Some Cribbing and a Cupful of Desire

I don't like kids. Particularly in restaurants, movie theaters, airplanes & my house.

Gaaah, who am I kidding? I don't like kids anywhere, period. They are generally crying, wailing, throwing tantrums, misbehaving, destroying/messing up things around them, or acting like monsters. Not to mention they are major attention seekers. But more than kids, I can't stand parents who don't know how to/won't control their kids in public places.

Last weekend, we went for dinner to this nice restaurant where I had the most decadent dessert, but more on that after I'm done cribbing about kids.

There was a kid running around the restaurant while his parents were chatting away with friends at a table next to ours. He would often come and start running around our table. We tried scaring him away with angry looks but he just wouldn't leave us alone. And then he started poking his finger into our food!

So imagine you've gone to a really nice restaurant with your partner/friend/family/whoever and all you want is a quiet, sumptuous meal with lots of nice conversation and there's this random kid who comes over and starts poking his finger into your food! What would you do?

We turned around and asked the mother to get a hold on him, and this takes the cake - her reply was "shayad woh khana chahta hai, thoda khila dijiye na (maybe he wants to have some of your food, feed him some"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just stared at her open-mouthed. When I finally managed to pick my jaw up off the floor, I told her that I wasn't there to feed her kid. Neither were the other people in the restaurant. And if she couldn't control him at a public place, she had no business bringing him to one.

At this point, the manager intervened and thankfully, he had the sense to point out to the harebrained woman that there were perfectly behaved little kids at other tables as well, so could she please look after hers as he wanted everyone at the restaurant to have an enjoyable meal, and moreover, the kid might hurt himself by falling/running into furniture?

I was impressed by this man.

While we are on the topic of kids, I got a little shock this morning.

I ran into two of my neighbors who have 1 year old kids. They were going to drop their kids off at school!!!

I asked them what kind of school exists for 1 year olds and apparently, it's a play school that starts at 9 and ends at 12. But isn't 12 months too young for a child to be going to ANY kind of school? And both of these women are stay-at-home moms, so why do they need to be sending their child to school anyway?

I tactfully enquired whether they thought the child was old enough to be sent to school and they blatantly replied that they do it so they can get some peace in the morning and get household chores out of the way, pack their husbands off to work and get their pujas & what not done.

I mean, this really pisses me off. Everyone has the right to "peace" but if peace is so important to you, DON'T.FUCKING.HAVE.KIDS.

When you decide to have a kid, you undoubtedly & unequivocally give up your right to "peace" at least for a few years. It's like people have this pressure to procreate and then the kid can go to hell.

Why do people have kids when they can't take care of them? Gets my goat every single time.

Phew! So now that we're done cribbing about pesky, annoying kids, let me tell you about the mindblowing dessert that I had at the restaurant. Chocolate fondant with crushed peanuts and butterscotch ice-cream with peanut and salted caramel. Oh man, it was orgasmic.

For non-food connoisseurs, the fondant was essentially a cupful of molten chocolate, baked so it was slightly crusted on top. It had crushed peanuts in it and I love peanut butter, Reeses peanut butter cups and peanut Snickers, so I really enjoyed it. The crushed peanuts gave the molten chocolate a slight crunch as well as a slightly salty, nutty taste. The butterscotch ice cream was equally good. It too contained crushed peanuts and was drizzled with a salted caramel sauce. You couldn't help but moan with every bite.

I'm not much of a picture taker (basically I'm just a lazy person!) so I don't have pictures of this mouth-watering dessert. But here's an idea of what it looked like. All that the picture below is missing are tiny bits of peanuts and a drizzle of salted caramel sauce :)

Picture courtesy: http://blog.5min.com/

License to Cook?

Since we are in a food zone, let me draw your attention to this article (courtesy The Knife).

Olive Bar & Kitchen in Bandra was never one of my favorite places to eat out in Mumbai inspite of it being the place to be seen at or its proximity to my house. I much preferred its neighbor, Out of the Blue, with its laid-back ambience, mouth-watering pastas, baked cheesecakes and live music on Sunday afternoons.

