burrp! Stats
- 37 Reviews
- 24 First to review
- 12 Places Added
- Been to 33 Places
- Burrping since Apr 02, 2008
- Burrping fromNoida
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- Food Writer
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Reviews by sidkhullar
Aug 12, 2008
46, Janpath, Connaught Place, Delhi
Average
Authentic Food
I used to work for this internet start close to a decade back. This was at the height of the dot-com boom when two year old programmers found themselves being referred to as ’senior’ and salaries touched ridiculous heights. Having said that, I’m not complaining, since my income soared too… briefly. Anyhow, I found myself working for one such company and referred a friend to join the company. Soft spoken, shy and a clever programmer, he quickly settled down into his new job and became comfortable with the new city. I must point out here, that I didn’t actually ‘hire’ the chap, nor was he reporting to me.
Then, the bubble burst and overnight thousands found themselves out of jobs. Having quickly surrounded themselves with the trappings of new found wealth, in installments of course, quite a few ‘right-sized’ people bordered on the suicidal. My friend too found himself on the chopping board and guess who was told to fire him? Yup. Me. Try as I might, to explain to the board that I didn’t hire him, nor did he report to me and on top of it all, he’s a friend, nothing seemed to work - the decision was taken. So I did it.
He hadn’t spoken to me since and I don’t blame him for it. Guess who called last week? Yes, it was him and he didn’t have much time - just enough for a quick dinner in Connaught Place and we thought Sarvana Bhawan would be an interesting choice, since I used to exist on their food in Madras and wondered why the place was getting such mixed reviews.
For some reason, most south Indian places in the city have this cheap, old-school canteen ambience and the Tamilian no-Hindi, no-English imports don’t do the service much good either. Saravana Bhawan wasn’t about to rock the boat and is exactly the same, except that they’re running a sweet counter in there as well.
Since we wanted to catch up rather than spend time thinking about what to order, we chose the thalis and a mini-tiffin. The food wasn’t bad. The thali contained a few puris, rice, dal, kovakkai, sambar, rasam, raita, curd, fruit halva, appalam (south Indian version of poppadums), some pickles and more-mulaga. The food tasted good and was quite nice. The mini-tiffin contained miniatures of cooked snack foods like dosa, idli, vada, sambar, chutney and some kesar halva. Everything was cooked well. We also ordered watermelon, mausambi and pineapple juice.
As I said, most of these places are a bit low on service, so if you go there expecting the Ritz, I’m afraid you will probably come back ranting and cursing. On the other hand, a polite word and a smile get you much more than most people who try to establish their ‘customer’ status with a shout, yell or a snap of their fingers. It is amazing how badly most people in this city treat waiters. Pity really.
Anyhow, if you’re looking for an authentic, Tamilian meal sans Ritz style service, Saravana Bhawan is the place for you. The prices are quite reasonable too.
- Sid
http://www.chefatlarge.in
Jul 31, 2008
Level 3 Food Court, Great India Place Mall, Sector 38A, Noida
Good
Doughnuts Galore
You’d never have thought a humble piece of fried dough could have so much popularity, business potential or variations. Mad Over Doughnuts, who recently opened an outlet in the Great India Place, NOIDA, certainly believe this and going by the popularity of their only outlet in the NCR, it looks like they’ve put their money in the right place.
According to Wikipedia: “A doughnut, or donut, is a sweet, deep-fried (or sometimes, baked) piece of dough or batter. The two most common types are the torus-shaped ring doughnut and the filled doughnut, a flattened sphere injected with jam, jelly, cream, custard, or another sweet filling. A small spherical piece of dough, originally made from the middle of a ring doughnut, may be cooked as a doughnut hole. A doughnut also looks similar to a bagel, which uses the same shape as a ring donut.”
We’ve visited their outlet a few times and have never been anything but delighted with their wares. The range of sweet flavors include coconut, mango, caramel and coffee among others. They even have two savory doughnuts - talk about getting creative!
Did I mention that the place is run by Executive Chef Kishi Arora. Kishi has spent two years doing her post graduation in the CIA - thats the Culinary Institute of America, which is considered to be one of the best institutes in the world. Obviously, she has applied that learning to MOD, to come up with the superb offerings on display.
