Festivals, like pasta, comes in all shapes and sizes. There are regional cuisine festivals, festival based festivals, street food based festivals, but besides biriyani, I don’t remember a festival based on one dish. No other dish seems to deserve that kind of respect, but the chefs at Leela Palace have conferred that honour upon the pasta.

I could talk about the thin Agilo Olio, the beautiful Lamb Ragout or the Boccocini Gnocchi, but that will be of grave injustice to two dishes that took the cake and the baker’s wife! The Duck Cappellacci, that turned a non-duck fan into one. Duck has never been my cup of, well, tea. I’ve tried some ‘fabulous’ ones in Paris, a carpaccio by Vikram and a few more, but nothing had me ever hooked to duck. In fact, I avoid it and if I have to choose a main course with duck as an option and a vegetarian dish, I normally go for the vegetarian. The chef’s table hosted for us had me regretting for not choosing the duck. A beautiful duck confit with a nice smoky flavoured pink duck meat to complement a set of four cappellacci which was stuffed with duck meat on a base of artichoke puree and sun dried grapes was the dish of the day. My co-diner was kind enough to share a piece, but I would have loved an entire plate for myself.

Because it got me loving a meat that I avoid, I called it the dish of the day, but make no mistake. There was a vegetarian dish that could have put most meat dishes to shame on any given day. A pyramidoli, stuffed with mushrooms and truffle oil on a base of porcini mushroom sauce, shimeji mushrooms and parmesan crisps was a stunner of a dish. The beautifully nutty flavour of the shimeji mushrooms and the creamy porcini mushroom sauce added so much of flavour depth to the dish that it was difficult to stop eating. What was a Japanese mushroom doing in an Italian dish? I have no idea, but a mushroom similar to Shimeji also grows in Northern Europe, but hey, Italy is way south! So either way, it is beautiful how an ingredient that is out of place has actually added something to the dish. In this case, the thorn has made the rose a little more beautiful.

Available till the end of May, the pasta festival is available as a-la-carte on top of the massive Spectra buffet. Without the buffet, a meal for two will set you back by about Rs. 2500. 

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Festivals, like pasta, comes in all shapes and sizes. There are regional cuisine festivals, festival based festivals, street food based festivals, but besides biriyani, I don’t remember a festival based on one dish. No other dish seems to deserve that kind of respect, but the chefs at Leela Palace have conferred that honour upon the pasta.

I could talk about the thin Agilo Olio, the beautiful Lamb Ragout or the Boccocini Gnocchi, but that will be of grave injustice to two dishes that took the cake and the baker’s wife! The Duck Cappellacci, that turned a non-duck fan into one. Duck has never been my cup of, well, tea. I’ve tried some ‘fabulous’ ones in Paris, a carpaccio by Vikram and a few more, but nothing had me ever hooked to duck. In fact, I avoid it and if I have to choose a main course with duck as an option and a vegetarian dish, I normally go for the vegetarian. The chef’s table hosted for us had me regretting for not choosing the duck. A beautiful duck confit with a nice smoky flavoured pink duck meat to complement a set of four cappellacci which was stuffed with duck meat on a base of artichoke puree and sun dried grapes was the dish of the day. My co-diner was kind enough to share a piece, but I would have loved an entire plate for myself.

Because it got me loving a meat that I avoid, I called it the dish of the day, but make no mistake. There was a vegetarian dish that could have put most meat dishes to shame on any given day. A pyramidoli, stuffed with mushrooms and truffle oil on a base of porcini mushroom sauce, shimeji mushrooms and parmesan crisps was a stunner of a dish. The beautifully nutty flavour of the shimeji mushrooms and the creamy porcini mushroom sauce added so much of flavour depth to the dish that it was difficult to stop eating. What was a Japanese mushroom doing in an Italian dish? I have no idea, but a mushroom similar to Shimeji also grows in Northern Europe, but hey, Italy is way south! So either way, it is beautiful how an ingredient that is out of place has actually added something to the dish. In this case, the thorn has made the rose a little more beautiful.

Available till the end of May, the pasta festival is available as a-la-carte on top of the massive Spectra buffet. Without the buffet, a meal for two will set you back by about Rs. 2500. 

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After having some fantastic vegetarian foods around the city in both pure veg and in common restaurants, I am planning to make a visit to at least one veg restaurant every month! From a personal point of view, I want to understand vegetarian foods a lot more! While there are some fantastic foods that are vegetarian, only a handful of pure veg restaurants, I believe, do full justice to vegetarian foods. And I am out to find out who they are!

First stop that comes to mind is Little Italy. I remember their Nungambakkam outlet from a visit about 5 years ago when friends landed there and I joined them. Food was good, but didn't entice me to go back!