I've been watching a number of food based shows of late, and I've developed a strong admiration for Western chefs. Their cooking techniques are so evolved, their knowledge of flavors that will and won't work together so strong, and they can conjure up dishes that Indian chefs would probably not even have heard of!

But that's because developed countries have a much more evolved food scene as compared to India. Chefs are valued, celebrated even. There are proper culinary schools to train them in the techniques as well as the art of cooking, followed by an internship under a professional chef.



Reading this article kind of shocked me and was also painful at some level because it confirms what I suspected about Indian restaurants but hoped would be untrue - that the cooks working in restaurant kitchens in India are untrained. In fact, they can't be called chefs at all.

This article talks about how these cooks do not undergo any formal training in cooking. They are barely taught about food. Their training consists merely of showing them pictures of various dishes and leaving them to learn on their own, often by watching the head chef at work.

The proof of such shoddy training lies in the gruel that we are served at most restaurants in India, including fine-dining ones. Oily, over-spiced Indian food, Chinese dishes that are dunked in sauces, pastas floating in cheese. Any Western chef worth his salt will scrunch up his nose at such monstrosities, forget serving them to his customers.

The background of Indian chefs is equally to blame for the quality of food they dish out. Spices dominate the food cooked in Indian homes and vegetables are cooked till they become almost gloopy. The oven is the most under-utilized gadget in Indian kitchens. This is how the cooks grow up watching their mothers/grandmothers cook, and since no one bothers to train them otherwise, this becomes their general notion of food.

Watch a Western chef at his job and you'll learn to appreciate the beauty of food. They let the ingredients do the talking. Spices and seasoning are used just for flavor. And texture, which they get from using different kinds of side ingredients apart from the core one, is as important as flavor. They cook the vegetables only upto a point that it's tender enough to eat so it retains most of its flavor. Poaching, oven-roasting and grilling are also widely used techniques to cook meat to enhance its flavor. Not everything is fried or cooked directly on the flame.


My other pet peeve at restaurants is being served food that's made with ready-to-use sauces & marinades available in the market. I would like a chef to make his sauces & marinades from scratch because a) all the ingredients that go into Italian/Asian/Mexican sauces are available in India now, and b) if I wanted to eat something made with ready-to-use sauces, I could have cooked it at home! People don't pay for shortcuts at restaurants.

But then, it is our inherent tendency as a people to take short-cuts and dupe customers. An Indian businessman will try to cheat his customers to make a quick buck whenever he can find an opportunity. Restaurants are no exception.

Maybe I need to stop watching food-based shows? They're going to ruin my eating out experiences for life! I will never find any restaurant good enough :(



Photographs Courtesy: http://www.masterchef.com.au/

Saturday Night Horror

One of my pet peeves at a restaurant - and I mean something that turns me off completely and seals the deal as far as going back to the restaurant is concerned - is poor service. Service at a restaurant is as important for me as the food. It's 50-50. Unless I'm going to a low-end restaurant of course.

There's a new restaurant in town that's been advertizing pretty heavily in the papers of late. It's called 'Harvey's World Cuisine'.

Now, good "world cuisine" is something not readily available in this city outside of 5-star hotels. In fact, the phrase "world cuisine" is kind of a misnomer in itself as it stands mainly for Indian, Chinese and maybe Continental, if the owners of the restaurant are brave. The same holds true for Harvey's, except they have a couple of Thai and Mexican dishes thrown in as well to justify the "world cuisine" claim. The focus seems to be on Indian and Chinese though, as we weren't given the Continental menu till we asked for it, and most of the Continental dishes on the menu were not being served on the day we went. It was a Saturday night. Go figure.

Coming back to the point of this post - the service at Harvey's was pathetic.

Now, I'm not crazy. I don't expect 5-star level service at a non-5 star restaurant. But there are some basic things that I do expect such as a clean floor, plates without a layer of dust on them, water glasses being refilled without having to call out to the waiters everytime, appetizers being brought out before (and not after) the main course, hot food and desserts that are not burnt. Waiters who know their menu would also be nice. Harvey's failed to deliver on all of these counts.

The decor was really nice with white, wood and glass dominating the interiors but the entire floor was dirty. No one bothered to clean it up. The plates on our table had a layer of dust (!!) on them. The waiters didn't know their menu, didn't know if a dish was served with or without rice, and wouldn't refill our glasses with water unless we called out to them.