The staff is friendly and the packaging attractive. If you’re in the Great India Place any day, do try one and I can assure you - you’ll be back for more.
- Sid
http://www.chefatlarge.in
Content Courtesy: Wikipedia
Jul 22, 2008
The Metropolitan MGF Mall, Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road, Gurgaon
Average
Falling Objects and Good Food
For some reason, we find ourselves visiting Gurgaon quite frequently these days. Good for me anyway - gets me closer to many more restaurants, since we seem to be running out in NOIDA. This weekend was a particularly good one. Saturday saw us at the Latitude, Sunday afternoon at Baujee ka Dhaba and Sunday evening at the Delhi Gymkhana.
Baujee Ka Dhaba is another one of those overpriced, shoddily decorated and caveman serviced joints that package bad service and shabby interiors in a ‘rustic’ package. We came here with Mimi and Sarandeep - old friends who live in Gurgaon.
Having said that, the food was good.
Now, why didn’t I like the service? All was going well, apart from the shock at seeing the prices, and we were chatting away while enjoying our Chicken Lababdar (boneless chicken simmered in a mildly spiced, almond gravy), Dhaba Meat (chunks of mutton cooked in a spicy, chunky tomato gravy) and mixed Roti basket - when a stone plopped from somewhere in the ceiling on to my plate. It wasn’t a little speck, nor was it a large rock, however, it did make quite an impact on my metal plate.
Sarandeep, for some reason decided to report this and asked to please speak with the manager. Normally, the chap would have apologised and perhaps thrown in a desert or something and that would have been the end of it. This chap however, a Mr. Rishi Kumar, in the true spirit of the Association of Clueless Restaurant Managers, decided to fight it out. To quote him, “But this happens everywhere…”. We left it at that.
Anyhow, we found the food to be quite good. The Roti basket in particular was superb. They had rotis, naans, lachha paranthas, garlic naans, stuffed naans and what have you. If you’re in the vicinity, this basket is not to be missed. The other nice part is their sweet mango pickle - do try this too.
The prices were fairly high, with nothing below INR 300 and drinks like aam-panna at 100 bucks a pop. I felt the prices of the drinks were ridiculous. The food prices, considering their healthy portions, average out to quite a reasonable per-head figure. For example, we were 4 adults and three children and all of us were hard-pressed to finish the food on the table. Therefore a bill of 1000 + something was quite alright.
Smoking: No | Credit Cards: Yes | Air conditioned: Yes | Falling Objects from Ceiling: Yes
- Sid
http://www.chefatlarge.in
Jul 21, 2008
#C18, Mossiac Hotel, Sector 18, Noida
Good
A Must Try
Latitude is labelled as a multi cuisine restaurant in the Mosaic Hotel, sector 18, NOIDA. We visited the place on Saturday night, with Manish and Priyanka Khullar - food loving and willing to experiment type of people.
The place is fairly well lit, a tad too much in places with a casual theme to their decor. Live music by Keith Dikson enlivens the atmosphere. I’ll say it again, the chap can sing! Well set tables and fairly attentive service complete your first impressions.
We started with beer and asked for Fosters. We would have preferred draught beer, which while present on the menu, wasn’t in stock? My perpetual question - Why do restaurants put things on the menu that they cannot keep in stock? Anyway, they promptly began pouring Kingfisher for us. On the error being pointed out, the beer was promptly replaced. This time around however, it took them nearly 10 minutes to get us 2 glasses of beer, which was an eternity considering the bar was 10 feet away and the restaurant was sparsely populated. Interestingly, the chap serving us didn’t know how to pour beer and I ended up with 2 inches of beer and 3 inches of head.
The buffet at Latitude has received a good bit of publicity and thats what we had planned for. Disappointingly the buffet was only available for lunch. Here’s where the good bit begins - the food, which I’ll admit, was totally unexpected in the quality of its presentation and flavor.
