The best way to dismiss Churros is to call it ‘simply fried dough.’ Remember though that some of the greatest pleasures in food are simple things done well. Simple things done shabbily are more the norm now. Churros is not native to India, so there is no reason why it should be on menus when the art of destroying the dish is so easy to master. And then it will be called fried dough. Duh! Thankfully, one place, and so far ONLY one place in Chennai has managed to keep the Churros flag flying. At least every time I’ve had it, it has been done to near perfect. Flying Elephant’s Sunday brunch is one where you get caramel, chocolate sauce and a beautiful apple cinnamon kind of dip to dunk you churros in. And slowly revel.

Anyways. As you might know, I hate buffets and Sunday brunches are no different. Circa 2008-2012 (yeah, I know, it is not very long ago), brunches cropped up in the city and the torch bearers did a great job. The crowd joined in and brunches were reduced to large poor quality lunches with number of dishes becoming the selling point. And I’ve stayed away for the most part. Being invited for the Park Hyatt’s chefs on tour closing brunch where three exec chefs were around was the perfect way to start my rediscovery of the city’s brunches. While I’ve always spoken about this restaurant and the hotel’s penchant for quality over quantity, they’ve taken that philosophy to their brunch.

While there were many excellent dishes, I can pick a few of them that stood out. And if you have eight great dishes, it wouldn’t matter if the rest of the brunch had only ten of if it had three thousand dishes to choose from. But you need to get those eight right!

Park Hyatt Hyderabad’s super tall chef served up a black risotto on the lines of the ones you get in Las Vegas. Perfect al dente rice with the bite, squid ink to give it both the blank colour and whiff of the flavours of the sea, parmesan cheese giving it that cheesy flavour, combined to give you a burst of flavour in your mouth. Chef 1. Check.

Park Hyatt Goa’s executive chef is an Argentinian. Which probably explains why the Argentinian grill counter replaced the usual grill they have. I’ve not had Argentinian cuisine, but I certainly didn’t need to know the cuisine to enjoy this grill plate. I asked for a lamb chops and prawn grill from the live counter. The beautifully frenched lamb chops arrived clean with a plate of beautiful prawns. Just grilled with almost nothing on it but the three sauces that they were served with did all the magic. Flavours of cinnamon, greens and sweet all for you to choose and mix n match. Chef 2. Check.

What I was looking forward to the most was Chef Teku’s counters. I haven’t really had a chance to have his food and his Asian counter was a feast to the eyes. The Ayam Gravy with white rice and the Nasi Goreng served on the table were all I had from him. All I needed to get my Asian fix for the day. The Ayam gravy was rich with classic Asian flavours and a strong coconut base with beautifully cooked and flavoured chicken. The Nasi goreng was brave with the strong Malaysian scents and prawn crackers with the fried egg.

This was a true brunch with breakfast options and we loved the runny yolk (Ok, I loved) on an English muffin with hollandaise sauce and spinach. The Egg Florentine, one the of stand out dishes of the breakfast at Park Hyatt makes an appearance in the brunch too.

Dessert. Now, this needs a separate blog post, but I am going to attempt to sum it up. Simply, the best spread of dessert in any buffet in Chennai. Again, not my the number of dishes, but by the quality. The shabby looking green dish on the platter was the best of the lot. Asian pancakes with coconut filling. With flavours of Pandan (or was it something else?) steeped well into the batter giving it the green colour and the coconut stuffing playing the perfect folly to balance the dish, this was the pick of the day. Oh, did I talk about the Churros?

The Matcha Green tea profiterole was a super clever dish. Everything you like about the profiterole like the chewy cheux pastry with a creamy filling, the matcha green tea flavours added a nice new dimension to the classic, with the tea cutting through the sweetness. I could go on about the other dessert and the other things I ate, but if you have these on your buffet, you’ve got a great buffet.

Oh, you can use the roof top infinity pool till 6 pm while the kids can play in the specifically designated kids zone, complete with balloon makers, so this is like a perfect family day out! The non alcohol brunch is priced at Rs. 2650 net and they also have alcoholic and champagne brunch options.