Since we were having Asian food, I requested our waiter to check with the chef if the sauteed vegetables that came with my dish could be replaced with stir fried vegetables (since when is Japanese food served with sauteed vegetables anyway?). He refused to even check!

And guess what they did after that?

They brought out our main course before the appetizer!!!!

If that's not a faux pas at a restaurant, blunder rather, I don't know what is. We told them to take the main course back and bring it after they'd served our starter. They did but they didn't bother to heat the dishes before bringing them back out. We were served cold chicken teriyaki and stir-fried prawns (that weren't stir-fried but doused in Chinese sauces). By then we were pretty pissed off to ask them to take the food back and heat it. That's not something I want to ask a restaurant to do! We didn't finish our meal and thought we'd make up for it with dessert. Once again, half the things mentioned on the dessert menu weren't available, so I ordered a brownie.

Now, how wrong can you go with a brownie?

Very wrong apparently, if you're Harvey's. The brownie was hard as rock. I couldn't cut it even with a knife. So I broke off a piece to check what it tasted like. It was burnt.

We complained to the manager. He apologized but didn't look sorry. We asked for the bill. They had charged us for bottled water which we never ordered. But that's a mistake I'm willing to forgive. I don't expect to have to check my bill at a restaurant, but I've been billed wrongly so many times that I don't mind checking.

There's no excuse for such pathetic levels of service though. Especially given that Harvey's is not exactly a low-end restaurant. A meal for two consisting of a starter, two main course dishes and a dessert cost us Rs 1000. Dirty floor, dusty plates, cold food, rock hard brownies and dumb waiters were complimentary. Needless to say I'm not going back. Neither am I recommending the place to anyone.

Opus

There's a pub in Bangalore that you should check out if you're visiting the city (or live there but haven't been to it yet). It's called Opus and is run by Carlton Braganza, a Goan. I don't need to tell you much about the place - you can check it out yourself as they have their own website, blog and how cool is this - their own 24x7 internet radio!

Opus is a laid-back pub. The layout is very Goan and resembles a beach setting - open air, pebbled floor, low stone tables with floor cushions, white color scheme. The music can range from hip hop to rock to retro to reggae to pretty much anything, depending on public demand.

I went there on a Sunday evening with Moonshine & her husband. It was karaoke night and I was surprised to see how full the place was! Most people were singing really well. I was then informed that many of those people were regulars at Opus' karaoke nights. Of course, there were croakers too, but nobody cared because everyone was having such a good time singing along (the lyrics are flashed on a screen).

The start to the evening was a little mellow but nice. Then someone sang 'I've got a feeling' and everyone was on their toes. The party just kept getting wilder after that. I didn't know karaoke could be so much fun!

It's not only music that Opus has to offer though. They stage plays, have quiz nights and regular music nights as well (Friday & Saturday I believe?). You can check out their calender here. The food is mainly Goan with a couple of Chinese & continental dishes thrown in, and is lip-smacking. The drinks are good too.

Talking of partying, one of the funny things age does to you is that it kind of turns you off partying. You know, the kind where you just want to get drunk and dance till your feet can't support you any longer. I haven't indulged in that kind of partying in over 3 years now, and to think that I always thought I'd be one of those rare people who'd party even when she was in her 40s! I much prefer "lounging" now; I like to hang out with friends at lounge bars with a couple of drinks and music that I like in the background (not the overpowering kinds that doesn't let you make conversation). Or a langurous dinner.

There was of course a time when I used to party 2-3 nights a week. I was in college then. Once I started working the frequency dwindled and now as I said, I haven't partied in more than 3 years! But, I'm about to break that jinx this weekend with my small gang of girl friends. We're having a girls' night out where there will be alcohol and there'll be music and there'll be dancing till our stilletoes...or the city cops...allow us to!

Love Lost 'N Found : Pali Village Cafe (Mumbai) to Casa Toscana (Calcutta)

A couple of months ago I had the most nightmarish dining experience at Pali Village Cafe in Bandra (Mumbai).

