Merry ol' London - gastronomic memoirs of a travelophile

It has been almost forever since I last visited this hitherto blank page, where once I used to visit it every 10 days. A lot of food has passed between my lips, and many a drink has splashed into the pit of my stomach since November, and sadly, not a single one of those adventures has found its way onto these pages here. Well, I think it's about time that changed.

November end (2012), I flew to London on work, to help launch Zomato in London. Post that, the last 10 days of January 2013 I flew to Doha (Qatar) - again to help launch Zomato in Doha, and in early February I was in Colombo - same reason. March set in, and I was in Manila. In between all these trips, I was in Delhi. Right now, I'm back in Bangalore, and will be here for a short while before I probably head out someplace again. Since we're gearing up for the IPL T20, I think I'll first put up a highlights package - just to set the mood, and dish out the detailed posts in the following days.

I'll start off with merry ol' London, and work my way through the winter onto the other cities and the other gastronomical delights that came up before me. Hopefully this little preview will be enough to whet your appetite for the details that will follow soon.

When we grilled through the night

Soon after the Assamese food festival, the next night, Ms Quiche and Ms BakeAnything invited me to Ms Quiche's place for a night of fun cooking and drinking.

Ms Quiche: "BYOB and BYOF is what it's gonna be."
Me: "Eh?"
Ms Quiche: "Bring your own booze, and bring your own food."
Me: "Oh OK", I said, and I thought to myself, "Wicked!"

The ladies were onto something and were planning on sausages, grilled chicken, salads and what not. The salad was quite a hit even though there wasn't a shred of meat in it. Pineapple, watermelon, and lettuce with a dressing made of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and honey. Divine! Quite simply fabulous. I'd personally never thought of using honey in a salad dressing (or anywhere), but then again, my culinary expertise is very limited.



The chicken was marinated with ginger, garlic, chilli and paprika, and some vinegar and sugar with salt. At the end, we were tearing into the chicken like cavemen. Here's the link to their recipes.



Everyone got a welcome drink, a mojito, and it was quite a superb one. I wonder if these women are moonlighting somewhere without my knowledge.



There was also some grilled fruits - pineapple, raw mango, tomatoes and peppers. The pineapple and raw mango was also a hit.



I decided to make bacon-wrapped prawns. This dish is a result of my hatred towards all places that batter-fry this marvelous combination, thus killing two birds with one proverbial stone. Grilling, or pan frying the combo is the way to go, and the best way to go about doing this is by creating a nice pasty marinade for the two main actors in this show.




Recipe for prawn marinade:

20 medium sized prawns (use large ones if you please), deveined, with tails on (keeping the head on is optional, depending on personal preference)
4 cloves garlic
2 tsp sugar (preferably powdered)
2 1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp red chilli powder / cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp pepper
3/4 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
3/4 tsp salt
1.5 tbsp oil (I used olive, but again, your choice)
1 lemon, juiced
10 rashers of Bacon
40-50 Toothpicks

Recipe for bacon marinade:

2 tsp paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp pepper

Method:

Wash and de-vein the prawns, and dry them using paper towls. Mince the garlic as fine as possible. Make a paste out of the garlic, along with the sugar, paprika, chilli powder, pepper, coriander powder, cumin powder, salt, lemon juice and oil. Mix well, and then apply on the prawns and allow to marinate in room temperature for about 30-45 minutes. Now, heat a pan (without oil) and once it's hot, add a few rashers of bacon on it and start to fry them. No, no oil. The bacon has enough fat and we want to fry it in that itself. The idea is to partially fry them, until some of the fat melts and is rendered in liquid form. Do not fry until crisp; we need the bacon to be in a state where we can fold it around the prawns. Once the bacon is slightly cooked, take them off and dry them on paper towels. Collect the fat from the pan and keep aside. Repeat this until all the rashers of bacon have been partially fried, and collect whatever fat you can.

Once all the bacon has been partially fried, prepare the marinade. Mix all the ingredients for the bacon's marinade and use the fat collected (as much necessary) to mix all the dry ingredients and make a paste. Apply it on the bacon and allow it to marinate for about an hour. Once both the bacon and prawns have been marinated, take one rasher of bacon and put two prawns, heads together, into it, such that the tail ends stick out of opposite sides. Roll the bacon over them and secure this with 2 toothpicks, criss-crossing each other (or as many needed to secure it - I used 3 in some cases). Repeat this for all the rashers of bacon and prawns. Keep the 'parcels' in the refrigertor until about 30 mins before they are to be grilled.

