Aromas of China

Friday night,Mr VP's taken off from work, Mr P and I are still at work, and we (Actually Mr VP and I) crave to go out some place, and at the top of my mind is Aromas of China, which I've been wanting to go for probably more than 13 years now (of course, back in the mid 90s, the outlet at Richmond Circle was called Shanghai). This time though, it was the outlet in Eva Mall on Brigade Road where we headed towards. As usual, I was there well ahead of time, Mr VP was a little over 5 minutes late, and Mr P was 20 minutes late - some things never change!

Up we go and enter the place, and the look doesn't disappoint me, but Mr P makes a peculiar comment - "Hey, I think I've been here before". "Are you sure?" I ask. And then Mr VP says, "Hey, yeah, this place looks familiar". "@#%*@#$%*... Am I the only dolt in town who hasn't been to this place yet?". So in we go and are seated and vague memories of when the two of them visited this place started to come out. It was with WeightConsious and her guy Saucy, and then all of a sudden even I realised that yes, they had come here and for some reason that I couldn't remember, I had to leave them on that night. Well, I was here now, and wasn't leaving without a good meal.

We started off with soups, and although Mr VP wanted some meat in his soup, Mr P and I outvoted him for a vegetarian soup called 8 Treasures Vegetarian soup.
When the soup arrived, I thought it was going to fall from the waiter's hand, but then realised that the bowls are slightly tilted in appearance.

The starters we ordered were Prawn dimsums, which were slightly spicy along with the sauce that was served with it, but delicious none the less,
fried mixed vegetable (L), and honey chilly chicken (R).
I wouldn't recommend the honey chilly chicken since it felt a little chewy, and since the chicken was served in such thin slivers, I thought it was criminal to have it chewy.

For our main course, we ordered a crispy noddles with some sauce for Mr P, while Mr VP and I shared a some chicken noodle dish along with a side order of chicken & mushrooms in oyster sauce.

I was pretty darn full after this meal, and the fact that it was really good made me even happier. After a while of debating whether we should have dessert or not, and then what to have for dessert, we finally settled for chocolate spring rolls with ice cream, and they were divine. The snap below is not one that I took, but I can assure you that the rolls looked exactly the way they do in this picture (minus the china used here).

My fortune, from my fortune cookie.

Great food, and since this was after such a long time, it felt that much better. And my stomach was going to explode if I didn't lie down on my bed quickly, and so I said a quick good night to the amigos and off I drove towards me casa, to read The Prodigal Daughter (yeah , I haven't read it so far, so sue me!) and get some shut eye.

Food: Good
$$$: On the higher side - we shelled out nearly 600-700 per head
Service: Good
Verdict: Must visit if you love Indianised Chinese food (no MSG used here I've heard)

Aromas of China, Top Floor, Eva Mall, Brigade Road, Bangalore

Barbeque @ VP's house

Saturday night fever! That's what it was all about. VP celebrated his 25th birthday (yeah, although he's my batchmate, he's a year younger than I am...one of those 84 kids and not an 83 adult) on the 25th (coincidence!) of Feb and decided to have a barbeque party for the Army School gang on the weekend. As usual, I was supposed to do the cooking, and with VP's skills in the kitchen (he didn't even know where the salt is kept), I knew it was going to be an interesting evening to say the least.

So Saturday afternoon I go to his house (he's already purchased most of the stuff we need) and we start - I with the marinade, and he handing over the ingredients I ask for (as and when he finds them). So we decide to make two kinds of marinades for the chicken - a coriander-mint-green chilly-curd marinade for one, and a soya sauce-sugar-white-wine vinegar-spring onioin-chilly powder marinade for the steaks. This second one was a typical Korean way of marinating and barbecuing/grilling chicken in the open.

For Mr P, the vegetarian, there was the ever faithful paneer, and Mr VP had bought 1 kg of paneer, and so we knew there was going to be enough. Although we had some mushrooms, we weren't able to do anything with them coz of the lack of time, in spite of starting at 3 in afternoon. So for the paneer, one marinade was the same coriander-mint-curd, while for the second one I kept wondering what a good friend of mine, with whom I had an unfortunate fallout a couple of days prior to this party, would have liked being a paneer lover. Peeved at myself for the fallout, I tried to think what could be done to make a paneer lover enjoy the dish. A moment of inspiration from VP's mom and we had it - lemon juice, with curd, a little chilly powder, turmeric, a little garam masala and chat masala, and some salt.