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I'm sure you know of my paradox. Loving breakfast but not wanting to get up for it. Especially Sunday. And an Asian Brunch? Where I know there are no waffles and pancakes and dosas. Forget it. Did it once for Chef Vikram at Pan Asian and would do it every Sunday for his food, but otherwise an Asian Brunch on Sunday is not very appealing for someone like me who struggles to wake up for dinner on Sundays, forget brunch.

But a new chef is in town. And he has stepped into the shoes of somebody I (and a lot of foodies in Chennai) adored and loved and while we wished him the very best for Tian (ITC Maurya, New Delhi), we secretly wished he stayed back here. I know it is going to be unfair to compare two chefs, but with Pan Asian it would be inevitable.

Especially if we are doing a chef's table where good is not enough. Excellent is the only way out. At a chef's table nothing matters. Not the name of the restaurant, not the waiters, the service, nothing. Its the chef all the way!

Our brunch started off with a Sashimi. Presentation was fantastic and portions sizes were perfect when you need the space for a 9-10 course meal. While the premium fatty tuna and salmon was great,  what I loved even more where the subtle ones - the fresh wasabi. I've never seen what it looks like and have never tasted a freshly grated one and I loved every morsel of it. It is less pungent, but equally flavourful and added a beautiful element to the sashimi. This with the Shisho leaf and Hanaho flower made up a great first course. Oh, there was little sea urchin full of flavour sitting right at front of the plate! Bang, we're on!

Next came a stunning Asian interpretation of the classic Fish n Chips. At least the fish part of it. A crispy fried John Dory (not the man, the fish), with a hint of garlic and chilli, shaped like hand cut potatoes fries. Everything about the dish was great!

This was followed by another first for me, a scallop dim sum with salmon caviar (or caviar-like). It was a different experience to have scallop in this form and lovely nonetheless. This was followed by the the grilled black cod that was mouth watering, but the smaller element, the poached pears were refreshing and added beautiful supplement to the dish.

Then came the course I had to refuse to complete. Completely didn't like the duck at all. While I'm not a fan of duck meat, in most chef tables, I end up liking them, but not here. Completely put me off!

Thankfully, the duck was followed by a beautiful lamb! Again, while the lamb was great and all, the chef added an interesting element, a hand rolled puff pastry, like a cigar that complemented the lamb really well!

Then came two not so great courses to finish off. While the platter with the chilean sea bass yellow curry and wok tossed lamb came with noodles and jasmine rice, it was non-flattering and simply did not live up to the first three quarters of the meal.

Desserts were a hit and miss. The platter had some strawberry with yuzu, a chocolate and hazelnut thingy and a macaron. While the chocolate hazelnut stuff ( I don't know what to call it) was yum, it was the only thing in the platter that was nice. The macaron was soggy and the yuzu curd with strawberries were blah!

The first set of courses more than made up for the last two as we were stuffed. While theatrics are minimal here with the focus on plating with ice and smoky, Pan Asian has an able new chef at the helm and I would like to look out for him and hope to discover more of his food.

I also have the feeling to just take a plane and go to Delhi and go to Tian right away!!!

Brunch at Pan Asian without Sashimi costs Rs. 2350 nett/ and the one with Sashimi is Rs. 1000 more per person. There is no buffet, the chef just doles out course after course and all you have to do is make the decision of veg or non veg, sit back and enjoy. And long. We went it at 1 PM and left at 430 PM, so it is a nice long brunch!

There used to be a joke that was doing the rounds in food meet ups. 'I want the largest buffet with lot of non veg options with alcohol, max budget Rs. 500.' A popular stand up comedian in Chennai used this left right and centre. Food forums were flooded with these requests. In the era of the 5 star brunches priced upward of Rs. 2000 nett/, the joke may actually not work anymore. OK, not 500 bucks, but at 1300 bucks, the large Sunday Brunch at Gateway Taj is really LARGE.