I’d love to meet the people who handle deserts and breads at the Mosaic. The chap definitely knows his stuff. I’ve tasted their baked and sweet creations at their ‘Lounge’ and at the ‘Flluid Bar and Lounge’ - outstanding stuff. The bread baskets they plonked on the tables were outstanding too. Fresh slices, buns and brioches served with little dollops of butter. Unlike most other places, they weren’t stingy with the complimentary portions and kept dishing it out - who can resist fresh bread and butter?
We ordered a Grilled Cottage Cheese Steak with Ratatouille Timbale and Tossed Salad, Pork Chops with smoked BBQ sauce and seasonal vegetables, Paneer Lababdar, Murg Handi Lazeez, Naans and Rotis. For desert, all of us shared a single portion of Tiramisu and what a portion that was, but we’ll come to that later.
The stars of the evening were the Pork Chops. This was accompanied by HP sauce, tabasco and a pepper mill. I did appreciate the steak knife, which was a nice touch and one, I must add, that most places don’t think of. Wonderfully presented, the chops were perfectly cooked, had a perfect trim of fat and were accompanied by asparagus, zuchhini, bell peppers, cauliflower, lemon and some piquant tomato sauce. The whole lot was splashed with a mixture of oil and soya - visually, it was stunning. Do you know what? It tasted good too - done just right, I’d go back for more anyday.
The cottage cheese steak was seared just right and the Ratatouille was good, though it certainly wasn’t a timbale. It tasted wonderful all in all. The Murg Handi Lazeez was chicken cooked in a creamy brown gravy and tasted quite good with tandoori rotis. The Paneer Lababdar came in a chunky tomato gravy with soft pieces of cottage cheese and was very good with the Naans.
The term ‘lababdar’ confuses me. Most places serve their own rendering of this dish. Anyone with some clarity on how it should actually be served?
Coming to the Tiramisu. This deserves a special mention - and since I can’t do justice to it in words, I’ve put a picture for you to see and drool. :-) 1 minute. That was all it lasted. Layers of sponge cake, drenched in syrup, co-existing with mascarpone cheese, topped with mangoes and kiwis and surrounded by a thin sheet of dark chocolate. How long do you think it could have lasted?
While I would have liked a few things like better sound absorption, well informed waiters and a little more elegance to the ambience, we had a good evening and at approximately INR 500 per head I think it was more than worth the money spent.
Smoking: Yes | Meal for two: INR 1000 | Alcohol: Yes | Credit Cards: Yes | Bathrooms: Clean!
- Sid
http://www.chefatlarge.in
Jul 15, 2008
Vatika Grand, Leisure Valley, DLF City, Sector 29, Gurgaon
Average
Rustic to the core
A hectic day ended with a visit to Pind Balluchi. I wasn't very enthusiastic about it as more often than not, places serving Indian food tend to smother everything in thick, over-spiced gravies. Also, when you see a 'rustic' ambience being offered, it's probably their way of saying 'our waiters are monosyllabic morons and our furniture is creaky'.
Pind Balluchi was no exception.
It has slightly larger than life statues of people engaged in daily life and a rough, rustic interior. Likewise, the waiters are dressed in what the management thinks villagers wear. Rough hewn furniture, rougher walls and even coarser service completes the idyllic village scenario. Did I mention the bent, thick cutlery? The only hint of polite urbanity came from the chap moderating the queue at the entrance. Yes, there was a queue! Unbelievable, but only till you see the booze prices.
The menu was cliched with nothing out of the ordinary. The bar menu was severely limited - only 9 items if I remember correctly, but very cheap. We ordered Paneer Tikka, Bhuna Meat, Dhaba Meat, Tadka Dal and a combination of rotis. Yup, we're all carnivores, with very little regard for the dangers of red meat. Predictably, the meats were drowned in thick, spicy gravy and the dal was unbelievably mediocre.
On the bright side, the beer was cold and the rotis were hot. The food was served in a reasonably short span of time and there were some facilities for children to be kept busy. Also, the meat used was fresh.
The Paneer Tikka was very *Very* tender and quite delicious. If you're ever there, this is one dish you simply must order.
If you're looking to take a crowd for dinner, want cheap booze and reasonably priced food this is the place for you. If you're looking for good food however, keep walking... right past Pind Balluchi.
- Sid
http://www.chefatlarge.in