After leaving the food to marinate in the refridgerator for a few hours, we killed time by shopping for some charcoal! Boy, it's tough to find what you want when you want it. We, however, got lucky as we found a place. However, finding charcoal is one thing, getting it to burn is quite another, as we soon found out! Luckily, VP's dad was an old hand at this - I guess his days in the air force had made him a pro at such things.

VP and his dad starting the barbeque

Pretty soon, that darn black thing was all ablaze and we were all set for the grilling - or actually, the food of all set for the grilling, we were just plain hungry!

And then there was fire!

Food, glor-e-ous food :)

Paneer with the coriander-mint-curd marinade (L) and chicken with the same marinade (R)

A different view

Miss BakeACake also joined us, and although I had initially started the blog with no pictures of people, to heck with it! That's Ms BakeACake, who left her husband (no, no, I mean left him at home) and came skewered a quite a few (I tried to make it sound like as if this was a hunting expedition and she came and shot a few, but I know I'm falling woefully short of the mark).

And that's yours truly on the left, and Mr P on the right - excuse the glitter on my face, but the place was HOT and the only benefit of standing in front of a hot barbeque grill is it will clear your nasal highways, that's all!

The paneer sitting in it's tangy, lemony marinade - oh I so wish that things get back to where they were before the fallout! Sniff, honk.

That's the Korean-styled soya sauce steak - juicy!

The end is nigh! The closing ceremony has the birthday boy putting off the barbeque in style.

So after eating, we drive Ms BakeACake to her house and reunite her with her hubby dear, spend some time there discussing iPhone apps that could be possible hits, and finally head back to VP's place at close to 2 AM. Long day, and for me, a long wait.

Egg Factory Breakfast Special

I regret the delay in getting this post out, but the weekend that I planned to do it, I fell ill, and found out I had appendicitis, so I had to be operated on (yes, I don't have an appendix now and I weigh about 5 grams lighter now). After that it was the recovery process and then an issue with a good friend, so finally here it is - no details for this post, the pictures should say it all, and although I did have one other dish apart from the 2 mentioned here (a tortilla with scrambled eggs and a mildly spicy salsa), I forgot to snap a picture of it.

A Greek omlette with goat cheese, olives and tomatoes

A classic, Eggs Benedict with soya ham

The weekend breakfast special was good - nah, excellent!

Egg Factory Republic Day weekend special

Since I am such a big fan of this place, I thought it would be pertinent to mention here that The Egg Factory on St. Marks Road will be having a special menu for the long Republic Day weekend (24^th, 25^th and 26^th Jan '09). I've been told on good authority (and trust me, it doesn't get bigger than this) that the menu will have a whole new range of dishes for breakfast on these three days ranging from new omelettes and frittatas to new dishes like burritos, along with speciality breads like bagels, croissants and English muffins, and also the ever famous English Egg Benedict.

For the vegetarians who don't mind eating egg, but would cringe at the thought of there being meat at the Egg Factory - relax. There won't be. Then "how would an egg Benedict be complete without ham?" you may ask?. Well, either the meat won't be there at all, or the equally tasty soya substitute may make its debut at the Egg Factory (the only way to find out would be to be there and order it). So be there; I sure will!

F&B - The Garden Cafe

It's been so long since I wrote about any place I'd been that typing itself is now feeling like such a tough chore! And add to that the fact that I visited the Garden Cafe on Christmas day last year (exactly a month since I'm writing this), I've forgotten most of the details. However, the fact that I'm writing this should suffice to indicate that the place is either worth visiting coz it's a treat, or it's an absolute disaster (for this it's the former).

The Garden Cafe is the new avataar of Bouquet, which is what it used to be called before I guess. Now with the daily 'buffet', they have made things really interesting. I used buffet in quotes and said interesting simply because at Rs. 360, you get to eat all the items on their menu (and trust me, there are a lot of dishes) - from soups to appetisers, from sandwiches to pasta to classic continental fare, this place gives you absolute value for money - a setup to put you at ease, great ambiance, excellent service, and amazing, lip-smacking, finger-lickin food.

As I mentioned, I had visited this place on Christmas day with my brother (who was in the midst of his Christmas vacation/study holidays). And since this was a while ago, this post will only have the names of dishes we had, and not the usual long drawn out story with the pictures.