The Little Italy in Besant Nagar, though has a setting completely different from Nungambakkam. It is eclectic, classy and on Monday with current Chennai's beautiful weather, it was excellent. Particularly loved their vintage car parked in the open space! Wish they had seating there.

There were hits and misses. Let me lay out the misses first and we can move on! Pesto Risotto and Creamy white sauce Pasta were disastrous! Among the starters, the bread with corn dip was equally disastrous. The dip was way too dilute for me and the pasta and risotto were simply careless.

But I am going to focus on the dishes that were great! The crispy potato skins were simply excellent. I believe potatoes are the eight wonder of the world, but looks like potato skins should take that position! It had the saltiness with the right amount to heat and a dip to match. It was fantastic.

The stuffed mushroom were another dish that we finished up in total. Yummy! The Penne in Red Sauce was a nice warm pasta dish. The sauce was nice and not dilute and with the hint of garlic and generous olives, it was a very very nice pasta dish!

The best dishes of the days were the desserts! We had three desserts and all of them were yummy. The Tiramisu! Now, this may be the only Italian Restaurant I know which has two versions of Tiramisu. A classic one and then their version with Vanilla cream instead of Mascarpone. We had their version and it was excellent. The vanilla cream was a great replacement for the mascarpone and it was a dish well executed. This was followed by the Chocolate Bomb, a nice muddy, gooey, chocolate inside a chocolate shell served with Vanilla Ice cream. And a nice fresh jiggly wiggly panna cotta with fresh fruits!

A typical meal for two will cost about Rs. 1500.

Don't want to travel all the way to Besant Nagar? We've tied up with Dine In to get all of these to your house! Use the coupon code CFLI in the link and get Rs. 100 off* on your first order via Dine In at Little Italy! Coupon code will be valid from 24th June 2016.


*Terms and conditions of dinein.in will apply. This is an offer brought by a third party and Chennai Foody or its team cannot be held responsible for the outcome or consequences of the transaction between the reader and DINEIN.IN.

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. 

Places to host a little tea party are few and far apart. If there are, then you need to pick a fixed menu that varies between Rs. 400 and the sky and you get the same dish for everyone. Maybe okay for birthday party with 10-20 kids, but with three kids and 15 adults, my friend wasn't happy with a Rs. 650 plus tax for juice, soup, pizza/pasta and dessert type menu. Jonah's came to mind. I've been meaning to write about this place for a while, but never did. What stuck to my mind though was the little 16 seater part of the restaurant that is cut off from the rest and can be the right party place for a small crowd. And being a small place, a-la-carte would be great, we thought.

So after discussions, my friend decided to do it. We just blocked off the place for 16 people. Jonah's being Jonah's with their outstanding customer service that I wrote a few times about on social media, had absolutely no qualms about bringing a cake from outside. The kid's mom wanted a theme cake and Jonah's was super cool about it. Place was blocked and we had a blast. The ladies ensured that dishes that landed on their tables did not leave their tables!! The men though had to send what landed in our tables to the ladies. If not, there were glares!!!

I remember we ordering stuff left right and centre but these are the dishes that come to my mind!! Chilly fries - yum yum yum. We ordered almost three plates. Crab cakes - with six vegetarians and others not too fond of crab, just one portion was enough for the four of us who ate. The paneer with rice and gravy was yum!!! The fried calamari was equally yum.

At their Besant Nagar outlet, I had written about the really dry burger. Here it was juicy and nice. One interesting dish on the menu was the steak burger pizza. Its essentially the burger patty on the pizza for those who want to have the best of both worlds. I did not like it at all!!! There were lots more, but thats all I took photos of!!!

The bill for 15 adults and 3 kids was Rs. 9000 after a 15% discount that they offered for a group booking, which ended up being a steal for the amount and variety of food we had. Definitely better than the same soup starter pizza and a stale cake for Rs. 650 plus tax!!!! The minion cake was baked by Afsar's Magic Oven (9994088522)

Jonah's is on Kasthuri Rangan Road, the road next to the old Chola Sheraton, a few meters further down the Russian Culture Centre. 

Every once in a while comes along a place that seems just honest. No corporate overheads. No fancy stuff. Just a simple menu with food that is from the heart. I wrote about Fusilli Reasons, now I found another such place. Pasta Avenue diagonally opposite the Apollo Children's Hospital is now my go to place for comfort food. Menu is a little elaborate and so food takes a while to come to your table. Gladly there are only about 10 seats, so worst case your order will take about 20 minutes. Bet you, it will be worth it.