It starts right at the lobby. Yep, you enter the hotel and food stares at you. Besides the large dessert section, there is a live counter doling out French Toasts and Crepes and the likes. I couldn't resist and despite recommendations from that chef to try these for dessert, I insisted on having them straight away. The cinnamon kissed French toast was fab! Unlike most places, this is a nice thick, almost French baguette that is dipped and served!! Besides the fact that few places actually serve breakfast in their brunch and serve a glorified lunch, it was nice to see breakfast stuff!!!

The problem with these large brunches is that everything tends to be okayish. You can take a couple of mouthful of everything and by the time you taste everything, you would be full! This wasn't the case here. The food was of quality and taste that is definitely better than most brunches in the city (OK, technically this is out side city, New Chennai, sort of).......

While there is no way to jot down every dish, there were some super favourites. The Broccoli Almond soup was yum. The Madurai dosa, essentially chicken/egg or both paste on the kal dosas were yum. The starters - a little cannelloni was nice. This stuffed zucchini and the grilled sweet potatoes were excellent.

Then the Indianised version of Eggs Benedict and Scottish Eggs, both with fully cooked yolks. Now that I have started enjoying the runny eggs, I thought these weren't great, but the chef said that people complained about eggs 'not being cooked properly,' so they've decided to cook them up. Can't fault that.

A smart South Indian section with rice, a yum biriyani and lots of gravies with six types of papads and four types of raithas. Really thought out well for the local population.

Disappointments? Yes. The cheese counter wasn't great. All hard cheeses and no soft cheese. The Japanese counter was extremely limited with only vegetarian sushi. Really? C'mon. But the honey glazed chicken from the Oriental kitchen (the other restaurant that is part of the Sunday brunch) was fabulous. Breads were also disappointing with not-so-great croissants and others. But with so many good things at a killer price point, one can't really complain.

Desserts are the weak links in most places and here they've made sure it doesn't happen as they have the live pancakes, crepes and toasts, so that is a safe haven. Besides, there were at least three biscuit type ones that were lovely.

You can take a dip in the pool if you want to. For free. Spa at 20% off. Considering the drive, this is like a long weekend drive up, soak up, massage up, eat up and get driven back. There is a little table for kids with an elaborate spread of finger foods, breads, mini pizzas, mini burgers for the kids.  I wasn't planning to take up the invite, but with a friend going and me not having to drive, I'm glad I went. Missed taking my swim shorts though and planning to take the family back soon.

P.S There is a live bar counter with a bar-tender who doles out cocktails and mocktails, the alcohol version is Rs. 1600 plus taxes. 

The last time we had the Saturday brunch at Focaccia, Roberto was around. It was a client meeting and he stunned them all. The meeting went well. The two times I went after the chef left, I came out feeling, 'I miss Roberto.' The risottos and tiramisu and the things he could do were simply excellent. He is an Italian after all. I was excited when I heard the another Italian chef is going to take over Focaccia. Being the only Saturday brunch in the city, Focaccia has a clientele that is hard to take away. I mayn't be able to understand why the newly expanded brunch came before the new chef, but I guess it was time. You had to make up for not having Roberto.

So my friend from Germany, who with his wife is a self proclaimed Italian specialist with their vast eating out in Italy, joined me for brunch. It looked fabulous. There were crabs and fish and large prawns for the grills, an extensive dessert counter, a mellowed down cheese counter (actually no Italian cheese that I can remember seeing), a live pasta station with varied colours of pasta, frittatas and nice main course counter. Everything looked good on paper and definitely lived up to its new name, Il Grande Pranzo. It was definitely grand! And big! OK, same thing in Italian.

I was hoping I won't miss the old chef. It didn't start off that way, though. The pizzas weren't great. The frittatas were cold and dry and definitely not what I was expecting. Cheeses weren't exciting.

Then some good stuff came along. A couple of salads and starters were excellent. There was a nice little glass of chicken with zucchini which I loved and some beef that was tender. Grilled meats were nice. Then very good stuff came along. A fantastic roast lamb that was placed on the main course was yummy. There was a lot of basting sauce for you to make as saucy as you like and we loved it. The cannelloni was excellent for me too and along with the potatoes were the nice things in the main course.