PVC is "the new place to be" in Mumbai. We took the pain of making a reservation 24 hours in advance and were even threatened that the table wouldn't be held for us if we were more than 15 minutes late. We should've seen the signs and run towards another restaurant, but we didn't and ended up having one of the worst dining experiences of our lives.

We were hustled through our dinner on an evening that was meant for catching up with friends over a leisurely meal. The waiters were rude, asking us every few minutes if they could bring out our next order, and when we could finally take it no more and asked for the bill, the waiter made a very obvious 'finito' like gesture to the restaurant manager, right in front of our eyes!!

One definitely doesn't expect such blatant rudeness and lack of customer service at a fairly high priced restaurant at Bandra, of all places. We were at the supposedly trendy Pali Village Cafe, not the neighboring Janta after all. Even the folks at Janta let you be. For a detailed narration of the horror that PVC was, you can read The Knife's account here.

Cut to August. There's a cozy Italian restaurant on Chowringhee in Calcutta called Casa Toscana that I'd been wanting to visit for a long time. Finally went there last weekend. It's a restaurant I fell in love with the moment I entered it.

The owners have leased out part of an old bungalow and converted it into a restaurant. The concept is that of an Italian trattoria offering alfresco as well as indoor dining. The ambience is cozy - the indoor section has wooden chairs & tables, stone flooring that will give you a feel of the cobbled streets/piazzas of Italy & yellow lighting, while the outdoor seating area has wrought iron furniture, candle-lit tables and is laid out like a patio. The menu includes starters, soups, salads, pizzas, pastas & desserts.

The reason I compare Pali Village Cafe and Casa Toscana is that the restaurants are very similar in terms of ambience...

Pali Village Cafe, Bandra (Mumbai)

Casa Toscana, Chowringhee (Calcutta)

...yet there's a world of a difference between them in terms of the service and dining experience. I would definitely recommend Casa Toscana to someone looking for a nice Continental restaurant in Calcutta. Not sure I would recommend Pali Village Cafe to anyone.

The food at Casa Toscana is awesome, definitely the best Italian food I've had in Calcutta outside of 5-star restaurants. (You see, there are a lot of restaurants in Calcutta that claim to serve Continental food but haven't a clue what authentic Continental food tastes like!) The menu is a little limited though and service is a tad slow but that doesn't seem to deter people from patronizing the restaurant as was visible from the crowd. Some people might argue the restaurant is a little expensive by Calcutta standards - a (non-vegetarian) starter would cost you between Rs 180-Rs 220, an entree (non-vegetarian again) between Rs 240 - 340 and a dessert around Rs 180. We paid around Rs 1400 including taxes for a meal for two that included 2 starters, 2 entrees, 2 desserts, a beer & a Breezer, so I'm inclined to believe it's a moderately priced restaurant. Cheap even, by Mumbai standards.

Casa Toscana is not a lounge-around kind of place. It's a place you'd like to visit with your spouse/partner/family for a nice dinner on a weekend, or on a date. And get lost in the aromas of Italy.

There's Always a First Time!

Confession time, people. I was a Mainland China virgin until the past weekend.

For the uninitiated, there’s always been the Indian Chinese served at most Chinese restaurants in India, and the Chinese served at Mainland China. I had never been to the restaurant because numerous people had told me that the Chinese they serve is rather bland, authentic Chinese so to say. And we all know that Indians love Indian Chinese. We have Chinese dishes that even the Chinese aren’t aware of! The most popular example being Chicken Manchurian, I think.

But I got convinced by a colleague to try the lunch buffet at Mainland China, and after the experience I’ve been wondering why I hadn’t been to the restaurant before!

Mainland China has two restaurants in Calcutta - one (the original) at Gurusaday Road & a new one at South City Mall, Calcutta’s newest hip destination. Both restaurants are HUGE. They also have a private dining facility at Silver Arcade on EM Bypass. I went to the one at South City. The ambience is serene, with just the right amount of lighting for a fine dining experience. The décor consists mainly of beige walls & ceiling, and cut-out wood.

