without even a whiff of fishy aftertaste. The fat lines made sure the flavours were enhanced beautifully. A tamogoyaki, a kind of rolled omelette, was just the perfect thing to break the monotony of the sea. The pink, almost untouched tuna was beautifully fleshy!

The platter of sushi and sashimi simply took everything away from the rest of the meal. Yes, the tempura vegetables were nice, yes, the miso soup with the sticky rice was comforting, yes, the salad was fresh and had the Japanese flavours ticking the right boxes,no, the fish in the main course wasn’t my favourite, but the Bento box at Spectra, Leela Palace is simply about the platter. Nothing more, nothing less.

Priced from Rs 1200 onwards depending on what main course you choose, I would be super happy to simply get two such platters instead of a main course. 

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2sWSaeN

What do you do with a plate of food that looks pretty? I mean, like not just pretty, but a little too pretty. Like really really pretty! It took a while for me to take my eyes of the plate and think about all the things on it. The salmon looked beautiful. With nice fat lines this clearly was an expensive salmon. I don’t know where it stacks up on the world’s best, but while it may not be the best, it appeared to be among the top few. A pretty pink slice on tuna shone through. A couple of more sashimi, half a dozen tuna maki sushi, some pickled radish along with the ginger and wasabi completed the really pretty plate. I might have gotten full simply staring at it.

It felt like tearing into a piece of art, but once I was convinced that the art was how the food tasted and not how it looked, taking that pair of chopsticks was slightly easier. When something looks as pretty as this, you might be forgiven for judging it well even if it tasted a notch lower, but the chef at Leela clearly didn’t leave it to that. I’ll have to rephrase that. This is something that the chef’s had little role to play, since it was great quality sea food that wasn’t adulterated by anything. Not even the chef. The chef only made it look pretty and I must admit that he did a great job of making fish look pretty!

The single piece of salmon left me wanting for more. While I am a terrible eater of fish, sushi and sashimi, though paradoxically, are things that I’ve really learnt to enjoy. This salmon was simply brilliant. There is no other way to describe it. The flavours of the sea were intact without even a whiff of fishy aftertaste. The fat lines made sure the flavours were enhanced beautifully. A tamogoyaki, a kind of rolled omelette, was just the perfect thing to break the monotony of the sea. The pink, almost untouched tuna was beautifully fleshy!

The platter of sushi and sashimi simply took everything away from the rest of the meal. Yes, the tempura vegetables were nice, yes, the miso soup with the sticky rice was comforting, yes, the salad was fresh and had the Japanese flavours ticking the right boxes,no, the fish in the main course wasn’t my favourite, but the Bento box at Spectra, Leela Palace is simply about the platter. Nothing more, nothing less.

Priced from Rs 1200 onwards depending on what main course you choose, I would be super happy to simply get two such platters instead of a main course. 

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2sWSaeN

I love pop ups. Without having to worry about markets and sustainability, pop ups allow a peek into various cuisines that otherwise may not be feasible to operate in a city. Over the last few years, Ashvita Bistro has been bringing in chefs from around the country, both semi-professional home chefs with catering businesses and professional hotel chefs, to set up pop up festivals. When invited for their Vietnamese pre-launch dinner, I went waiting to be blown over by Vietnamese flavours and Phos.

Dinner started well, with a some Iced Vietnamese iced coffee. Though a tad on the sweeter side, it was refreshing and set the tone for the rest of the dinner. The first two courses arrived in a single plate. Fresh lettuce leaves with minced chicken and beautiful glass paper rolls stuffed with prawns were the two. The glass paper rolls had nice Asian flavours with loads of crunch and screamed the flavours out aloud.

And after that, it seemed like the rest of the dishes did not hear the first two courses and went off on their own journey. The soup bowl, while having a lot of elements, missed the most important one in a Vietnamese soup – a good broth. Clearly, this wasn’t cooked for long and with chicken in it, it probably can’t be cooked long enough for the flavours to embolden the broth. No amount of elements and condiments could make up for the carelessly prepared broth. Beyond a couple of spoons, I found it hard to keep going.