Then came the excellent stuff. The risotto. Now, good risotto is a rarity in Chennai and the old chef was a master at it. Every risotto that we had that day were excellent, so I guess the chef making it live was good at it and mayn't have been by chance. I had one with chicken that was perfect. It had the bite to it and the sauce was yum. My hard-to-please-pseudo-Italian-German-settled friend finally had a smile on his face. His pastas was excellent too and I certainly did not miss Roberto here.

The dessert counter is so big that you can't go wrong. While classic Italian stuff like the Tiramisu, which didn't have enough coffee hit, and Panna cotta without that wobbly texture weren't great, the tart was excellent and the poppers on the stick were great. We filled a plate with dessert and were happy.

For me, this was a large Saturday brunch and because its quite large, you will find enough stuff to make it worth it. As of now, its the only Saturday brunch in the city and does get filled. At 1350 plus tax which ends up around 1600, it is certainly not expensive compared to the overpriced Sunday brunches in most places. But I still miss the old chef and I am looking forward to the person who is going to take his place. 

There is only one thing better than brunch on a Sunday. Sleeping in. But at times, there is pressure from the family to step out on Sunday and so, gladly, there is something that is nice in the form of brunch. While brunches in the city were getting passé, thankfully, some are working on reinventing the brunches. There are places which pass of lunches as brunches and such, but slowly, I believe, some restaurants are getting creative and really working on that brunch. 

Colony, the newly revamped coffee shop at Rain Tree, St. Mary's road has started off a nice note. With a new chef at the helm and the manager from Marriott (for me, the Marriott brunches of 2010/11, till date were the best. Even they are not able recreate what Chef Girish had at the time), the brunch has a focus, not on quantity but on quality. 

The restaurant has a nice look and feel to it. With a casual sit out space which could be ideal for the brunch, I like the starters on the table concept. Really, the entire brunch should be served on the table like Pan Asian does, but this is a start. OK, back to the ambiance. If you go, make sure you don't miss the part of the brunch that is in the sit out, because if you are inside, you might completely miss out the waffles and french toasts and the breakfast part of the brunch. 

A nice spread of starters are served on the table and the best of the lot was the chef special prawns. Wrapped in banana leaf and bordering on the polichadhu flavours, this was bang on. The tikkis, the veg galouti and the chicken were very similar to what we get in most places, so nothing special there. The egg florentine was super nice. The salmon was smoked to perfection that day and we simply loved it. 

Off the buffet, the roasted lamb with potatoes was our dish of the day. Besides that, the beetroot mashed potato was awesome, especially since I don't remember having such a dish before. The beetroot as just there and did not overpower the potatoes. The Indian selection was rather small and the paneer was the only thing we liked. 

Surprisingly the desserts, which looked liked the usual buffet desserts had a few very nice dishes in them. The mango soufflé was fabulous while the kiwi cooler was awesome. We completely missed the waffles and french toast counters as we were sitting inside, so I can't comment on those. I also heard that these guys have a fabulous Filter Coffee Panacotta which wasn't on the menu that day, so we missed it, but I have been hearing such raving reviews of it, that I feel like going and ordering a-la-carte. We were stuffed after the brunch and the only reason why I didn't have it the other day. 

Colony is the newly revamped and opened Coffee Shop at Raintree, St. Mary's road and the brunch is priced at Rs. 1850 for the non alcoholic, while the alcohol is priced at Rs. 500 or so more. 

Sometimes the restaurants just don't cut it. Neither do people. Lazy Sunday, want a brunch, but don't want to step out. All brunches don't have pancakes. Don't want to wake up early and head for breakfast. Feel like cooking, but don't want to cook too much. Want to make pasta, but don't want to make the pasta from scratch! Contradictions, contradictions. Life is so full of them! The want-to vs the to-do list rarely matches. Especially on Sundays. So when that happened and the family wanted a brunch, I decided to cook the brunch. Not the chef type cooking, but the lazy man type cooking. And therefore almost everything that went into making food was food itself!