And the food? It’s classy stuff. It retains the authenticity of Chinese cuisine, yet is spicy enough to tingle the Indian palate. The buffet spread consisted of a soup, LOVELY dim sums (I was going to make an entire meal of dim sums until I realized I didn't want to end up paying almost 500 bucs for dim sums alone!), chicken wings in Hunan sauce, chicken noodles, ginger fried rice (white with a hint of ginger, not the typical fried rice but very nice), a chicken entrée, one lamb and 3 types of fish (prawns, crabs & regular fish).

I didn’t check what was on offer for vegetarians, so excuse me s'il vous plaît!

My only grouse with the buffet spread was that they had so many fish dishes on offer and only one chicken & one lamb. But then, I live in Calcutta so I should’ve been prepared for the fish onslaught. Just that it seems a little unfair :(

The desserts….were awesome too! Strawberry mousse, Strawberry ice-cream, Vanilla ice-cream with darsaan (an ass-kicking combo), and tiny little white jelly-like cubes (kind of like the petit fours of Candies) that had something to do with almonds & were drizzled with orange sauce!!

I was truly in Chinese food paradise as we stretched our lunch to approximately 2 hours.

For those who might be interested, Mainland China serves lunch from 12.45PM - 3.30 PM & dinner from 7.30PM - 11.30PM. The lunch buffet costs Rs 325 (or Rs 350, I'm not sure) + taxes on weekdays & Rs 425 (or Rs 435) + taxes on weekends (in Calcutta that is. Prices in other cities may vary).

They do serve alcohol & accept credit cards. They have their own website, so you can check out their menu online. Their telephone nos. are 64578361/ 2422 5330/31/32/33 (South City Mall) & 22837964/65/66 / 32511257 (Gurusaday Road).

Mainland China is a classy place and it doesn't end at the food. They have superior service - efficient, prompt, attentive & helpful. That’s very different from most restaurants in Calcutta where one often finds waiters who are clueless about their own dishes, rude & act like they're doing you the biggest favor on earth by serving you!

When you go to Mainland China - or the next time you go to Mainland China - order the darsaan with Vanilla ice-cream for dessert. Vanilla has always been the real McCoy of ice-creams, and the darsaan is sweet & it’ll stick to your teeth and make you feel like a kid again :)

Mocambo

There’s a popular restaurant on Park Street in Calcutta called Mocambo. I use the word “popular” because if you get there for dinner after 8pm on a weekend, you can be rest assured of at least a half an hour waiting time. WHICH given their food is shocking! To me at least. The restaurant serves Indian & Continental cuisine, though it’s more popular for its Continental fare. People say Mocambo's the way to go if you like Continental.

Continental food, my ass!!

I ordered lasagna. Now, we all know that lasagna consists of layers of meat, flat pasta sheets, tomato pasta sauce & cheese. At Mocambo, they believe in flavoring the meat in their lasagna with Indian spices & garnishing the dish with chopped raw tomatoes!! Absolutely horrifying!!! That’s a Calcuttan’s idea of a lasagna??

My cousin ordered a spaghetti carbonara that had no flavor whatsoever. My uncle, who was treating us, turned out to be the most sensible of us all & went with Indian food. Not much chance for a restaurant to go wrong with that. Thank God they didn’t, or I would’ve really doubted their right to even exist in the food business at all.

Mocambo is not cheap. Each continental dish costs around 200 bucs & the portions are rather small. It’s also one of the restaurants that makes me question the taste of the people of Calcutta when it comes to non-Indian, non-Chinese food. They really don’t know other cuisines at all – something that’s validated by the fact that a restaurant that serves such monstrosity is so popular. Even other Continental restaurants such as Taaja’s on Ballygunge Circular Road & One Step Up on Park Street don’t fare much better. Marco Polo on Lansdowne Road is a better bet for Continental food any day.

Marco Polo in China

If you're in Calcutta and need a place to eat, the one place NOT to go is Marco Polo in China on Park Street.

It's a fairly expensive restaurant, by Calcutta standards at least. A meal for two with an alcoholic beverage each, an appetizer, a noodle/rice & an entree can cost you anywhere between Rs 1500-2000, depending on the drink you order and your choice of meat (prawns will cost you more than chicken/lamb/fish).

