fishy affair

gurgaon often known for it's mall culture everything over here being known for the sheen and not the content. it seems that it's all about how a place is packaged decides how successful it is. contrary to that we bumped in this small bengali food restaurant where sheen quotient is zero but every bite will make any bengali go nostalgic. if i have to rate it surely it's one of the TOP 3 Bengali Food Restaurants in NCR. City of Joy, Alaknanda takes the first place in my heart.
This new place is known as Lokenath Restaurant nothing glamorous about the decor or furnishing, just make yourself comfortable in basic set of chairs and table and ask for the menu which is nothing more than the take away flyer.
Make sure you order more than one dish not that the portions are less but it's worthwhile to overeat. We had enough of Pabda Jhaal (Pabda fish cooked in mustard gravy), Hilsa Fry (fried Hilsa fish), Kosha Mangsho (legendary mutton prepared in thick red gravy) and none of them made me regret the choice.

for those who are less carnivore in nature try their Aloo Dum and Loochi (preparation of potato in thick gravy served with poori's) and this an ex calcutta lady confirmed to be as good as they serve in calcutta. rest i don't have much idea about the veg dishes but they have enough of the traditional bengali vegetarian dishes too. Shookto, Aalo Posto etc...

So next time you wanna act fishy remember Lokenath.

Where: 1st floor, Honkong Bazaar, Sector-57, Gurgaon.

What : Authentic Bengali Food

How much :Rs.500 seems enough for two

 

Before you say “G O A”

A monsoon in Goa.
people say it's not the best time to go.
not quite right. the place looks amazing when it's raining.
though not much happens on the beach but the pale sand looks awesome under the dark grey sky. the contrast is just too striking.
if you want to keep shifting from one shack to another your choices are less. but not less enough for you to miss The Great Goan Culinary Experience.
be it the Goan Sausages or Pork Vindaloo or Prawn Balchao all this and lot more is available come rain or shine. one will always fall short of time to experience the spread out there.
well i think i should have another couple of weeks in hand to pay due respect to Goan Food.
from shacks to 5stars every place the first bite into the food will make sure you are taken aback by surprise.
even the 5stars don't shy away from making dishes spicy enough to maintain the authenticity of the original recipe. on the other hand the roadside or rather beachside shacks will make sure they make a dish mild enough if the original recipe asks for.
in Goa food comes first for some it will be Booze comes first but that's ok. beach, Booze and Brilliant Food goes hand in hand in Goa.
over here you find a Wine Shop or an Eatery before you finish saying "G O A".

Crab Butter Garlic @ Fishka, Village Majorda,
Adao Waddo, Salcette, South Goa

 

the bar @ Charcoal Cheese, Fort Aguada, North Goa

Local Lady serving fresh Goan Pork Sausages with Goan bread on the street in Margaon, South Goa

Lobster in Peri-Peri Sauce @ Martin's Corner, Betalbatim, South Goa

sheermaal

at times you come across the most unexpected things as you walk along the lanes of purani dilli. as we were walking through ballimaran to visit mirza ghalib's haveli a bit before these stacks of sheermaal took us by surprise. stacks of sheermaal made out of dough kneaded with milk and butter.
it's not for everybody, one needs to have an appetite to bite into those rotis. a perfect combination would be a pot full of mutton qorma to go along with a couple of sheermaals. though i have never been able to finish more than one of those in a go.
next time in purani dilli try one of those, it's gonna be a rich treat. 

Mazaar...

There are times when u want nothing else but a Naan and a Dal makhani from that favourite restaurant of yours round the corner.... and there are times whenu're inan experimental mood and wanna have food that u've never tasted b4...

Well I was in the mood for the latter... checked around on the internet, called up my well informed loyal advisor for food and finally zeroed down on a place in the by lanes of Lajpat Nagar called Mazaar... Though there was a time that i thought that Lajpat Nagar was only synonymus to "Repair Nagar".

Parking my car at the first place i found we walked around to figure out this place. Most of the ppl knew about Kabul.. another restaurant that serves Afghani Food... But i was hell bent upon going to Mazaar... So we took a rick and reached this place.