The next course tried to bring thing back on track, but barely managed it. The rice, again with a lot of Vietnamese elements, was a miss, but not as bad as the soup. The meat balls with whiffs of Asian flavours were the saving grace. I didn’t recognise the dessert, but it was very nice, though not Vietnamese at all. At this point, it didn’t matter anymore.

The chef at the end of the meal was super honest to say that this was her version of Vietnamese. She said that this was Vietnamese inspired at best, in trying to replicate plating and elements, but was also open to saying that there were limitations with ingredients and cooking techniques, so all the while, I was expecting a bold Vietnamese meal, but got just a whiff of it. Unfortunately this is what it was all about and if I had known that this was a Vietnamese inspired meal, I might have enjoyed it a lot more that I did.

The drawback to pop ups though are that some are great and some miss the mark and there have been some really good ones in the past. I’m looking forward to more pop ups and hoping more hit the bulls eye! A pop up, ideally should! A restaurant can customise to a palette, maybe even significantly customise to a community palette, but a 3 day pop up, shouldn’t. That of course is my POV! 

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2pRGzvN

Asian food has really taken India by storm. While it was limited to Indo-Chinese and Thai, now Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysian foods have become the new comfort eat out foods. While a restaurant each for the cuisines may not be feasible for all, the Pan Asian minus Japanese, I guess is going to be in for a while and seems to have taken out the sudden craze for mid eastern cuisine that was there for a bit.

Va Pho is a jugalbandi of everything. Is it a fine dine restaurant? Nope. Is it a coffee shop? Nope. It is a fun space that happens to serve food. There is an auto right at the entrance for photo-ops and selfie crazes. Walls full of graffiti. A large space with seats on three sides and two round tables in one corner that will be perfect for a large group that wants to nibble on food while playing scrabble. Oh, you don’t have to take your scrabble with you, they give it you. And chess. And some more board games. A high bar table with no bar! Comfy corner tables with some privacy. It is indeed a platter of things. A real fun atmosphere with a menu that comes with all inclusive prices, so what you see is what you pay.

I was there twice. Once with the wife and once with friends on the invite of Va Pho so I am going to try to focus on dishes. The soup, both times I had the Beef Pho soup. Light and warm, this definitely wasn’t the best pho and doesn’t stack upto Benjarong’s festival pho, but it is not pretending to be that either. Glass noodles were yum on the invite visit while the Spicy Malaysian fried rice was fantastic on my personal visit. It was really really spicy, but the tongue asked for more. Inspired by the Jungle Fried rice in Benjarong, the fried rice here is brilliant.

The bau buns are the next best things. Super soft, loaded buns with nice smoky chicken, but the thousand island type dressing spoilt it for me, so I asked for one without it and loved it without the sauce on top. The chicken satay for us with a modified peanut sauce was nice. I didn’t really like the dim sums. Rendang with coconut rice was also nice and tangy. The beef was soft and pretty much melt-in-the-mouth.

The chocolate dessert was fabulous. A nice mousse with a chocolate disc and the crumbs adding the crunch with the cherry was a beautiful dessert.

Va Pho is above Tex-Mex and Hot Breads on RK Salai, but with a dedicated entry via the side road, but valet parking is on the main road.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2nAD6nG