For a restaurant in that price range, the service is extremely shoddy and the waiters terribly clueless. It's a well-known fact that restaurants, shops & small businesses in Calcutta aren't as good on customer service as, say, those in Bombay. But if I'm paying approximately 2 grand for a meal, I expect some level of customer service. Consider this - they had very few chicken options as appetizers, so I asked them if they can make a relatively simple dish, pan fried chilly fish, that was on their menu, with chicken instead of fish. Their response was an outright no. I asked them if they could just check once regarding this, and the answer again was 'no'. Now, I've made this request before at much smaller & cheaper Chinese restaurants and they've happily obliged, so I know it's totally do-able. Their rudeness pretty much pissed me off, especially since they didn't even try to check with the chef if my request could be accomodated.

I asked the waiter if they had any Chinese sauces available as there were none at the table. His answer was 'no'! Can you imagine a Chinese restaurant without any Chinese sauces?? Neither can I. Even a tiny roadside Chinese restaurant will serve you the regular chilly sauce-soya-vinegar combo!!

We had ordered Lat Mei Kai for starters. It's a spicy pan fried Thai chicken dish that goes well with the red sweet sauce (that looks like a diluted version of tomato ketchup) you get at any decent Chinese restaurant. I asked the waiter if they had the sauce available, though I was pretty sure it was a request in vain. This time he didn't say no. I was about to fall off my chair in shock when he came to me with a bowl of tomato ketchup!!!!! I was too stunned to speak.

The food was upsetting as well. Our appetizer was burnt and the Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce we had ordered tasted more like Chicken in Sweet Garlic Sauce. And the worst of it all? They had completely screwed up the Mojito we had paid Rs 250 for! It tasted like fresh lime water!!!

The ambience of the restaurant too was pretty confused. It's like they couldn't make up their mind whether they wanted to be a Chinese or a Bengali restaurant. They call themselves Marco Polo in China but they have Indian food as well as Pastas on offer, and the ambience is very Bengali!! Go figure.

My verdict : TWO THUMBS DOWN

PS: Incidentally, they have another branch on Sarat Bose Road (or Lansdowne Road as it's more commonly known) called 'Marco Polo' (only) that serves Indian & Continental. That's a much better bet. I've had continental there, and the food is much better, though both restaurants would fall in the same price range.

We Love Chinese

Yesterday I had the strangest dining experience of my life ever. Four of us went to a very popular Chinese restaurant on Park Street called Bar-B-Q (If that isn't a strange name for a Chinese restaurant I don't know what is!)

Going to a popular restaurant on Saturday night at 9pm in a city that loves to eat out isn't a good idea in the first place. But they're one of the few restaurants that serve good "Indian Chinese", so had to go!

When we reached we were given a waiting time of about half an hour. After waiting for about 45 minutes we got a table right near the entrance of the seating area! There were at least 50 people waiting to be seated right next to us! Each glaring at us, possibly b/c we were the only ones completely exposed to them. While we were eating, the crowd of people waiting just got larger & larger, until finally this one guy was standing right next to us!!

Despite repeated requests from the restaurant staff manning the entrance, he wouldn't move. And then suddenly he was yelling at us, "Can't you guys eat faster? Don't you see there are so many people waiting?"

We were shocked, we didn't know what to say! We had been seated not more than 20 mins...our starters had just arrived. And not that our getting done would've made way for the more than 50 people who were waiting!! There were about 396 other people eating at the restaurant!! I'm not exaggerating...the restaurant has three sections, each with their own kitchen and can accomodate upto 400 people, I think.

Guess the hotel staff had had enough by then. They got the man escorted out of the restaurant. Which brings me to the question...why let such a situation arise in the first place? If you know there are 50 people waiting to be seated in one section of the restaurant alone (I'm sure there were people waiting in other sections as well), why keep letting people in?

Why can't restaurants tell patrons that they're stretched over the limit? Is it greed or hospitality? Given that we're in India, my deductive abilities tell me it's the former. Pure greed to mint money. Which I'm sure the restaurant is doing enough of given it's capacity. So why ruin your equity among your customers by letting such unpleasant incidents occur?

Dick's Last Resort

I was reading an article on the World’s Strangest Restaurants on this website the other day.

I would like to add an entry to their list – Dick’s Last Resort Restaurant.