The Menu

Hash Browns; flaky style.
Missing in all brunches, so Pancakes.
Since there was mood for Mexican, Tacos.
And the mood for Italian, so Pasta
And the mood for dessert, so lazy man ice-cream.
What's brunch without some tea, so English Breakfast tea!

So, first the preps!

Hash Browns:

Easy peasy. 3 large potatoes, grated with a cheese grater or any other instrument that makes it thin and long, pinch of salt, generous amounts of oregano, mix and set aside. The most important thing here is that the potatoes must be as dry as possible!
1 down, 5 to go!

Pancake:

This is the lazy man cooking brunch, I picked a box of Betty Cooper pancake mix! 1/2 a box with one egg and 350 ml milk. Mix and make the batter. Set aside. Two down.

Pasta:

I didn't make the pasta from scratch, so I used Barilla spaghetti, so no prep there. Sunday brunch by a lazy man, so no making the sauce too. I used the Barilla Zuchini Pasta sauce, so no prep there. For the chicken, I beat down two breast pieces to even them out and dried them with a kitchen cloth. Marinate with salt, pepper and lime juice for a while. Grate parmesan cheese and mix with equal portions of bread crumbs. Beat an egg and keep in a separate bowl. Prep over. 3 down.

Tacos:

This took the longest time to prep, but also ended being great, so it was well worth it. I bought a Salsito taco kit which came with 12 tacos, a taco seasoning mix and a taco sauce. I had soaked a bowl of rajma in water the previous night. You will need to set aside 400g of minced chicken, but do not add any seasoning to it. Slice lettuce into small pieces and keep a can of American sweet corn and Sour Cream ready. 4 down.

Banana Ice Cream:

Slice four bananas into inch thick pieces and freeze overnight. Prep over. Simple.

Now the cooking!

Start with the tacos as they take the longest to cook. Heat a deep cooking vessel with a dash of oil and drop the minced meat inside for a minute to just coat it. Add the Salsito taco mix to the vessel and mix well and soon as it is coated around the chicken, add two glasses of water and cook until the water almost evaporates. Make sure that you don't over cook, as the chicken should be juicy and not dry. For 400g, it took me about 10-12 minutes.

Get a pan lightly greased with olive oil and keep it over the stove till it is hot. Take a piece of the marinated chicken breast, dip it in the beaten egg mix, coat it with the parmesan - bread crumb mix and shallow fry it. Typically it should take about 4-5 minutes before one side is golden brown and once it gets that colour, turn it and cook the other side till it gets the colour, about 3-4 minutes. Ensure that you do not over cook the chicken, but equally important is to ensure that it is not undercooked. I cut the edge to make sure that the whole piece is white inside! While the chicken is cooking, its a good time to get the pasta rolling, so bring a rice cooking vessel with water to the boil with a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of olive oil. Once it gets boiling, the pasta should take about 8-10 minutes to become al-dente.

By this time time you should have both your tacos and the pasta ready to plate, so its best to keep them warm in the oven or in a hot box.

Now the last part of the cooking. In one pan, grease with some butter and oil and fry the pancakes till they are golden on one side before turing them to the other side. In another flat pan greased with olive  oil, pour a thin layer of the grated potatoes and fry till golden brown. Turning this around takes some practice, but it has to be done! Its okay if a few pieces don't turn properly! Both the pancakes and the hash browns should take about 10 minutes to get done. While these are getting done, you can heat the taco shells in the oven for about 2-3 minutes.

You can start plating the brunch tray now. Place four taco shells on the plate and put in a generous amount of rajma and minced chicken and top it off with american corn, grated cheese, lettuce leaves and top it off with the Salsito Taco salsa and some sour cream. I plated the pasta in a deep bowl which I filled with the pasta sauce, placed the pasta on the sauce and the breast piece on top and finished off with a little grated parmesan cheese. The pancakes can go on one side topped with your favourite topping, for me, this time it was Hershey's Strawberry syrup, but of course maple syrup would be great too and place the hash brown potatoes on another side for a fabulous brunch tray!

Dessert? Put the frozen banana slices in food processor and run it and in a few minutes you will have the lazy man's banana ice cream. Tea or coffee and you're done! Now. Start eating or sharing!