Take the dim sum out of the steamer. Dunk it in your mouth. Realise it is super hot and struggle to eat it. Then enjoy the second dim sum when it cools a bit! Right? Maybe, but when you have a curried dim sum, then it is a whole new ball game.
Nasi and Mee has been making waves in Chennai and I can see why. Promising Malaysian and Singaporean street food, the place itself is set up like a pub and the ambiance is inviting and laid back. With quirky stuff all over the walls and an almost Singapore hawker stall like feel albeit in a posh, up market set up, the place seems to have ticked all the boxes.
We were invited for the evening and were welcomed with a trio of welcome drinks, but nothing screams Malaysia more than Milo. Having a cult status in Malaysia and in parts of Singapore, the humble Milo maybe a health drink (a failed one at that) in India, but it is revered there. The Milo here was as good as the ones you get in Malaysia, chocolaty, a little dilute (since it is a thirst quencher and not a health drink) and chilled. The warm winter melon soup kicked off the proceedings and was a beautiful comforting soup, with large winter melons in a familiar Asian broth that my Indian palate was extremely comfortable with.
Then came the dim sum in question. I don’t remember having it before and so when the waiter said that the dim sum had soup in it, I was more than intrigued. I was asked to place the dim sum on a spoon,  poke a hole, let the steam out and slowly drink up the soup off the spoon and then dunk the whole dim sum in my mouth. There is a certain novelty value to the experience which over shadows the flavour of the craby soup, (yes, this is a crab soup in the dim sum).
The Nasi Lemak was the first main course to arrive. It looked very similar to the original Malaysian version, with the rice, peanuts and anchovies, but with an omelette instead of a boiled egg. The rice had the coconutty flavour while the anchovies were surprisingly and (for most of us, pleasantly) non-stinky, but the strong Belacan flavour of Malaysia was clearly missing in the entire meal. Now, this is not something that may go well with the crowd as the Belacan (shrimp paste) is what gives Malaysian food its strong pungent flavour, but there was almost no whiff of it anywhere in the meal. So this is a highly Indianised version of the Lemak. The Char Keow Teow is where I realised that Nasi and Mee is street food inspired at best and is not here to give you those flavours. A Char Keow Teow in the streets of Singapore will be a dark stir fried noodles and here it was no where close. The slightly burnt flavour that gives Char Keow Teow its distinct taste (with soy/fish sauce I think that is used by hawkers) was missing in its entirety. The Laksa arrived to much dismay as that wasn’t any Laksa curry that I’ve had. Not that I’ve had too many variations, but I simply didn’t know what it was.  The main course in general tasted excellent, but I felt like I ordered chilli chicken and was served an excellent butter chicken instead!
Dessert was definitely closer. I resisted from ordering a Chendol as I didn’t want to be served some payasam! Ice Kacang it was for me, while my friend ordered a fried ice cream. The Ice Kacang was excellent. It looked like the original and tasted very close to the ones you get in Singapore and Malaysia. It had the beans, the corn, peanuts, the green noodles and multiple flavours of ice. I should have ordered Chendol, I guess. The fried ice cream though is one of the best that I’ve in Chennai, with a crisp flavoured shell oozing out a nice vanilla ice cream. I believe they have multiple flavours for the fried ice cream.
The price point is killer. While I won’t be surprised if you asked to pay an entry fee to KNK Road in Nungambakkam, Nasi and Mee is priced extremely competitively. With most dishes priced around mid three hundred mark, a good meal for two at Rs. 1000 is doable with ease. With a nice ambiance and a street food inspired cuisine at a killer price point, Nasi and Mee should do well in Chennai. I understand that the restaurant needs to survive and do well more than making sure there was Belacan in your food, but I only wish that there were at least a few dishes (OK, at least 2 or 3) that could have retained the essence of the wonderful street food culture in those countries.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2kPYPBC

The proportion of meat and rice and veggies was almost as perfect as it could get for it to be a perfectly balanced meal! I guess every cuisine, especially the Eastern world cuisines, have these one pot meals. While most of them are soup based, donburi is entirely dry! Since Japan already has the Ramen bowl filled with rice, noodles and loads of veggies, it is quite amazing that they have a dry version of it with rice! And its got a nickname, DON. 

Three of us. Three non veg donburi on the menu! How convenient!?! A chicken, a beef and a seafood wala! The Chicken Katsu. Cabbage on a base of rice topped with three super large pieces of Chicken Katsu. The katsu is like supreme cuts of chicken, crumb fried! Quite hearty and we were all able to take a helping each.

