A few months ago there was a tiny stall at a food exhibition that emitted some damn good smell. Intrigued, we walked in and sadly very few items were left. Clearly, the aromas reached more nostrils than I thought. Baked Parota. Lasagna styled Parota. Paya Ramen. Mexican Bhel. Clearly the guy who is doing this was nuts, I thought. We got the baked parota and as we dug in, we couldn’t wipe the smile off our faces. Soaked in a ‘salna‘, a form of thin gravy found in South Indian households, the parota was fabulous. Plus it had a smoky cheesy notes that probably came from the oven in which he baked something else before our dish.

Three days back, I met the guy behind this. He is nuts. What else can explain a finance company’s CEO with no chef training going around creating confusing flavours that is supposed to be the exclusive property of molecular gastronomy? As Manoj and The Park hosted me for dinner, course after course, came dishes with varying influences connected by two things. A story and no compromise on flavours. Everyday Exotics at The Park, curated by Manoj is an exotic take on every day dishes, but each one has been loved by somebody before going on the menu.

Like the Bombay Toast stuffed with chicken and pickles. Uh? Yes, uh! A sweet bread dish with pickles and chicken? Inspired by his son’s breakfast. That is the story. A Panko fried idly with spicy molaga podi (spicy chilly powder mix). Idly and Panko? Like really? I missed the Mexican Bhel at the exhibition, but thankfully it was on the menu here. All things Mexican tossed in Indian Bhel puri style.

Jack Slider. While I would call any vegetarian burger as Vada Pav, Manoj’s burger made me eat my words. A beautiful vegetarian slider. A Thai inspired burger, it had jackfruit in it and the lemongrass in the bun. In the BUN! So the flavour of lemongrass was unmistakable and overpowering, like it should be, but the jackfruit held its own as the patty. This is a vegetarian burger! Something that doesn’t have to be called the Vada Pav.

A vegetarian paya. Simply, that cannot exist. Cooked the ramen style, this had top ramen noodles in a paya. While they have the mutton paya, the veg paya was able to bring the soothing elements that the mutton paya brings. I almost wished I had fever, to relish it. Since a paya goes great with idiyappam (String hoppers), the stringy noodles were able to do justice.

The baked parota. Yay! As I was digging in, I could not but notice the smoky cheesy smell. I looked up. Did he bring the same oven? Or did he cook another dish that the parota took up the flavour? Apparently not. Apparently, it was intentional. To have a smoky flavour? A parota lasagna is creative enough, but to add a smoky BBQ flavour to an already Indo-Italian fusion? Are we aiming for World war here? So, Manoj keeps visiting Nagoor Dargah and in the streets of Nagoor, apparently they dole out parotas using stones that have been smoking for over two or three decades. And that infuses a smoky flavour into the parota that he wanted to recreate. Now, I want to go to Nagoor and eat that parota. More importantly, I could sleep. The baked parota at the food exhibition wasn’t a borrowed flavour.

I was too full for dessert, so I just picked a spoonful of the beautiful saffron ice cream and the chocolate, but was too overwhelmed to judge it. Maybe I will go back and have that. And the jack slider. And maybe the parota as well. Let’s see.

On till the 31st of July, Every Exotics is available both as a four course degustation and a-la-carte. At 899 for a four course degustation, it is ridiculously priced. A 5 star four course for under 1k? Awesomeness.

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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! 

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The juices from the pop up dinner at Food Consulate was just settling down in my tummy when I got the call. It was intriguing. I've heard of pop up dinners, but a pop up restaurant? Where does it pop up from? And what happens after the restaurant popped up and then went on to the next place? The whole thing was confusing for me and I actually cancelled an appointment to make it for the launch of this.

My confusion was put to rest when I saw that the bistro at Hyatt Regency was converted into this pop up. Ah. So it just didn't pop up in the middle of the lobby like I thought it might. But from a bistro to full Japanese? Nice job nevertheless. 

Being the opening day and with the restaurant filled with people, I think the little bistro wasn't prepared to handle the crowd. Waiters were running around, clearly overwhelmed. With the top honcho of Toshiba doing the honours (which I missed), I learnt that there was a Japanese population of about 30k people in Chennai. No wonder so many Japanese restaurants are coming up, popping or stable. OK, bad joke. 

By the time I went, friends had already gulped down a giant brinjal - done Japanese style. I saw a few orders going by and was tempted, but thought of the sushi and stuff to come along made me leave the brinjal alone. Unfortunately the sushi was blah for me. I like fatty salmon and that wasn't the case here, but there was something amiss in the sushi and I don't know what that is. Sashimi was just as average.

Leave those two and the rest were lovely. The Japanese pancake, though my friends thought was a little doughy, I really liked it. Its like a big stuffed pancake and since the non veg version had pork, I had to do with the veg. I think for meat lovers, the non veg might be a great option too, if you don't mind a nice dense savoury pancake. And the best dish of the day was they call the Niku Tofu. It's sliced beef in a broth served with fantastic tofu. Loved every morsel and would have liked the plate!!! The tempura prawns were also a little blah and something was missing in the batter. It wasn't entirely light, but there was definitely something wrong with the batter.