It’s an American (of course!) chain of restaurants that welcomes you with something like this : “From Rug-rats to Old Farts, from High-Class to No-Class, from the Top of the Food Chain, to the Bottom of the Barrel, it’s FUN FOR ALL AND ALL IN FUN FOR THOSE WHO DARE TO ENTER! …Dick’s has always been known for its outrageous, surly, energetic waitstaff who inflict humor upon our guests… If you’ve got any talent, git up on stage and sing with the band. Dance anywhere ya want - except… don’t shake ya booty on top of our fine tables and chairs. They’ve lasted 20 yrs, and we’ll use ‘em for 20 more if we can. You may end up wearing a 2ft tall paper hat complete with a humorous slogan, or doused in a sea of napkins. There’s never a dull moment in this 3-ring circus which is exactly how we earned our infamous reputation”.

One needs a very thick skin & a damn good sense of humor if one wishes to lunch/dine at Dick’s and enjoy the experience.

The USPs of the restaurant are : rude waiters that insult you & provide poor service, bizarre interiors & strange things you’re made to do while eating at the restaurant.

First about the waiters, which I found to be the most amusing part of Dick’s. They are rude, they abuse you, they will throw the cutlery in front of you, they bang your plate etc. They will even go to the extent of asking you to F-off. I kid you not. They can get really offensive. I have been to one & it’s happened to me and my friends.

The restaurants are generally huge with wooden interiors. The one I went to (in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina) resembled an airplane hangar, and had a number of motorcycles strewn about & women’s undergarments hanging carelessly above the bar. The décor is completely random and unrelated to food.

The food is greasy, served messily, and accompanied by a big bib & a paper hat scribbled with nonsensical stuff that every diner must wear.

The menu consists mainly of American Barbecue, Steak & Burgers, and offers a couple of bizarrely named entrees such as ‘cluck & moo’ (chicken & steak) and ‘oink & cluck’ (pork & chicken). Here’s a sampling of what Dick’s has to offer its guests…

For all their crass humor & patron abuse, you will be surprised to find that the patronage consists not only of high school/college kids but also families with young children. It’s a fairly pricey restaurant, the food is greasy but good, and comes in gigantic portions.

Zara

Went to a very nice resto-bar called Zara for Sunday afternoon lunch. Zara is a Tapas restaurant (Tapas refers to Spanish appetizers) but it serves Chinese, Italian & Mexican food as well! The main course is mainly Continental but both the times that I've gone there we have stuffed ourselves with their spicy, delicious appetizers, skipped the main course (which you would get at any Continental resaurant) & jumped straight to the dessert, which are Oh-My-God-Heavenly!! It was my second visit to the restaurant & I'm beginning to think the people who work there have developed a liking for me (grin from ear to ear :)

The story goes somewhat like this...

The first time I went to Zara, they gave my friend & me an appetizer (a very nice one) on the house! I have no clue why!! The second time was even better (isn't it always? ;)

They make these awesome Strawberry Martinis. Basically, they add fresh strawberry juice to Vodka and leave it to ferment for a week, so the Vodka truly imbibes the taste of strawberries. They prepare this concoction in-house.

Fresh strawberries were not available in the market the first time I went there, so instead of using strawberry infused Vodka they made the martini by adding Vodka to strawberry puree. And it tasted divine. This time around when I went, they were back to making their original Strawberry Martinis. I ordered for one thinking it would be the same as last time (since I didn't know the difference), but when I got my martini I was quite disappointed as it didn't taste the same, and much to the waiter's displeasure I kept insisting it was not the same thing I had last time. The guy at the bar probably saw me sulking & before I knew it, there was another glass of Strawberry Martini infront of me, the way I had had it the first time! And it was ON THE HOUSE!!

I quite like the ambience & the food at Zara though not the decor so much. They've got three types of seating - couches where you can lounge, tables & chairs, and bar stools along the bar. The music played is good...on Saturday night they played Spanish music, followed by Retro, my eternal favorite. Yesterday too they were playing pretty enjoyable music though I don't remember what genre! I didn't notice!! But the best thing about the music at Zara is that it is not so loud that it is impossible to hold a conversation. It is a resto-bar afterall.