Well the place, quite contrary to what I had expected, was very nice. The place was well lit unlike those dingy dark sheds that ppl have restaurants in these days, and was very neat and somehow really comfortable and inviting. For a while I dint feel that I was in a restaurant but at someones Home in their dining hall or something. The others that were seated found us to be strangers. We looked like the foreigners out there, and after a while of uncomfortable stares and whispering, when they saw how indifferent I was to their unsaid remarks : ' you dont fit here'... they let us be and got back to slurping their Shorbas and ripping their meats.

The menu dint describe the food quite well, it only had the names and the same written in Arabic. So that dint quite work, so we called the server whowas this young boyish, fair guy who looked perfect in his pathani kurta and pyjama to help us out. We asked him straight and simple what should we have and he suggested the mutton tikka seekh, Borani Banjan and a Mantu, since we specified we were maasahaaris ( meat eaters) and we din wish to have rice.

The food took a while to arrive but was worth every second... The server had specified prior to the order that the food here was mildly spiced and was not high on heat at all...

So that made us quite ready for what was to arrive... TheMutton tikka seekh came in individual skewers which was quite aneye candy( me clearly ignoring the ghas phus beneath it). It was as explained low on spicy very unlike our traditional mutton seekh which at times either tastes of innumerable no. of spices or just the heat which takes away any flavor from the mouth. This was quite a relief and you could actually taste the succulent mutton with a hint of garlic and definately marinated in curd or sour cream.

The mantu was quite a twist in the tale. It turned out to be mutton mince stuffed momo's served like a chaat.. i.e. it was covered with curd and the final twist was that it was topped with dal. The description dint seem very inviting to me so I kept away from it for quite a while till i realised that my buddy was quite enjoying it. I finally gave in and tried a portion. Hmmmm... the Momo I would give a pass i've had way better but surprisingly i really liked the curd and dal combo which was laced with mint...

Finally, the Borani banjan was actually forced upon... for quite a few reasons... Its an Aubergine/ Egg Plant/ Brinjal based dish... Ppl who know me will be shocked, super shocked.... super duper shocked if I was to tell them that i Liked the dish. Well i did. :) It was actually really really nice. The aubergine were roasted in Sesame oil and preserved in the same... The dish was basically this marinated roasted aubergine peeled and scattered around topped with Sour cream and dried mint and the sesame oil poured all around... It tasted outstanding with the Bread that they provided with it. At the first look the bread looked humungous and thick and not palatable. But the minute i ripped it and soaked it into that oil it just transformed into a gourmet delicacy.

Well we had had enough to brag about but b4 we headed out we had to try the dessert but the options all spoke about ice cream.. and we were in no mood to be fed a scoop out of a 5L Mother dairy industrial ice cream pack ( thats what most hotels and restaurants serve u in their fashionable glasses). But then i had a glimpse of what was actually written Afghani Ice cream. So now i had to try that out. The ice cream tasted quite like our Kulfi but was more creamier and smoother and richer and cardomomy and just superb. Served on a bed of Ice and topped with nuts it was divine... though my buddy found it toooooo sweet ( he still finished all of it) i thought it was an A++++++++++... I hope u get my point.

And the best part was the food was pretty light, dint feel lethargic or super heavy post the meal. Was actually majorly excted about the bragging i was about to go ahead with...

So, the place is worth a visit for sure.

Where: E 86, Lajpat nagar 1.

What : Afghani Food

How much : We spent Rs. 700/-

Kebabi... Sirf Kebabi......

I dunno when it started. Who started it and why. All I know is that this guy in Urdu Bazaar, bang opposite Jama Masjid, next tothe shop that sells the Urdu magazines, sells some MEAN really Mean kebabs.

Lallu Kebabi has apparently been here for almost some 30-40 yrs and has scored with his Buff kebabs. Thanks to the " No beef" movement in Delhi, "Buff" is the base for these "morsels of hell". Well they do taste amazingly worth it, hence Hell is the call...