Dessert - I don't remember the name of the jelly like dessert as it was average, but the other one was excellent. A Green Tea Tiramisu. I've had their Green Tea Cheesecake in another restaurant (STIX) and wasn't impressed, but this was fantastic. Just the right amount of green tea for the flavours and lots of mascarpone. 

It's great that we are having pop up dinners and now even restaurants popping up. While these place had both good and bad (like most things), I really believe that this is the start for something that Chennai can start looking forward to when you are bored of the same old restaurants. Kudos for bringing this concept in. 

YAKINIKU stays popped up till the 10th of December! 

I've written about supper club a few times. Few because every time one starts, it doesn't last. I've been a part of at least three of four such clubs that never saw anything beyond the second chapter. So, I would not agree to the ad that said, it was the first time something like this was being done in Chennai, but that in no way takes away the beauty of a supper club. First things first - the food cost. So,  if you pay Rs. 1500 to a restaurant, about Rs 600-750 goes towards the cost of food. Not the KFC or other QSR, fast food types where it could be a lot lower, but I'm talking about a restaurant. In a supper club/pop up dinners etc, about 70-80% normally goes into the food costs, so there is a real value for money there. Its done by people absolutely passionate about the food, so no chef-by-mistake risks. But there are other risks - unlike a restaurant, if something goes wrong, they are not in a great position to correct stuff, but then anything has risks. Like finding hair in your food in a great restaurant.

Why I absolutely wanted to attend the Supper Club is because I felt they have a real chance of making this work in Chennai. A nice network via the CFG. A lot of chef friends. A lot of amateur chef waiting to make a mark. A lot of passionate foodies with a love for cooking who can showcase their stuff. Why I believe this might work is that instead of trying to make a supper club, this appears to be a platform for supper club. Fingers crossed.

Now, this is how the first event went. A 7 course meal cooked by two chefs who work at Indian Accent, Delhi, touted as the Best Restaurant in India where apparently you need to make a reservation at least 3 days in advance. Chef Vignesh Ramachandran and Chef Tushar Sood.

Tables were set nicely. In the limited space, effort was taken to make it look good. That set the tone. And like any supper club, the company is as important as the food and usually thats what makes it great. Here all of those rules were followed. Out of the 10 people who came, I knew only one other person, so it made for interesting conversation. While we were waiting for the food to start coming, we were served a little amuse-bouche, little balls of deep fried cheese. I didn't have a good feeling about the food when I had fried cheese for amuse-bouche.

The soup that followed erased all such doubts. A fresh watermelon Gazpacho was a great start to the evening. Watermelon 3 ways was the name and it had healthy doses of cheese, watermelon, balsamic balls and of course the Gazpacho. What I absolutely loved was the quantity of gazpacho. It was small, so it didn't feel like soup, but a like a light starter. Light and yummy, it set the tone for the next course. Fruits. Fruits? In a 7 course supper club meal? I started having doubts again, but one bite into the watermelon and the tongue had fizz. Fizz? Fruits and fizz? I thought my tongue was crazy and bit into the grapes. Fizz again. Whoa. The chef came out and explained that they fizzed up the fruits. Loved it and loved the creativity.

Then came the next two courses, one by one of course! Pun intended. A gnocchi that was a stunner. With the right amount of sauce, micro greens and cheese, this was an excellent dish. Though I'm not a big fan (at least not yet) of runny egg yolk, here it was yummy! I guess there is a way to cook (or not cook) the yolk too. This was followed by their take on Fish n Chips. This for me was a miss. Fish n Chips is usually fried right? Here it was baked. And chips? There was no chips, but instead a two little pieces of ready made potato papad. That for me in a supper club is an absolute no-no. The fish tasted great, but the dish a whole was miss for me.

Then two absolute winners. First the perfectly prepared and cooked Quail. Oh my God. With figs and a little potato patty, this was the clear winner and was absolutely yum. This was followed by the lamb with caramelised onions and together it was lip smacking.

And then beetroot for dessert. Beetroot? At best, I thought the way to have beetroot sweet was to make a halwa out of it. This was close. He stuffed sweet beetroot into a puff pasty and plated it with some ice cream and custard. All plated were licked clean!!!

There was service issues, but that is a part of most supper clubs as the tables are not usually manned by professionals. Given the quality of the food and the conversation at the tables, no one really remembered anything about service.

Priced at Rs. 1200 for non veg and Rs. 1100 for vegetarians, I thought this was brilliant. More importantly, I have a gut feeling that this may really take off this time. Might be slow, but may take off. And if it does, that would be amazing to the food scene in Chennai.

One more round of this is happening on the 14th and 15th of this month. You can call 9841445450 if you want to attend one of them.