I think this was called Pacific Blue (something with Blue Curacao)

A mango mocktail my brother had

Chicken Satay

One of the best prawn dishes I've had - with garlic, ginger and soy sauce

Chicken Tikka

Christmas special - Scallops on mashed potatoes and leek

Pasta fusili for the brother

A classic BLT sandwich

BLT again

Chocolate & almond tart

Lemon Meringue

Cinnamon something

Like I said, I just remember pigging out, and since my brother isn't that great an eater, I allowed him to have what he wanted, and gorged my way through lunch.

Food: Fantastic
$$$: Complete value for money (I think the buffet has now increased to 375)
Service: Good
Verdict: Must visit. In my opinion, the best sit-down buffet for a multi-cuisine meal anywhere in Bangalore (all things considered)

F&B - The Garden Cafe, Papanna Street (off St. Marks Road), before Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore. Phone: 40333888

Rogue Elephant...redux

Actually, threedux (this is the third time I'm going there, and haven't written about second time). A bright, sunny afternoon, and Mr VP and I headed out to Rogue Elephant, and just as before, we learnt something new from the owner Anand there. Although we reached well past noon, he greeted us with a "Good morning!", and when Mr VP responded "Good Afternoon", he replied, "Oh, but it's never afternoon until the customer has eaten lunch!". I'll need to remember that line.

We started off with what we've almost always had, a lime juice, the fig salad and the just like crab meat, same as what we had when we went there the first time. However, for the main course, I decided to go veg and tried the Moroccon vegetable stew with cous cous.


Mr VP ordered the King fish medallions with a Putanesca sauce. And then, Anand gave us an instance of how when he was working at a hotel in London, and was manning the trolley while serving a roast chicken, he moved up to the table of the lady who had ordered it and began carving the chicken and asked her "Would the lady like some stuffing?". ROTFLOL. 'Whack', the head chef apparently slapped him across his head and said, "You idiot, you never ask a lady if she wants some stuffing!".


Once the main course was done, as usual Mr VP seemed full and so I decided to have the strawberry pannacotta for dessert. This tasted good, and since I love strawberries, this was doubly good.


A nice, fat belly, and back I headed to work, and back to planning the office team trip we had planned for (more about it in the other blog as soon as I get down from the high of that trip).

Rogue Elephant, 119, Ambara Complex, Annasamy Mudaliar Road, Ulsoor Lake, Adjacent to Foto Flash, Bangalore.

I baked a pizza from scratch!

That's right, I finally made the time to bake a pizza, right from making the dough for the base to baking it in the oven...oh, and lest I forget, it tasted good too! It's been a couple of months now since we got a new microwave oven with convection capabilities too, and so finally I decided that it was time I ventured into baking food using an oven and using the preheating capabilities in an oven, and what better dish to start off with than a pizza.

Ingredients:
1 cup flour (maida)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dry yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
6-8 tbsp warm water

Method:
Sift the flour and salt together in a large bowl. In a separate smaller bowler, add the sugar and the warm water and dissolve the sugar and add the yeast into the water and stir a little and leave it in a warm place for about 5-10 minutes or until you see froth on top of the water, which indicates the yeast has dissolved (or is dissolving). Make a well in the flour and mix the water with the dissolved yeast and start mixing them. Add the olive oil and continue mixing to form the dough. Add a little more water and/or flour if needed until you have a smooth consistency. Form a ball and cover and leave in a warm place for an hour or so, or until the dough doubles in size (by the action of the yeast).

After the dough has doubled in size, knead it with your knuckles and "knock the air out of it". Knead into a smooth ball, and then roll it out. I didn't toss it up like you see on TV (come on, this is my first time!), but maybe the next time I will. Drizzle a little olive oil on top or smear a little butter and then add whatever sauce you have - a thin layer should do.


I had some chicken sausages at home and so I chopped them into little pieces and distributed them around the base of the pizza, along with a few shavings of onions.


Add as much cheese you want, and usually stick to Mozzarella. Preheat the oven at 250 degrees centigrade and then bake the pizza in it for about 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese has melted. I baked it at a slightly lower temperature since it was my first time and hence you'll notice that the crusts haven't browned as you'd have expected them to have.


If you have it, use it! That's a principle I usually follow while cooking, and since I had a few strawberries, I sliced a few and tossed them along with a few mint leaves.


Sllurrrp! I should seriously consider switching careers.