The Well-Fed Bong

Aurus is better known for its miniskirt traffic-jams than its food, but this is an injustice. This very stylish venue, laced with open-air seating, fancy cutlery and a great wine choice is also the place for some of the city’s best western food - helmed by Vicky Ratnani . Like most people, I had sampled Aurus food in bits and pieces between conversations or hanging onto drinks at parties and nights out. The food was good - demanding enough attention to get your eyes of the nearest celebrity leg for a few minutes – but we’d never actually had a meal there till recently. And this, as I’ve mentioned before, was a definite injustice. Sunanda’s birthday seemed the appropriate occasion for a fancy, al-fresco-by-the-sea dining spectacular – a chef’s menu with everything (including some soft-shell crab that Vicky excitedly announced he’d laid his hands on that day). And it was quite a spectacular meal – unending courses, food, presentation and the infectious, child-like enthusiasm Vicky bring...

It makes for a nice title, but the mutton is no more modern than the shop it came from. Having been stranded by meetings and car-parkings, I managed to get some thoroughly nice mutton cuts from Modern Mutton Shop in Bandra. I didn’t have enough onions for a true attempt at Kosha Mangsho, but decided instead on bhuna gosht (which is basically a blanket name for a mutton dish that is not quite kosha mangsho). Attempting to impress the ladies also led me to rustle up some luchis . I laid it on some nice blue plates, topped it with a few slivers of green chilli (purely for cosmetic effect) and clicked away. Yes, the luchis have a great shape – its from a cookie cutter. The haiku of the mutton is as follows – mutton marinated in dahi, then whole bayleaf, cinnamon, clove, elaichi, badi elaichi, dry red chillies in hot oil, some coarsely chopped onions fried to brown, ginger garlic paste, some dhania and kali mirch all cooked till the oil separates. Then add mutton, the dahi marinade, ...

Ninety minutes of start-stop is not exactly geared to improve one’s tastebuds, so it is with some lack of joy (and food) that I approached the dinner party thrown by a very close friend of a very close friend (that, I’ve learned, is the most unavoidable kind – even the end of the universe would have to be considered). But finally it was sighted in the horizon – Acres Club , Chembur. The map below is not just here to compensate for the lack of photos – trust me, you’ll need it. View Larger Map Anyway, interminable brakes and gear changes later, suitably settled into the pleasant divans of the Indian Harvest Restaurant , pacified by a glass of excellent Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, I was in a more forgiving mood. The venue seemed nice, but call it my snooty-address snobbery – I still wasn’t expecting anything more than chicken-tikka-masala to appear. I just could not think of Chembur rising much above that. Imagine my surprise, then, when the most delectable biriyani appeared. Appar...

For the rest of India, saag is usually the ingredient in a curry, such as saag gosht or saag paneer but the true-blue Bengali raises his left eyebrow every so gently with disdain at such pulverized, spiced and curried stuff. Saag to us is shaag – fresh greens and minimal fussing around with. And the Bengali munches through a lot of different shaags - laal , pui, palak, note and others that are mostly out of reach unless from your own garden. One shaag that is, however, easy to get nearly everywhere (even in the USA, where Indian groceries sell a perfectly usable frozen version) is methi shaag or fenugreek leaves. It also happens to be one of my favourite shaags, and to top it all is, as you can all see below, extremely photogenic. Methi shaag has some characteristic differences from other Bengali shaag recipes; firstly there are no spices (methi is quite a strong flavour in itself). Also, it uses peanuts, which is not that common in Bengali food otherwise. And its a bachelor’...

