Café LOTA

We had gone for a book fair at Pragati Maidan a few months ago. It was my first time in a book fair of that magnitude. No surprises there, I was super happy. The heat and the crowd were unbearable though. But with hands overflowing with books, it was a good day. To top that day with a cherry, we went to Café LOTA. Now when I look back to that day, I feel a quiet glowing contentment. It was not a perfect day, there was stress hovering in my head, but in that moment I was fine. That is what I remember Café LOTA for. It was peaceful.

They serve Indian food – I liked how they seemed to have specialties from all parts of the country. Reading the menu itself was ‘refreshing’. They had a tempting range of teas and coffees. I was with two other friends. Together we ordered one of the coffees – I think it was Vienna roast but I am not sure, Parsi Salli Boti, Konkan Fish Curry and Goan Galinha Cafreal (me) for main course, followed by Apple cinnamon Jalebi with coconut rabdi for dessert.

The food was very good though the Jalebi was a tiny bit disappointing (too sweet, too crispy). I want to try their Bhapa Doi cheesecake next time. The ambience of the place was very relaxing. We were sitting outside, I am not sure if they have indoor seating as well. We reached there a little late and couldn’t visit the museum. O I didn’t tell you that? Yes, this café is located in the premises of Crafts Museum. Needless to say the décor was very arty.

If it was not so far from my place, I would have certainly gone there again already. You must visit. 

Here are some pictures

Goan Galinha Cafreal

Parsi Salli Boti and Konkan Fish Curry

Apple cinnamon Jalebi with coconut rabdi

Soda Bottle Openerwala, Gurgaon

I have shifted to Delhi from Bangalore. So no more food reviews of places in Bangalore. But Delhi has never disappointed food lovers, so here I am with a new post. Let me start with the home ground, Gurgaon. I have been living here for almost two years now. Updating this blog is way over due :)

Shifting to Gurgaon from Bangalore was a great shock. First thing the Weather. Secondly, the people. It took me a while to adjust. I am not happy, but I am surviving. I still go through bouts of oh-I-miss-Bangalore-so-much. This blog may get a chance to see some of those rants.

The place I am going to write about today is called Soda Bottle Openerwala. No prizes for guessing – it is a Parsi restaurant. The last Parsi restaurant I had been to was Daddy’s Deli in Indiranagar, Bangalore. Soda Bottle Openerwala, I must say, is much better in terms of ambience. Food, I am not sure, I enjoyed eating at both the places.

Soda Bottle has a very interesting décor. It is at the recently bubbling with excitement area, Cyberhub. I went there for dinner on a Sunday. It was crowded, with families and expats, but we easily got a place. Our order was small – Chicken Berry Pulao, Bacon Keema Macaroni, Cold coffee and Parsi Choy. The beverages were ok, but the food was AWESOME. The place is expensive, but then any nice place in Delhi NCR is expensive. Whenever I go out, I spend close to INR 1000 at least. If I am drinking, then more. In a place like Soda Bottle Openerwala, I had a tough time telling myself that a Kheema Pav was worth INR 325! I remembered the Good luck café in Pune and heaved a big sigh.

What made me really happy there was the ambience. Apart from how they had decorated the walls, the seats, the bar. . .the exciting thing was a mini train below the ceiling which was going around the whole restaurant. It is not something that many people will notice. My friend who I had gone with, and who had been to the restaurant several times before, had never noticed the mini train. Small details like that make me really happy.

I must devote an entire separate paragraph to the absolutely delicious Bacon Keema Macaroni. Have you ever heard of such a thing? It tasted heavenly. They had me at Bacon. And then there was Keema and Macaroni. What is not to love? It is the kind of thing which you eat and your eyes automatically close on a reflex. And your tongue wants to feel every bit of what is in your mouth. Orgasmic, almost there actually. And the food portions are good. We had to doggy-bag it coz we could not finish all of it.

Booths. Those plasticky seats look so perfect.

Bacon Keema Macaroni

Chicken Berry Pulao

The mini train

Notice the antique locks and funky paint brush handles

The bar

Ambience – 5 stars

Food – 4 stars

Service – 4 stars

Will I want to go again? – yes, most definitely (after my salary is credited :P)

Hungry hogs !!

Ok.. that's not my new name :P (It could be actually) It is a new hot dog joint we recently discovered in Kormangala. It is located in one of those obscure lanes of Kormangala, but very accessible. And it is a find. It is a quaint little place serving specialty hot dogs. The menu is not huge- good thing because it doesn't leave you confused :) makes ordering easy! Awesome hot dogs to say the least. At reasonable price.
The place is small, but makes for great school reunion with your five friends. It is colourful and perky. And hot dogs are reallllly good. I generally hate that pepper taste in sausages :-| but the ones here are delicious :) and makes me really happy! They have two kinds of sausages- normal size and bigger size. The bigger size is only slightly bigger :-| was a let down since I expected BIG :)
I had the Say Cheese hot dog which was worth every single penny! I have been there only once.. and if it was not for my 'diet' I would have hoggged there all my life ! :D Burrrp..