Skewered into the seekhs, each morsel happily rests on the hot, burning crimson like coal, deepening in flavor and enticing with its smoky aroma... Melt in the mouth, burst of flavors, perfectly charred, delectably smoky...

They serve both the Seekh kebab and the tikka... I prefer the tikka, not that the seekh is any less.. but i don like minced meat too much... i feel the identity just gets lost... and the spices predominate... Its the same here.. though since its buff the flavor is strong enough to identify the meat, but the tikka always seems more Rustic and meaty to me...

The place, the shop, the Butchery... aint for the week at heart, i can guarantee... Gory enough for a vegetarian or a timid non vegetarian to scream and run for a while...

Shops like these are scattered around in purani dilli, but a specialised buff place is rare...

Walkin through the streets one realises... abhi to bahut kuchh chakhna baaki hai...

" Cream Roll Laya huuuunnn !"

Unlike Delhi... Street food in Gurgaon is pretty uncommon... U really don get too many redhi/ thela wallas here... So the sight of this Cream roll guy made me jump with joy...

Cream roll was somethin we used to enjoy as kids.. a small little sweet treat fresh from the bakery...Its simply: Light Whipped cream stuffed into puff pastry rolls.. But that got taken over by the packaged cartons of cream wafers and stuff like that. Not as fresh and light as we used to get. and definately not at that price.

This guy, is one of the 120 ppl employed at a Ghaziabad bakery, who is given a 100 rolls to sell during the day and get back with the cash or the left over rolls. He catches the metro with his box well packed in a steel briefcase, gets off at the Sikanderpur station and leaves his briefcase there, and roams around satisfying many a sweet tooth.

I found him screaming at the top of his voice, " Cream roll laya huunnn" near the Sikanderpur metro station where all the wicker Furniture guys are. To tell you the truth at first i dint expect it to be any great, thought it wouldn be fresh and would have an overdose of sugar like most Delhi sweets are. But no! It was soooo light, the puff pastry so crisp and it was just right on the sweetness meter... It was DIVINE. Bliss at Rs. 5/-

I couldn resist: I bought 2 more :)

"Benda kalu ooru......."

The legend goes that King Veeraballa once lost his way in a forest. Hungry and dead tired, he came upon a hut where he met an old Lady. Seeing a lonely traveller and a hungry face, she gave him some boiled beans (known as 'Benda Kalu' in Kannada). The King found these beans tastier than anything he had ever had ( he was freaking hungry for sure). In memory of this incident, he named the place "Benda Kalu Ooru" (place of boiled/cooked beans). Which then slowly became Bangalore, and now back to the roots with "Bengalooru".

Now tell me, a place whose name is all thanks to food, how could it be anywhere far behind when it comes to a discussion about street grub.

Fresh cut fruits and veggies, fresh juice shops, chat wale ki dukaane, pani puri stalls, benne dosai on the road, you name it and its there. Be it typically south Indian delicacies or even the North Indian chat pata's, they have it all... But the 2 places that make them so so so different are:

the Hot Chip shops and the Bakeries(Iyengar bakeries)

The variety that one gets at the Hot Chip shops is fantastic. From the simplest potato chips to the wierdest bitter gourd( Karela) chips which are green. They actually have these huge frying pans half filled with oil right outside the shop, and have fresh chips getting made on and off. Potato, jack fruit, Bitter gourd, Tapioca, raw bananas....variety is the spice of life... Why have those packaged, artificially flavoured, expensive to the roof wafers when u can have such awesome fresh chips right around the corner.

Iyengar bakery's are a boon to the society.

Where in France u get freshly baked croissants and in Italy the Focaccia is to die for early in the morning... here in bangalore the Iyengar Bakeries get u addicted to fresh breads and cookies and buns and cakes... You would just hate to buy those branded packed breads with expiry dates to check, once u've had from them.In fact I know of ppl who know exactly when, at what time, the breads come out baked into the bakeries and trust me they don last for more than 30 mins. They just disappear. And then you have to wait for the next lot to come out. The breads are super soft, the cakes super spongy and the biscuits... well thats how the cookie should crumble.