Once your grill is ready, and the charcoals are hot, use a skewer and brush a little oil on it and run it through each bacon wrapped prawn(s) parcel. While skewering, leave the toothpicks on or it would fall apart. Skewer about two or three per skewer and set on the grill. Turn the skewers over periodiclaly to cook evenly. If you're using a pan, then leave the skewers aside and set the pan on a high flame, and once the pan is hot, add a half teaspoon of some of the fat collected from frying the bacon. As soon as it starts to sizzle, add the parcels onto the pan. how you manage to do this with the toothpicks still in the parcels is a test of your ingenuity. But rest assured, removing the toothpicks will spoil the show because you want the prawn(s) wrapped under the bacon blanket to get infused with some of that bacon goodness while it cooks.

BM Review: The Hole in the Wall Cafe

So here I am, back from a short visit to Visakhapatnam, where it was hot and humid and I'm all tired. Here are the pictures of the food from The Hole in the wall Cafe in Koramangala. The review can be read here. My guest for this trip was Paul Nixon, an Englishman who's been living in Bangalore for seven years now. Paul has a great blog called India-aagh, which is a must read.

Watermelon (part of the fruits of both breakfast options)

The continental breakfast is something I'll never get used to - not with my appetite. Fruits, juice, toasted bread, and tea/coffee. The All American, though, was much better - cereal, eggs with salami/bacon/sausage, toasted bread, fruit juice, cut fruits, and tea/coffee. Paul said the sausage was quite good indeed.

Cereal

Eggs & pork sausages

Waffles & honey

Pancakes & honey

The waffles and pancakes were both good. Although served with honey and not maple syrup, the freshness in them gelled well with the honey.

Bacon, mushrooms, and cheese omelet

Breakfast sliders

Food: Good
$$$: Cheap
Service: Decent, but most people come here to chill out, and when they're in a hurry.
Verdict: Good place for breakfast if you're a late riser.

The Hole in the Wall Cafe, # 61, 1st 'A' Main, S.T. Bed, Koramangala 4th Block, (behind Hotel Maharaja), Bangalore.

The All American Diner, New Delhi

I'd been to New Delhi from the 26th of June to the 1st of July to attend a friend's wedding there. I also got a chance to meet up with a couple of old school buddies whom I never met after we passed out of school. They'd moved to Delhi after graduating (they aren't engineers, so we didn't meet much during the under grad years). So I went with one of them (although I wish to call him by a name we used to call him back in school, since he was such a great host, I'll stick to his alter ego name, Neo) for breakfast to this place called the All American Diner, nestled nicely inside the India Habitat Centre on Lodhi Road. This place has an all you can eat breakfast until 10:45 AM for 395 + tax and we were preparing our stomachs for that.

Upon reaching the place, we were told there wasn't place and we had to wait, and so we waited. We waited and waited and when our names were called out, the time showed 10:50 by my watch. Dang! Missed it by a whisker. And so Neo and I set about sifting through the menu in solemn silence, disappointed at the near miss.

The place was nice, a retro look with the classical diner feel. The music kept getting stuck (I'm guessing the computer through which they were playing it was overloaded, just like the kitchen). I decided to go in for a Pierre's french toast, which came with French toast (duh!), choice of bacon or sausages and scrambled eggs,
and also a Sunset skillet comprising of a couple of pancakes, pork sausages, bacon, and eggs.
Neo decided to go in for a Santa Fe skillet, which comprised of toast, sausages and eggs,
and a pancake stack with butter.
Of course the usual suspects accompanying pancakes were there: Maple, orange and strawberry syrup.

Service was a little awry since they had their hands full on a Sunday morning - that, or our waiter was waiting too many tables as they were probably understaffed - I don't know. But he took a while to get water, to a while to get the drink for the couple seated close by - OK, lemme stop taking their case now. I was a tourist there, and I don't know what are the funda about this place. I loved the food, although the Egg Factory provides an equally sumptuous breakfast for half the cost (minus the meat and pancakes though). Maybe I should ask Yogesh to introduce pancakes and maple syrup on the menu as well.

