Oops. Leela Palace is in Chennai! After two bad episodes (though one was made up by the hotel), I forgot about Leela Palace. The fact that it is not on my way anywhere didn't make it difficult to forget and not having heard of food festivals here made it easy to wait to make a visit! When my friend reached out to give a Chef's table a shot, I wasn't too keen. When a fellow blogger, who now works close to Leela said that things are so much better now, I thought, maybe this is a good time to give it a shot.

Any restaurant which is full on a Monday evening needs to be studied. It was after dinner that I realised what I have been missing for so long! Oh man!

So this was a chef's table at China XO for their Seafood festival at the invite of the hotel. The dishes that came out were getting better, one after the other. Take the restaurant chef's Singapore experience with the mid eastern experience of the exec chef, Makwana, China XO is THE answer to Chennai's Chinese dining scene. Maybe along with Tao of Peng (though that is far far away in Mahabs), these are the only two places I can think of that dole out high quality Chinese food. While it had Asian twists and accents, it was Chinese at heart.

It started with the Lobster with Asparagus and Truffle dimsum. Supremely wonderful. The flavours of all the three were individually palpable. When the Chilean Sea Bass wrapped with the crisp stuff came along, the previous one was forgotten. This dish was even better! The fish was melt-in-your-mouth and with the crispness, was a beautiful dish. And then the best dimsum of the day, the LAKSA. This was innovative. I've never had such a dish before. Heck, I didn't even know you could have dimsum floating in a sauce! Here was a crab and prawn dimsum, shaped like a fish, floating in unmistakably Singaporean Laksa! I wanted to laugh. Having just had one piece each, I was looking for more.

And more was an understatement. The Lobster clear soup had Morel mushrooms in them! Whoa! I checked the menu to see the price of the soup and it was Rs. 750++. That mushroom costs about Rs. 20,000/kg! The broth was so yummy that at the risk of not being able to finish the meal, I dunked down the bowl into the tummy! And did not regret it!

Soft Shell crab. The only other version I've had is the semolina or rava coated and fried versions. This was something else. Stir fried with Asian spices and crisp, this was wonderful. I was starting to look for things to nitpick. Given the history with Leela, I wanted to pick out something. Ambiance. Nope, great. Empty restaurant? Nope, it was full, so clearly only I wasn't coming here and missing out! Service? Obviously difficult to judge when the chef is with you! Privacy was amazing! So many tables have their own rooms besides dedicated private dining rooms with divans and more opulence!

Time for main course! Singapore chilly crab and fried catch of the day with greens! The Singapore chilly crab was fabulous, but the Chinese fried buns that were served along with that was even better! The fried fish, presented beautifully in a deep fried fish was super yummy! We also got some Prawns in Garlic butter sauce that were silky. Apparently the butter was a French butter! Dessert was a nice platter of multiple stuff of which the almond jelly was the best. OK, nitpick time. Dessert simply didn't live upto the amazing dinner that far!

Crap. What was I missing out for the past two years! Time to do some Leela Palace eating over the next few months!

This Seafood Festival is on till the 11th of September at China XO.  A meal for two will set you back by about Rs. 4000 without alcohol! Opulence comes for free! 

Sometimes food is sooooooo good that you know it while looking at it. And then the rare thing happens. I eat it without photographing it! Really! Completely missed photographing the starters here! Oh so yum. And having a Mallu friend who certified the dishes really helped!

OK, so here is what is happening. Another buffet food festival, this time from Kerala and hosted at Hyatt Regency. The simplest of foods are the most difficult to make in a restaurant setting, I guess. When was the last time you felt at home in a restaurant? OK, why will you go to a restaurant to feel at home!?! Let me try again. When was the last time you felt like being in a friend's home when you visited a restaurant? Bingo!

There were two starters - a fried chicken and this awesome awesome thing called Mutton Ularthiyathu. Couldn't care less what that actually meant! It was soooooo yum. One look and though not pretty, it was love at first site. OK. At first Bite. And I don't have photographs to show it! Sorry. It was super nice, juicy, perfectly spiced and felt like eating in a friend's home. My mallu doctor friend certified the flavours, though I couldn't have cared if the flavours were Kerala or Kashmir. The fried chicken was super yummy, but didn't stand a chance near the mutton.

Main courses were simple and very home style. And there was another mutton, MUTTON KURUMILAGU something. Oh man! It was super yummy with the kerala parotta which was slightly disappointing as it wasn't as fluffy as the ones I am used to, but the gravy sort of made up for it. That with the Avial and Kerala Style Buttermilk was simply enough!!!!

Sweets with Kerala has to be some PRATHAMAN. We had one with Rice and one with Jackfruit, both ending the meal quite well!!

The festival is on till the 25th of April, 2016, so there is some time to get your hands on that mutton! 

If I had to choose one place that I look forward to eating in Bangalore, it will probably be Smoke House Deli. Located on the beautiful Indra Nagar 100 feet road with a black and white with red accents theme, this place has continental food that connects. This time around we were a big bunch and while it gives you the opportunity to taste a lot of dishes, it also means that not everybody will wait till you take photos. Some of them will make sure you don't. Keep them in mind when I get invited for a food festival next time! EVIL GRIN!

Three dishes stood out that night. One for being bad and two for being extremely good. The others were on par with Smoke House Deli's standards. We skipped starters and went straight into ordering a main course each.