When you think of Hot dogs, think Hungry hogs !!

(Oh did I just create a slogan for them?  Ha!!)

Whatte job- part II

I love food. I love good food.
And I am trying to lose weight. I am trying to control sweet intake and all those 'intakes' that make you FATTER.
And in the middle of vigorous gymming and dieting, I do this project where I get a chance to have a dinner at Leela Palace. What do I do? What do I DO peoppppppppppple!!
*sigh*
I eat. I eat like a pig. I eat like there is no tomorrow.

So 'the project' was a golf tournament which had an after party! And what party it was. With a guest list of all the socialites of Bangalore and the CEOs and VPs of big corporates, the party was quite a sophisticated and pretentious and shallow affair. It was all for charity by the way.

Anyway, coming back to what I am here for. Food.
The food was to die for. And I almost did.
I had red wine. Not for the first time. But still, didn't like it all that much. It was Shiraz, FYI. S, my partner in crime last night, says it is an acquired taste. I didn't quite acquire it in one glass. :P Starters were amazing. In fact I always look forward to starters than the main course. There were things that I had never tasted before. And that was my agenda. To eat what I won't get to eat later. So I conveniently overlooked the bread section, my favourite pasta section, the salad section.. yea that's about it. I hogged on the rest. Actually it was the entire sumptuous spread that delighted me most. I didn't really eat so much. Or may be I did :P
I had the most amazing mashed potato. Ok that wasn't the show stealer. I just mentioned that because I haven't had good mashed potatoes in a while. Boca Grande wasn't so good either. Last night I fell in love with mashed potatoes again. I was already so full with the starters and the wine that I did not have much space to accommodate rest of the delicacies. But I am not a ditcher when it comes to food. I religiously ate. I had rice and prawn curry for main course along with fish fries on the side. I had had enough chicken in the starters. Well, it was not normal prawn curry or fish fries.. they had some awesome names and of course out-of-the-world taste, but like usual I don't remember the names. Who cares about the names anyway!
Before piling on my plate, I did a complete recce of the place. There was a separate area for breads, a separate one for pasta, for pork, for fish... but my eyes were looking for one thing. Desserts. In the name of my 'dieting' process, I had ignored a lot of sweets. And I was ready to lose my sweet tooth virginity, yet again! But I couldn't find a dessert corner. I got worried. While S was busy digging into the delicious pork, I thought I'll explore a little more. I kept my plate down in search of Desserts. And boy, was I in for a surprise!!! There was an entire ROOM dedicated for desserts. *sigh* *eyes wide open* *ear to ear smile*
I rushed to S and told him about my latest finding. And we plundered the room! That was the best part of the entire party. Though S was grooving on the delicious pork all through, my show stopper was that dessert section. There was Tiramisu, Chocolate mousse, Baked gulab jamuns, Ras malai, Apple tart, Chocolate cake, creme brule, and other awesome stuff that I can't remember. O yea.. there were pancakes and pies and.... O! I am already salivating.

I ate so much, I could actually feel my stomach sticking out and touching the walls of my belly. What dinner it was. And even the ambiance.. I had never experienced anything like this before. The last time I had been to Leela Palace was for a dinner that a friend's parents had thrown. But this time it was majestic. The night was guilt ridden as usual. Monday comes, I am going to start my gym routine afresh. I have a connection with Food. Karmic connection. :)

Whatte job! ;)

..eloping..hiding..sneaking..running..returning..arriving..
figuratively :)
have been upto a lotta things lately..
eating out as usual remains my only way to chill out or take time off.. but lately haven't been to any new places.. the old restaurants have a sort of familiarity and cosiness that pulls me when I go out to eat..
I have to tell you something.. :)
Am on a fast food spree, all thanks to my job. By job I mean the internship that I am doing, where I have been given the work to do a consumer study and competition analysis of a pizza place (can't reveal the brand here :P ) For that I have to go around all the popular pizza places and junk food joints and do this research. In return I get to eat there. And the bills would be reimbursed. How totally COOL is that! :) am all smiles..
So I have around 10 fast food joints in my kitty, where I shall go and complete the job assigned to me :P Yay!

Perpetual hunger!

This place that I am going to talk about today, has got a lot of business thanks to the positive word of mouth generated by me :D I have tempted so many of my friends to try this place out that the restaurant should now appoint me as their Brand ambassador :)

I am talking about BOCA GRANDE and its ultimate Breakfast buffet.