I’ve been back a while now, so this is the last of my Hong Kong posts. I didn’t really eat much more than street food in Hong Kong, but there were a few noteworthy meals fitted in there. The first was the dim sum meal I mentioned in an earlier post , but there were two others. My best proper Chinese meal was with my very multi-coloured friend PD, who took me to one of the few places in Hong Kong with lines. We went to Crystal Jade Xia Long Bao in the rather swanky IFC mall at the bottom of Hong Kong’s tallest building. This is the same Crystal Jade that fed me dumplings right off the boat (plane) but now, under PD’s watchful, paternal eye, it was going to be the full deal.   Some rapid-fire ordering later, food started landing up. Barbecued pork in a spicy noodle came first, a flavourful clear broth loaded with spice in which floated a generous helping of noodles and slices of meltingly fantastic, slightly sweet barbecued pork. Alongside were some sauce-tossed wontons and,...

This Saturday, I was faced with two small onions and a kilo of frozen chicken. Onion always bring do piaza to mind. The dish has a nice historic tale of its own – it is traceable to Mulla, one of Akbar’s Navratnas , a commoner who had worked his way through the imperial poultry farm to the royal court. Mulla (who was a scholar and administrator, not a cook) was so famous for this recipe that it became his royal title – he was officially called Mulla Do Piaza . He was said to have invented the recipe in question as a cost-saving measure; apparently the royal kitchen prepared both grated onions and fried onions for use in different dishes, much of which was wasted at the end of the day. I must also mention that though do piaza features in both Lucknawi and Hyderabadi food, Bengali men are particularly fond of claiming culinary excellence at it. The humble onion is omnipresent in food but usually as a sidekick - it is unusual to find the onion as the star, and a double role like thi...

The first thing I did stepping off the plane into Hong Kong was to head for dim sum. Luckily, Crystal Jade was right in front of the exit, dim sum conveniently at hand. In short order, Xiao Long Bao soup dumplings in my stomach, I stepped into a bold new world ready to chow through the chinese. As any Wikipedia-fed fool will tell you – dim sum means touch the heart and started up as a tea-time snack in Canton. Now that dim sum has worldwide recognition and is starting to challenge noodles as the flag bearer of Chinese food, I figure I should put some focus into it in its native land. Of course, it turned out to be harder to get in Hong Kong than I thought. Firstly, the Chinese insist on this whole daytime business – most places start at ungodly hours (even 5am was bandied around) and by the time the average conference goer (as in, I myself) has gotten himself out of his suit (as in, 2pm) the average shop is not in the mood to touch hearts. Then there was this little matter of what dim ...

I wrote earlier about food photography, but I was quite unprepared for Hong Kong. The night markets and the profusion of eateries there turned out to be a parade of food photos like no other.   Chinese eateries are known for their long menus but plastering every square inch of the walls with food shots gives these places an unusual atmosphere; as if you’re part of some massive photo exhibit. This comprehensive plastering seems to serve both purposes – point-n-shoot ordering and wallpapering, and of course if you’re not Chinese it gives you the barest hint of what you might expect. The photographs are quite good (if all in a vary straightforward, angled topshot style). The plates are artfully arranged and properly lighted, there are the usual colourful touches of lettuce or artful sauce splashes, and its all printed in large, sharp colour on photo-quality flex or paper. The interesting part is - I can’t imagine cheap eateries actually investing generous amounts on photographers and...

Walking the streets of Hong Kong often brought me face to face with a funny snack; it looked to me like giant brown bubble-wrap and people seemed to regularly queue up for it. Meat did not seem to be involved, so I stayed clear of the queues till, eventually, google warned me I was missing a cultural phenomenon. Gei Dan Jai, Eggettes, Egg waffles, these things are everywhere on the streets of Hong Kong. I finally picked up the courage to buy, for a Hong Kong dollar, one of those folded bubblewrap eggette sheets. I had been told to expect mildly sweet vanilla-eggy flavour, crispy outsides and chewey insides and – well - thats what I got. Looks cute, tastes pleasant, not exactly earth-shaking. Methinks a bit of ice cream or chocolate sauce (of which I saw no signs) will do wonders. I guess its one of those things – you know you’re from Hong Kong if you salivate over Gei Dan Jai.