The smoked chicken risotto, the first to arrive was the super hit. While it wasn't the perfect al-dente, it had supremely subtle flavours that was enjoyed by one and all! My dish, the chicken roulade penne was the other excellent dish. This one with a slightly, but nicely overpowering garlic with excellent red sauce and a fantastic chicken was a stand out. The other penne, a vegetarian version was supremely bad! The sauce was flavourless and the eater almost begged the rest of the table to help her finish it!!! The peri peri chicken along with the lamb shanks were the next best, but I got to eat only one spoon of them all!

When in Smoke House Deli, you need to leave space for dessert, even if that means skipping appetisers. We shared five desserts and each and every one of them was excellent. The chocolate tart with a tiny hint of peanut butter, creme brûlée, the awesome hazelnut bar, the panna cotta and cheesecake were all licked clean.

Being a big bunch, our bill was Rs. 6600 for 9 main courses and 5 dessert!!! This is like comfort continental food that is rarely off the mark!!! 

Why would somebody holiday in the same city? I mean, does that even make sense? I am not talking about holidaying about an hour's drive from the city, but about holidaying in a hotel, like 20 minutes from home! Anyway, we had to celebrate an occasion and we had decided to do something nice, but then I had to leave to MIT, Boston the very next day, so we decided to not entirely chuck our plans and holiday in the city. Essentially, a hotel stay.

If you are mad like us and decide to do something crazy like that, then options are not many. Or there are too many, depending on how you look at it. For us, there was only place to do something as crazy as that. The ITC Grand Chola. I mean, if you take one look at it, you will want to stay there. I didn't win a voucher, I didn't win a twitter contest, I didn't get invited. We just went to stay! And how often do you come across a hotel that is built to resemble a palace!?! Complete with a grand staircase!!

I walked to the check in, and immediately, we were VIPs. We were upgraded straight away. We were whisked away to an exclusive check in space for the upgraded rooms. We were given divans to wait on. And then shown our room. All of it, not by anyone, but an exclusive executive who showed us around as she took us to our room, which would be a suite in most hotels. If this wasn't a suite, wonder how the suite would have been here.

The essential part of a hotel stay is room service and that's the first thing we did when we got in. Room service. Usually we'd like to do sandwiches, but the sliders were interesting, so we ordered that. Lip smacking would be an understatement. Three superb mini burgers. A nice dip. Some potatoes. Heavenly.

Spa. Swim. Gym. Take your pick to while away time till dinner. My first choice was to hit Pan Asian, but I've been there so many times and chef Vikram wasn't there that day, so we thought of trying another place that I've been dying to try, Peshawari. But we were recommended to try out their sizzler festival at Cafe Mercara, so we took the recommendation. Only after we were seated did I realise that the menu was the same as the room service menu. So Peshawari is still on my to-do list now and I missed a great opportunity. Chef came in and explained the menu and I left it to him to choose our dinner after telling him our preferences.

We were served an excellent seared tuna, done rare with some molecular gastronomy type suff all around it. Excellent. And an outstanding French Onion Soup that was so full of flavour that we emptied it with the bread and cheese and we were almost full. The shepherd's pie wasn't outstanding and the caramel custard was nice, but we were stuffed with the salad and soup (and the sliders about 3 hours earlier) and we weren't paying attention to the average dishes.

Pampering didn't stop there. Since I had mentioned that we were celebrating a special occasion extra specially as I will be away for a month getting grilled at MIT, the special occasion got picked up and we were pampered like crazy. A fantastic box of macarons that we finished despite being full and a fantastic chocolate mousse cake that we had to doggy pack home the next day.

The only real disappointment was the breakfast. While it was not bad by any means, the standard of everything was so high that the breakfast paled in comparison. We were given a late check out and the pampering continued till we drove off.

That's why, if you're crazy enough to holiday in your Chennai hometown, there is only place for it!

I love trying cuisines and simple cooking techniques from other cuisines and this recipe that I ripped off from a Brazilian food show turned out so nice that it was licked clean and I was stared at for making 'very little.' When food turns out good, no amount is ever enough, so I can't be blamed. A farofa is Brazilian stuff made of tapioca flour and the main course is a name that I cannot pronounce (or spell), made of different parts of beef/lamb, but I made the whole thing with chicken and adjusted the cooking time accordingly. You should try this at home because if you do it right, it is easy and tasty! A detox patient of mine tried it because it had everything that was allowed for her to eat and raved about it!

So what do you need?

Chicken Breast, marinated for 45 minutes with salt and pepper ( I used two pieces of Real Good Chicken Breast Boneless)
2 cups of black beans, soaked overnight
2 small pieces of ginger, crushed.
1 clove of garlic, crushed.
1 chilly, sliced.
Cornflour
Butter
Oil
Salt
Water

For the farofa topping

Chicken salami
Ginger
Garlic
Butter
Bread crumbs (I toasted bread till hard and blitzed it)

To serve

A slice of orange
Steamed greens
Rice
Coriander

Start with a nice pot and add some olive oil and butter till the butter softens. Add the ginger, garlic and chilly one by one and stir for a bit. Add the black beans, enough water to cover the beans, some salt and simmer for about 20 minutes or till the beans are almost soft and then add the marinated chicken breast to the pot. Cook for a few minutes till the chicken is cooked through and add the cornflour (mixed in water) to thicken the sauce. Cook covered till the sauce thickens.

Farofa time. While the pot is boiling away, in a separate pan, add the butter to melt and add in the ginger,garlic and chicken salami and cook for a few minutes, till the salami starts to brown. Add the bread crumbs and cook till the flavour of the bread fills the air, about 4-5 minutes.

Serve with rice topped with coriander, a slice of orange, steamed greens, the black bean chicken gravy topped with the farofa.