Wallet Factor: The Sunrise skillet cost 225, while the Santa Fe skillet was 185, the Pierre's toast was 190 and the pancake stack was 110, so with taxes, it amounted to 870 (thanks to Neo for giving me the breakup)

The All American Diner, Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

Millers 46

#46, Miller's Road, Bangalore. That's the address, and at that spot you'll find Miller's 46. A steak house where you certainly will not find the most annoying cretins of Bangalore - young college kids in the midst of public displays of affection (something almost synonymous with the Coffee Day outlets) or rich, spoiled school kids blowing away their pop's moolah. Millers 46 has a slightly snazzy yet informal look to it which goes perfectly with the kind of food they serve. With just 3 of us left among the guys from the original group of 5 guys and 2 girls from school, we decided to head out to Millers, which would make it the first visit there for all of us. Thanks goodness Mr. VP's brother reserved seats for us, coz otherwise we'd have had to wait for at least a couple of hours, as we later found out (yes, that's how crowded Millers gets).

Once we got in, we noticed that the place had a very Texas look and feel to it (as it was supposed to). The waiters were all dressed in a nifty uniform and were always smiling, or so I thought. Anyway, we ordered a round of mocktails (since we had to drive back home, alcohol was a no-no). While Mr. P and Mr. VP had a southern ginger, with ginger syrup and lime cordial, it was a toothless shark, consisting of lime juice, orange juice, grenadine and ice, for me. Along with the drinks, we ordered a mixed platter (since Mr. P is a vegetarian) which consisted of chicken lollipops, wings, tender fried chicken, mushroom caps (which Mr.P ate before I could take a picture), fries and a lil salad.
Everything on the platter tasted good, except maybe the tender fried chicken could have been a little spicier, given the fact that Millers 46 has a Texan look and feel and the food served is supposed to be with a Texas touch, but nevertheless, it was good.

On to the main course, and I was craving to have a good burger in a long, long time and immediately decided to start off on the Texan steak sandwich, and apart from the fact that it had a slice of Amul cheese in it (I was hoping for bubbling, hot Mozzarella or something), it was really good. I had asked for the steak to be well done and it was still juicy; definitely a must have if you're going in a group.
Mr.P, the vegetarian, teed off with a Mexican potato spud dish with beans and tomato. I'm not a big fan of eating plain potato, so took a spoon of the baked beans and mixed veggies and cheese, and it was good. A little spicy, but not overly fire-in-your-mouth spicy. I just wish there's a substitute for the potato to account for the carbohydrates, but hey, for those who don't mind potato, it's a nice dish.
Mr.VP, the poorest eater amongst the three of us, ordered a brandied cube steak on a bed of rice. The beef was marinated in brandy (duh) and was done pretty well. Well done as Mr.VP asked for, but still juicy and not dry.
Mr.P and I weren't done :) So on to round two. While Mr.P ordered a Veg a la king,
and I ordered a plate of grilled spicy pork sausages. Personally, I'd have preferred to have had the sausages with something other than a pepper sauce, but what the hell, they're trying to be Texan with everything, and since the sausages were good and so was the everything on the plate with it, no complaints.
All in all, an amazing experience. Some people may say that Millers is a little pricey, but hey, when the food is as good as it is, I really don't mind shelling out a little more.

After the meal, we thought of going to watch a movie at Sigma Mall, and in spite of having a really heavy dinner (especially Mr.P, who had a lot of potato! fries, spud, a bit in the a la king... phew), we actually sprinted a small stretch on Cunningham Rd towards the mall, only to get there and learn that all the tickets for all the movies that night were sold out. Damn! And then Mr.P said he probably was going to throw up, which wasn't very nice, coz I was afraid that would cause a domino effect: he throws up, then watching him throw Mr.VP throws up and then I follow. Luckily, that wasn't to be, and after hanging around the mall for a while, home sweet home for some snooze.

Food: Very good
$$$: Not as expensive as you'd think
Service: Decent, prompt
Verdict: Best place for steaks (and maybe burgers).

#46, Millers Road, Vasanthnagar, Bangalore. Phone: 41148022, 41131746, 41131740