The Well-Fed Bong

Sure, everyone eats the spare bits of whatever animal happens to be dinner, but no one does it quite like the Chinese. The Bengalis diligently polish off every inch of a fish, the English trot out the occassional trotter, the French wax about tripes and sweetbreads while Bycullah trumpets khiri and kaleji to all and sundry. All this, however, pales in comparison with the average street vendor in Hong Kong, whose entire existence seems focused on what the English translation rather guilelessly calls ‘offal’. Intestines, tongues, feet, knuckles, necks, ears, wings, after a while you start wondering where the regular bits of the animal go. Maybe to McDonalds. This is also one big aspect of Chinese cuisine that is never exported. I don’t think we’re likely to see Mainland China featuring intestine or skin anytime soon. Even cities like New York or San Francisco boasting substantial and authentic Chinatowns steer clear of organs.     Some of the offal is rather droolworthy....

I landed in Hong Kong deprived of breakfast and headed straight to the geese. Maxim’s at the airport makes no bones about how great it is. “Secret Recipe” “Delicious” all the important keywords were there. The counter was a straight lift from McDonalds, but they did have some tasty roasted geese on rice.   And, of course, I love their deadbird displays.

Right across the road from the Park Hotel are these big white letters on coca-cola red, once in 2D, once more in 3D; in other words, unmistakeable. I was finally face to face with the the Chennai branch of the injured party in the local biriyani wars.   Much as us outsiders insist on thinking of Chennai as veggie heaven, the city is actually teeming with biriyani joints – a feat attributed in no small part to the very successful Thalappakattu chain (the last letter of the spelling is critical here). In an earlier post almost exactly a year ago, I blogged about a quirky story of intrigue, marketing and myth-building around the popularity of biriyani in Chennai and its now-ubiquitous association with headgear ( thalappa ) – apparently two claimants presented themselves as the headgear trademark for biriyani. The battle between the Payyoli Rawther defender and the Dindigul challenger went to court, but seems finally to have been settled now with both parties left standing. T...

Though I’m Bengali with a sweet tooth that would put an elephant to shame, I don't cook desserts that often. One of my early attempts at making shujir halwa – a simple matter of combining semolina, milk and sugar (or so I thought) – had led to much embarrassment. Blissfully ignorant of the semolina-milk ratio and having never been told to roast the semolina first, I ventured forth and multiplied. Not so much time later, after poured every packet of milk at home into the attempt, I was left with five litres of what the unkind would describe as halwa-flavoured fevicol. That is now behind me, and if people remain stuck to one of my halwas nowadays the reasons are entirely more pleasant. Having cracked the suji code, I went through a whole halwa phase with dal, besan, and the rockstar of halwas – gajar . Then, having conquered the impossible, I gave it up a decade ago and except for the occasional foray remained largely halwa-free. Till recently. One day, a hard days’ work safely under...

My eye-candy post proved to be very popular, which may well be destined to make me lazy (picture equals hazaar words and all that). However, I’m determined to be as wordy as ever so here’s a ramble on photographs without photographs. I must say, Friday’s foodblogger dinner opened my photographic eyes. The top honours must go to Shaheen’s purplefoodie.com , where the pictures are so outstandingly wow that droolworthy is an understatement. Her potato photos should come with statutory warnings for dieters (though the garlic olive oil may provide some relief). Somehow she even manages to sex up the simple opening of a can . Nowadays, armed with multimegapixel phones and digital cameras, everyone’s photoblogging food . Once upon a time people used to photograph their kids obsessively but I guess food moves less, allows for reorders and often looks better. Food photography is the logical child of the trend of plating food in artistic ways. One can hardly eat at top restaurants nowada...

Blogs, I notice, have become very visual of late. Food blogs, in particular, seem to have improved in leaps and bounds on the quality of photographs. Just so that I dont feel left behind, I’m posting here four of my nicest food photographs.   Number one is a photo of a food stall at the Kandivali Lokhandwala Durga Puja, where fresh parathas are being made in preparation for the evening rush Number two is a sweet potato and starfruit chaat seller in Chandi Chowk in Delhi. Chicken vadas on a tawa in a Mahim bylane A store in Istanbul offering traditional turkish pide breads.

My blog now has a new look, which makes me seem more productive, given that I'm down to one post per quarter...

Ramzan approaches, and the Muslim food of Mumbai suddenly floats onto the top of everyone’s consciousness. Few people in Mumbai can feign ignorance of Mohammad Ali Road but that’s not the only place in Mumbai to polish off a decent kabab. This post is about a somewhat lesser-known but equally cholesterol-friendly bylane of Mumbai. Mahim Khau Gallo (officially Balamia Road) opposite the Mahim dargah – not so much lesser known (you can hardly miss the traffic knot there) as lesser explored. Most people I know have seen and not conquered it, but it is a galli of considerable choice and some uniqueness. The Dargah is Mumbai’s oldest, and Makhdoom-al-Mahimi who rests in peace inside (how he does amidst all that noise is a mystery) is the patron saint of the Mumbai police. I guess it’s one of life ironies that the Dargah is also the address of some of those most wanted by the police – Tiger Memon and his family. For those not inclined to a life of crime, however, the Dargah acts a fitting...