Been there about three times now and every time, we try one of their fries. First the Chettinad spiced fries. Then the chilly cheese fries. Both were very nice. But their names calls for Pasta and every pasta we had over the last week was awesome. A fantastic Pasta Bolognese loaded with meat. This is where the honesty part comes in. It was loaded with meat. Really loaded with meat. The Pesto pasta was pretty awesome too. I only wish the garlic bread was a little bigger. It was yum, but small. The portions of the pasta were quite nice. Once we had a very nice bitter chocolate fondue which came with a wide variety of stuff to dip and eat, but the next time we had a very tasty, but slightly soggy custard waffle!

Typical bills for two are always around the Rs 750 mark!!!! Service is quite slow, but very friendly. In times of bad Iftar options, Pasta Avenue came as a saviour when we needed something for Iftar

Comfort Pasta? Is that possible for a Tamilian? I didn't think so, but after Friday night, I've found a new comfort food. Seriously, how can you find a new comfort food? Isn't that something that grows on you over time? That is what I thought too, but after a quick dinner at Fusilli reasons, perception has changed.

So, I've been hearing a few good things about Fusilli Reasons and when my cousin wanted to catchup, I suggested that place. Took me a few rounds before I found it and was shocked to see the size of the place. Almost a hole in the wall place that can seat about 10 people if cramped, wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Because of the all the good reviews, we decided to stay back and eat. And that was the best decision of last week!

The menu is written on the wall and let me list it out - 3 types of garlic bread, 4 types of pasta, nachos, and two drinks. That's it. The garlic breads are 30 bucks for three pieces, the pasta and the nachos are 90 bucks. The drinks are 20. Simple. Just like the food.

I asked for an assorted garlic bread and I got three, with different mayos on top. Nice and simple, it was gone in no time. The nachos wasn't exactly Mexican, but it had the essence of it. It wasn't corn chips with dips, but with a nice really saucy sauce on top. Loved it. The pasta was similar to the nachos and next time, I'm going to be trying the other pastas because I loved that too. I so wish they add a few more things to their menu!!!

Fusilli Reasons is off Ormes Road (the road that has Bains School), in a street called Dr. Vasudevan Road, diagonally opposite Paramount Hotel. We need more such places in Chennai, or maybe there are more such places and I need to get to all of them soon! Next stop - to try some Atho in Chennai! 

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!

When this friend of mine said that he was going to Spaghetti Kitchen, I asked him where it was! He almost threw a fit. "What?" "You don't know where it is?" "Are you really Chennai Foody?" were some of the abuses I had to endure. "Dude, its the latest thing in Italian and it is on the top floor of Express Avenue mall," he said, finally answering my question. As I learnt a day later, it is at the Phoenix Mall! So much for our friend's knowledge! On a saturday night, after returning the abuses, four of landed there and the place wasn't full, but was reasonably packed. Blame it on the exams? After Focaccia, my taste for Italian went up one notch and after a great lunch at Tuscana the previous day, I was telling myself to keep expectations under check.

After settling down, we asked for a Burnt Tomato and Basil soup as recommended by the waiter and all four of us liked it very much. It had a very slight burnt tomato flavour and though not as good as the burnt tomato in other places (none in Chennai, though), the soup was good enough for a restaurant in a mall! Next up was the Sicilian Garlic Chicken, plated with a little crisp on top. With a heavy tomato base and a well done chicken, it was pretty good.

Moving to the main course, we told the waiter that the soup and the starter had similar flavours and so we wanted something different for the main course. After a short discussion, we narrowed it down to Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli, a Chicken in Tomato and Basil Spaghetti after specifically asking and being reassured that it will not taste the same as the soup and a Our Famous Black Pepper Chicken!
Two of the dishes, the spaghetti and the ravioli tasted the same as the soup and the starter. Even though the waiter suggested it, we should have known better. The Famous Black pepper chicken was excellent and the olive filled mash was a super side to it!!!

We then moved to dessert and in an Italian restaurant that you visit for the first time, Tiramisu should be an automatic choice, so we went with one of that and a Triple Chocolate Biscotti. The triple chocolate biscotti was an outstanding dessert, being creamy, chocolaty and crispy all at the same time. But the tiramisu was a stark disappointment. There was almost no layer of ladyfinger soaked in espresso save for a tiny layer and it was all cream. We told the chef that and he said that this was their style. Since we left it largely untouched, we were not charged for it.

I liked the quality of the food here and maybe next time, I will ensure that I get to try different flavours instead of the one red sauce that dominated most of the dishes and that way I will know if this place has versatility or not, but for now, we have another good addition to the Italian scene in Chennai, but with a very disappointing Tiramisu!