I am the kind who lovvvvvvvvves breakfast and for me it is a fantasy land. I can put up with sad lunch or sad dinner, but a sad breakfast really spoils my day. I totally believe in having a breakfast like a king and dinner like a pauper. Staying in a hostel is a pain, when you have to get up on time to be able to have breakfast. But it's worth the effort I'd say. Thankfully, messes generally don't botch up breakfast- speaking by my experience, breakfast turns out to be the (relatively) best meal of the day. Here you can find an old post on my breakfast love :)

Well coming back to my review :P which I almost forgot indulging into my breakfast fantasies. BOCA GRANDE gives you an ultimate spread of English breakfast starting from omlette to sausages to waffles to muffins to Ice tea to coffee to mashed potatoes to crispy toasts...I am already salivating like a dog!

The people are extremely courteous. The food is amazingly delicious. And fresh. They make it in front of you. This breakfast buffet happens only on Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to 12pm :) What you should do is go early, eat slowly and linger around till 12 :D It is a house converted into an eating place. Therefore the charm and the air around is very comforting.

First time we went there, it was S's birthday. One sight of that huge spread was enough to fill my appetite. While I was enjoying the chocolate syrup and fruits (We dont get fruits in the mess, no!!) , S was trying to convince me to have more and more sausages and ham so that I can 'wasool' all the money :P

So people who really have a goood appetite should go and make the most of it. Apart from the breakfast buffet, which by the way costs only Rs. 200, other stuff is also good. I tried the lasagna which I must say was delactable, but the quantity was kinda let down. And oh! the desserts. That's my favourite part! I was literally drooling over the desserts. I was seated right next to the corner where they were preparing the desserts and all that whipping, slicing, warming, wooooooooooooahhh the aroma of cream and essence was killing me. I ordered Tiramisu. S ordered some *fancy name* pastry and our friends ordered this exquisite dessert (don't remember the name) which we called "Dosa and cream chutney" It looked like dosa and tasted like heaven. I don't know how they prepared it; I felt cold, crunchy pieces in my mouth with sudden droplets of warm chocolate sauce and a sweet after taste :) **makes a mental note to visit BOCA GRANDE once again**

The ambience is also very amicable. Very home kind. Specially for breakfast buffet. I love the colours and the funkiness. On the tables they have little puzzles that you could solve while waiting for your order. We had lots of fun doing that.

And before I forget- BOCA GRANDE is in Kormangala near New Bethany high school :)

They also have a website www.bocagrande.in/ which I think could have been made more friendly. Nevertheless. Here- my pictures :)

The Breakfast buffet

The tarts and the fruits

S's order that day- some *fancy name* pastry

Dosa with cream chutney :D

The puzzle :) Try and figure out. 

You have to find names of 10 food items that are served in their 

Weekend breakfast buffet.

P.S: Right adjacent to BOCA GRANDE inside their premise is Grappo which is a funky shop selling clothes and junk. Have never been there. But friends say it's kinda good :)

Also some people say that the quality of food has gone down, but am sure that's because of the unrelenting expectations they go with. Anyhow, I totally love BOCA GRANDE. Go try! :)

First destination

I ruminated fair bit about the first restaurant that I should pick and review. So today I am going to write about this place I went to last week. It is our latest favourite place for burger. According to him, the restaurant has the best burger he has ever had in Bangalore. Truffles Ice n Spice it is called. It happens to be the place where I celebrated ate on my birthday. And also the place where he treated me after he got his first salary, i mean, stipend. We are studying, remember!!

The first time we went to Ice n Spice, we went to the one at St. Marks road. And we kept going, although it was very very far from our place. And last week, we discovered their new branch at Kormangala. He was all smiles. Now we can go more often.

Coming to the food-

Our favourite favourite is "Tons of Fun" Lamb burger. It is really out of this world. One burger is enough to make you full. And believe me when I am saying this. I am not the petite girl who savours food by eating little. I love food. And the burger is scrumptious.

The ambience is good too. Very good music. Quick service. No hoo-la-la. A place where you can sit for hours and talk. While the one at St. Marks is really small and cosy, the one at Kormangala is very spacious and is good when you go out in big numbers.

Blue berry cheese cake is also something to die for.

The one at Kormangala, right next to their counter on the left side check out this amazing small wall they have created using green colored bottles stacked on top of each other. I found it really cool. :) And in their menu, in between all the delicacies it's written- extra tissues- 1000/- ;) It is not distinctly written. Figure out the next time you go there :D

A few pictures I clicked long back when we went there-

Was way too hungry and greedy. Pounced on it immediately and after eating more than half, realised I should take a picture ;)

Blue berry cheese cake is also one of my favourites there. Notice the cut on the pastry :P Just when I was about to dig into it, I remembered my camera :)