The best feature of Zara is undoubtedly their desserts. I've had a dessert on both my visits there. On my first visit I had the Dark Chocolate Mousse with Kahlua Cream (thick layer of it :) I'm sure I don't need to explain what it was in detail. The second time I had a Pancake Filled with Molten Chocolate & Served with Ice-Cream. The molten chocolate gave the entire thing a bittersweet taste, and the hotness of the pancake/chocolate contrasted well with the ice-cream.

The hi-point for eating-out enthusiasts...the waiters are polished, well spoken, conversant in English, know their dishes, can recommend good ones, are chilled out & always have a big smile on their faces. That makes a world of a difference at a restaurant. Nothing pisses me off more than dumb waiters at restaurants.

Zara has two outlets in Chennai. They've just opened in Pune & are planning to open in Delhi in February & Bombay in six months if things work out for them in terms of space. I hope they do, and you guys should head there for desserts as soon as they do! And for their strawberry martinis! And for the sweet people they are :)

PS: As you can clearly see, I can only think of food right now. That's because I'm on a self-imposed-diet-under-enormous-societal-pressure. And as anyone who has tried dieting will know, when you're on a diet food is all you can think of!!

Restaurant Woes

One thing that ticks me off completely is bad service at premium restaurants.

I recently went to a restaurant that serves Indian, Thai & Continental food. It is situated in the IT hub of the city and is not exactly cheap, the average price being Rs 250-300 per dish. The food wasn’t great and the service was pathetic.

We ordered a Crispy Fried Lamb (a Chinese preparation) for starters. The waiter dropped the food all over the table while serving and did not clear it up until we asked him to. When we did, his expression was as if we’d asked him to do something that WE were supposed to do!!

For main course, I ordered a Neopolitaine Chicken Pasta (which comes in a tomato-based sauce) that was supposed to be served along with garlic bread. What I got instead of garlic bread was plain white bread with garlic butter on it!!! The bread wasn’t even toasted. Apparently, they had run out of the bread that is used to make garlic bread but they did not even bother to inform me about it and instead served such rubbish!!!!!

My friend ordered a second Nan which took 20 minutes to come! Fifteen minutes after he ordered, another waiter came to my friend to ask if he had ordered another Nan!!!

My point is, one doesn’t bother or complain about bad service if one is going to a cheap restaurant. But one’s expectations are completely different if it is even a moderately premium restaurant – you expect the food & service to be commensurate with the amount you’re paying.





The photograph above is of the interior of the restaurant I'm talking about. If they're savvy enough to have their picture up on the net, they should also by sophisticated enough to offer good service.

Oh Calcutta : Calcutta Chapter

This post is right up The Knife's ally!

A friend and I went to Oh Calcutta for dinner. I was surprised at the differences in the menu between Oh Calcutta in Mumbai & Calcutta.

The Mumbai restaurant offers a wide range of chicken & mutton dishes where as the menu in the Calcutta restaurant is overloaded with fish. Understandably so.

We started our dinner with Fish Fingers. The Mumbai restaurant serves a pungent mustard sauce with the fish, called Kasundi. It goes very well with fish fry & fish fingers. But the Calcutta restaurant served a sauce that was a mix of mustard, mayonnaise & sweet mango chutney. It tasted good too.

For main course we ordered Boneless Hilsa, or Ilish as it's also called, and Chittagong Chicken along with steamed rice.

Ilish is a delicacy fish that is available only during certain times of the year. It lives in sea water for the most part but can travel upto 1200km inland to deposit it's eggs. Fresh water Ilish is supposed to taste better than salt water Ilish. In India, Ilish is found in the Ganges near the Bay of Bengal and in the Narmada river in Gujarat, where it is known by another name. It is oilier and therefore heavier than other types of fresh water fish but is supposed to be tastier as well. Also, it smells less pungent than other types of fish. The Ilish we ordered came in a mustard gravy which went very well with steamed rice.

The Chittagong Chicken however was a far cry from the mildly flavored Ilish. It was spicy as can be! It was a Bangladeshi dish with a tomato & onion gravy & plenty of red chilli powder!!

Overall, we had a nice meal and rounded it off with a bowl of mishti doi :)