The Well-Fed Bong

I managed to extricate Sunanda from the clutches of a set design job only minutes before midnight on Valentine’s day, but that did not stop me from taking her to Kashmir. Driving along the Ahmedabad highway past Dahisar, we were wondering which of the dhabas lining the road were worth stopping when, among village scenes, a castle and some vaguely Keralite structures we caught sight of a houseboat. It turned out to be Poush (whose sibling Kong Poush used to be close to my house in Oshiwara). Apparently, "Poush" in Kashmiri means flower; close enough to kali for me to put on a Shammi Kapoor act. This kali is a large, elaborate affair with multiple houseboatish structures, a lawn and even a section with air conditioning.   The place is definitely romantic, if noticeably on the cheesy side. divan-style seating that allows you to cuddle up, lots of sheer curtains and bright fabric and fake flowers and other such romantic touches. And its much too brightly lit to be a s...

An early morning concert at the Gateway left me with a fast to break. Just was we were trying to get into the new Moshe next to Indigo Deli, crowds across the road attracted me to a sign hanging off the newly painted Dhanraj Mahal. Wonder of wonders, Le Pain Quotidien – a one-time favourite from New York - was now occupying the former Henry Tham space.     Now Le Pain Quotidien may have started in Belgium, but their original New York outlet at Madison & 85th was a regular stopover of mine. The communal bench meant there was usually free a place to sit, then there were lots of people to chat up, newspapers, good coffee, great food. The simple, modern decor was appealing, the breads outstanding and the menu simple, unfussy and light on the pocket but satisfyingly delicious. In short, Le Pain was a particular favourite of mine – sort of a perfect neighbourhood place (though it was some distance from my actual neighbourhood). It had already started expanding when I l...

My obsession with these ultra-soft kababs that have martian craters named after them have been documented repeatedly in this blog , but luckily more places continue to appear at regular intervals to add my my supply of stories. The droolworthy picture above is from Sanjiv Khamgaonkar’s article in CNNGO about Mumbai’s best Kabab. Guess who won? One of the votes was mine. My first kakori ever was in Delhi, appropriately attached to one of my earliest uses of an expense account. This was the Dum Pukht , ensconced suitably expensively in the Maurya Sheraton. Kakori is not traditionally Delhi food; old Delhi and the Jama Masjid area, chock-a-blok with the smell of cooking meat, will nevertheless leave you completely kakori-less. Hence, a decade later and many non-kakori trips to the capital later, I’m in Delhi and Sunanda gushes at me about how she had a great kakori experience on a midnight forage with her crew. It does not take much for her to convince me to repeat it; that very mi...

A mistaken turn led us deep into Kalbadevi today and since it happened to be lunchtime, a visit to Shree Thakker Bhojanalay seemed in order. Some basic idea of the location led us part of the way, but finally a little genie from google maps nudged us to the doorstep of 31, Dadyseth Agiary Marg, Kalbadevi . Dodge the Shiva statue at Adarsh Hotel, withdraw some money at the Union Bank, figure out which of the row of non-descript doors is the right one, climb up a flight of stairs and you’re at the elaborate wooden doorway of the bhojanalay. Thakkers is hard to find, but no one can accuse it of being undiscovered. The walls tell you about their long repeated lists of foodie awards and their coverage by every newspaper that could find a critic to go vegetarian. I must say though, that Thakker by and large lives up to its hype. I haven’t been here since my  last couple of visits over a decade ago – and the memories of what I ate are faint but on the impressive side. I must say tha...

My post on our local Mexican boy Sancho’s set me thinking about the closest I got to Mexico. That would have been the rather lovely city of San Diego, quite literally on the Mexican border (it’s so close, the local tram system ends in Mexico). San Diego in 2005 was boomtown, with property prices going skywards and general well being oozing out of the economy. It was, in general, a great dining city – the downtown full of nice restaurants that never seemed to be very crowded. And while at the start of my blog San Francisco introduced me to the adequately authentic budget tacqueria, it was left to San Diego to give me my first real taste of both hole-in-the wall and high-end Mexican food. First the hole in the wall – actually a shed attached to a parking lot and car workshop right behind my workplace. Prominently signed in bright red, Taco Express is a pair of cheerful women and an old man behind the counter that used to open only for lunch. They served us soft tacos, quesadillas a...

The first real food entry on this blog was about looking for Mexican food in San Francisco . I was still a Mexican newbie in those days (a couple of visits to the late Mexican restaurant at the Taj President notwithstanding), so the imagination stretched to Taco Bell and no further. In the intervening years, saints from up and down California have taught me much about Mexican food, specially the kind not hidden under six inches of Kraft cheddar. Back in Mumbai, I was back to cheesy nachos for many years. One would have thought that with all those chillies and tomatoes and dhania that Mexicans would outsell their northern cousins, but its very hard to get any Mexican in India, even the cheesy fake kinds. The huge plates from TGIF and the occasional short-lived taco place was pretty much all one could hope for. I was wildly excited by the soft tacos at Taco Fresco, but it turned out availability was their primary claim to fame – think, say, chicken tikka in the Antarctic and how pleas...