The next dish was the best and since one of us in the party didn't eat beef, the two of us were lucky since it was one person less to share with! ;-) Sliced beef on a base of rice and cabbage with a side serving of a poached egg. The egg wasn't runny and I don't know if it is supposed to be, but the beef was super yummy and quite soft and the rice with its garlic overtones was yummy! Both the above were priced about Rs. 790.

Our friend's seafood donburi was the most meaty (and the most pricy at Rs. 1090). It had salmon, scallops, squid, prawns, some mushrooms, asparagus and cabbage on the same garlic-y fried rice! Personally, I don't like salmon in any other form than smoked, so I didn't like the fish part of the donburi, but the rest was all yum! They ran out of dessert, so we didn't get our sweet fix. Had to get some Tiramisu at Focaccia for the sweet fix!

Though called YAKINIKU, the restaurant menu also has some sushi, sashimi, soups and other Japanese stuff, so though the menu is limited, it does cover a lot of basics of Japanese cuisine. I believe they should make the donburi as part of their regular menu, because the three we ate were all super value for money considering it is a 5 star property! Yakiniku charges a 5% service charge on your bill! The festival is on till the 20th of November.

YAKINIKU is the restaurant that started off as a pop up and then became a full fledged, albeit small restaurant at Hyatt Regency Chennai! 

Secret to success? I'm sure there are many! Some may suit you and some may not! One that is absolutely essential (unless you win a lottery, which technically, is not success but getting rich) is pushing your limits! It could be anything. Today morning, I pushed my limit when I simply got out of bed! For a lazy @ss like me, that is pushing the limit. Or even eating at the same restaurant twice in two days. No wonder, I am sitting and writing a food blog!

Then there are others who push limits that are already stretched for the average Joe! When a post takes off on twitter and friends start cursing me for leaving them behind or not helping them get a reservation when Chef Vikram is in town, I had to push another limit! Go on the knees and request the chef to entertain friends for dinner. "I'm out of supply and we are fully booked," was the answer. "But I could do dessert like you guys did a few years back." Ear to ear grin. Don't know when I last stretched so much to smile. Yes, pushed the limit again.

"For half the price, chef said he could do dessert," I announced to friends. Nobody said anything except, "When?"

15 of us landed at Pan Asian at 9 PM where we saw some real limit-pushing!

Like how every meal should start, the dessert meal also started softly. Almond milk with strawberry foam! By the time we all licked it clean, the second course arrived. Steamed dumpling with berry gel and peppermint ice cream on a base of green tea! Yum!

"Vanilla crusted salmon," he announced as he placed the dishes on our table. There was a minute of stunned silence. The ladies were speechless, while we were trying to understand the statement. I mean, we eat dessert after main courses and especially after fish, but a dessert made of fish? I've had a 5 course meal made of chocolates at Park Hyatt and a few savoury dishes made of cocoa (duck breast and things like that) in Spain, but fish dessert? It had strawberry on top and some berry powder (chances are it was liquid-nitrogen-ised). The flavour of salmon was unmistakeable, but in a different avatar. Fabulous would be an understatement.

The vegetarians had a nice little cake instead of the salmon.

"Squid stuffed with chocolate," he said as he placed the next dish. Disbelief all around. Just as the brain was getting used to the salmon as a dessert, he hits us with squid. The squid itself was almost like panko fried, so very savoury elements, but the minute you cut across, chocolate oozed out! Squid flavour was there like any savoury dish, but the chocolate and the little mousse on the side made it dessert! There was brain freeze all over as the brain was battling to understand what is going on in the tongue!

Some people push limits. Others push your limits!

The final course was the dish that got Twitter and Facebook excited. The ladies were giggling as the roses got handed out to them to crack on the plate.

We paid Rs. 1084 nett/- per head and walked home with the head confused, but happy! 

Tian at ITC Maurya Sheraton, New Delhi has been eluding me for a while. Why Tian? That is where Chef Vikramjit Roy moved a couple of years back. During his few years here when he set up Pan Asian, it turned out to be a restaurant that served the whose who of Chennai. He developed a fan following! As a food writer, I was still getting my grip on writing about fine dining when I first met Vikram. As I've been more exposed to fine dining over the years, he has taken his food a couple of notches above. Over the years, we've connected over food. And that connection refuses to break, touch wood!

So when Vikram comes to Chennai, he is usually here on request to host something really big. And while he is here, he takes reservations from his fans and cooks up a storm. He was gracious enough to host us yesterday and a storm it was indeed.

You hear people serve art on the food. You hear of chefs tell a story through food. But not Vikram. He has to take it further! Dinner was the story of a Drop told via different art form via food! Since I am struggling to find words, I'll stick to trying my best to describe the dish.

It all started with a drop. A drop of lychee, but a transparent lychee as the amuse-bouche. Smoky. On top of a beetal leaf. The leaf to smell and the lychee to eat. Something amiss. Till you realise that the lychee has been juiced and then reformed into a sphere that makes it transparent! Genius.

Soup followed. A pumpkin soup served inside a bulb. Pumpkin soup always bring about the familiarity of that sweetness, but not here. With truffle pate and chilli oil, this was spicy and the small piece of bun to bite added some texture.

Salad course! A quinoa salad with mushrooms and pesto sauce with loads of micro veggies treated with liquid nitrogen or oxygen or malto-whatever! Stopped thinking after the last dinner here. Just mix everything together and enjoy!

The drop (remember the story?) now lands on concrete and splatters. This was represented by a prawn beautifully cooked with a black bean sauce served on top of cabbage mash!

When the drop lands on earth, it then spreads! Represented by the lobster carpaccio with micro greens and with burnt leeks! The art form used to depict this was coded graffiti which apparently used during Hitler's time to send across messages.

The drop moves towards the water and thanks to the story heading there, we get beautiful scallops on top of, hold your breath, herbed onion mash. I've had mashed potatoes and cabbage and beetroot, but onion? With the sand representing (literally) the crab, the sand itself was spicy. White and spicy? It was made with a Japanese fermented chilli paste and olives! A little too spicy and I wish I had something to wash it down.

Obviously when a chef who plans a 10 course meal to this level of perfection surely knows it was spicy, so he follows it up with a fantastic basil sorbet! Cools down your tongue and cleanses the palette!

Get set for main course. Ha ha. Indeed.

Chilean sea bass! Yum, but nothing prepared us for the next course! Pulled lamb lasagne! Not with pasta sheets, but with potatoes! Or was it pumpkin? I don't remember because the lamb was simply melt-in-the-mouth! Oh, before you taste the lamb, a thai curry was poured on top and some jasmine rice served on the sides! I finished the lasagna before I emptied the curry with rice! And satiety then hit me. How perfect? The 9th course is when you are full and you have just the space in the heart for dessert!

If the rest of the courses were exhilarating, dessert was exciting. Gives you a rose in hand and some art on the plate and he asks you to smash the rose on the plate. Before you realise what is going on, you end up following his instructions and the rose simply cracks open and smashes all over the plate! He gives you art and an art-tool and you complete the art!

Every single course was well thought out, with so many elements in each dish that all seamlessly blended together to give you a perfect dish. And every dish followed the previous dish seamlessly in flavour, depth and intensity to balance out the entire meal. The meal beautifully showcased the artist in the chef and the story that he wanted to convey. Now I want to see what he does in his 'home' kitchen at Tian, ITC Maurya.

Chef Vikram was in his second 'home', Pan Asian at ITC Grand Chola for a special event and took reservations for a limited number of guests during his stay here.  The meal was priced at Rs. 2250+ for guests.