Eateratti: Oven Fresh

Eateratti: Oven Fresh

Revisting with new things on the platter with my devoted foodie friends Gaurav, Niel, Karishma and Mihir.Check my updated new post at.

http://eateratti.blogspot.com/2011/06/oven-fresh.html

New Yorker, Chowpatty, Mumbai

You are heading out to eat, extremely hungry, with stomach making all possible grinding sounds and the last thing you want is that the food lets you down? For me, in such situations I head straight to New Yorkers  and it has never let me down since my bachpan ke din.

So before I start, I will try not being biased about what I write, but honestly that going to be a little hard

What do they serve.?, Italian, Mexican & Indian, however I don’t visit the Indian food department here, simply cause if you wanted to have Indian food,then please head to the next door Creame Center or Shiv Sagar. You basically come to New Yorkers to have Nachos (one of the best in the city, almost close after Oven Fresh in my list), American Corn Cheese Balls, Tachos and the sizzlers.

Now I am taking off my rose-tinted glasses and to look at the down-side, the food has the flavors and touch of the Indian Cuisines. May be that’s why it appeals to the Indian taste buds so much, so it continues to be popular from time immemorial. The Pizza and pastas departments also are strictly alright. What’s another downside is the menu is all vegetarian.

However, what I love New Yorker most is for its Sizzling brownie. Leaving New Yorkers without having one is a perpetual sin to commit, atleast in my world.

It’s a very special place as tons of related memories. Most of our post exam lunches had to compulsorily happen here. One thing I love to do here,is to race my hubby over the silly riddles that the food mat has and I don't really need to state how wins hands down!!!!

Will I go back? This question is not too applicable, as haven’t stopped going there since my school days so that’s more than a decade.

Will I recommend? Yes for sure.

The Chocolate Room,Velachery, Chennai

I spent a good part of my childhood being allergic to one food ingredient that is considered as ‘the food of Gods’ and sinful love of millions of lives. Thankfully, I outgrew the allergy as I entered my teens and since then attacked the world of chocolates with vengeance!!

So, Chocolate room was like living a dream, where everything around me was chocolate and only chocolate. I visited this place just once, as I discovered this when I was at the fag end of my Chennai stint & landed up having a 3 course chocolate meal!!!!. That’s true; everything from starters to main course to desert was a chocolate by-product. Imagine having Pizzas, wraps, sandwiches all with chocolate in it. It’s like attaining a chocolate nirvana!!

However too much of something is really bad enough. As a foodie,I strongly believe that a good meal should leave you satisfied,wanting for more and not so over-whelmed that you don’t want to see nor have more of that meal for a while. So my recommendation with Chocolate room is that, don’t order all courses with chocolate, take a mix of chocolate and some salty food, like the normal sandwiches etc. and you’ll thank me for it.

What I loved in the menu were the choco shakes, namely the Dutch truffle shakes, the brownie shake and the in-house shake were lip-smacking and sinful. Also, the pan cakes oozed out tons of chocolate. However, didn’t really enjoy the Chocolate pizza too much.

The Verdit: All chocolate lovers, visit to this place is worth it. Also a note, this place isn’t too expensive unlike the other chocolate places in Chennai and totally worth the price

Spring Blossoms : Ghatkopar, Mumbai

As a foodie, it’s your birthright to binge on roadside food. Yes, I stand by this even post Delli Belly!! Now imagine a road-side joint, plonked along a junction, serving you not just the usual pav-bhaji, sandwiches & juices but also pastas, sizzlers and much more. So that’s Blossoms for you in a nut-shell. But hold-on; variety is not this joint’s USP, it’s the creative & appetizing food offerings which are!! Someone has actually experimented with the food, innovated and improvised on various ingredients and put them together. Trust me most of them are scrumptious & with hardly any disappointments.

Blossoms started off as a humble juice center while gradually building on its menu. Even today, it retains its juice center flavor, by having an interesting spread of juices, falooda and milkshake menu with some funny and filmy names. They have mixed and matched fruits, like once I remember having tried some strange combination of kiwi with some fruits and it was lip-smacking. I personally loved the Strawberry cream and mango cream. For the juices, it’s always best to ask the waiter for recommendations, as they will suggest something that’s in season or new.

Our order usually comprises of the Corn Cheese Bhel, Indiana Jones sandwich, Red Rounds, Nachos, Pav Bhaji i.e. either Hariyali pav-bhai or mari pav-bhaji or both, and sizzlers.

Amongst these my favorite is Corn Cheese Bhel, which is American corn mixed with crispy sticks (of what I don’t know but very tasty) with mayonnaise, tomatoes, capsicum and tons of grated cheese, simply divine. Next,Indiana Jones sandwich, which contains thinly sliced lettuce, carrots mashed with corn and mayo with a dash of ginger-garlic. Well, the only negative of this sandwich is sometime the garlic quantity is little more than a dash, hence the sandwich taste stays with you long after you have possibly digested it.

For a slightly more spicy taste bud, there are ‘Red Rounds’ which are crispy corn cheese balls served with Manchurian garlic gravy with loads of cheese garnishing it. They have improvised on the pav bhaji segment as well, with their famous mari pav-bhaji, which is pav-bhaji with black pepper twist to it and their oh so famous ‘Hariyali pav-bhai’ which is green vegetables based pav bhaji,I haven’t tried as yet but is my hubby’s favorite

.

Their sizzler line is the also delicious, but that menu is like most sizzler joints, with total justice on the taste department. Also heard about something called as Pune Sandwhich which is a speciality,but haven’t tried it as yet.

The service is good, as I find the waiters friendly, most importantly very well informed on the menu and proactive in terms of recommendations. The place also takes care of the presentation area with juices, shakes & other dishes served in fancy cutlery and by the look of it, seems like some level of quality control is in place. These aspects drive this place beyond a normal road-side joint.
Just a warning, please don’t expect to spend here like a road-side joint, as the items are expensive when compared to a typical juice center and you will land up spending as much as you would if you were to visit a restaurant. But overall, for some experimental but tasty food, it’s a must visit and yes, its all veg.

Benjarong, TTK Road, Chennai

During my stay in Chennai, my friend Sandhya took me to this Thai joint one evening post work. I was skeptical about trying Thai food at Chennai, and therefore kept my expectations under check. However, I was proved completely wrong as here is where I landed up having the best 'Indian' Thai food. Well, I have yet to visit Thailand, to taste the authentic Thai food, as I believe that the taste is customized to the countries local taste, but amongst the Indian joints, this one is one of the best I have had. A simple and extremely classy place, with wood that decor renders a very warm and cozy feeling. For the crowd mostly you’ll see a lot of corporates and few families as I doubt if Chennai folks have still awakened to this amazing place.

The main attraction I found in this place is the complementary starter called Mein Khum, hopefully have got the name right. They serve you a leaf, which I am not so sure what it is, but its shaped like a beetle leaf, on that need to put little honey, a small garlic cube, Thai chillies,dry coconut,peanuts and squeeze lemon on top, roll the leaf and bite the entire thing. With every chew you’ll get a different taste, the chilly adds a sudden blast of spice, which is instantly calmed by the honey rendering a tint of sweetness, the crunch coming from the peanuts and the lemon,coconut and garlic giving you the right flavors. The idea is to warm up and activate all your taste buds to relish the food that will follow.

For the main course, I have thoroughly relished the Thai curries and I actually ventured in trying out all 3 of them at different occasions and loved them. So my usual menu at Benjarong is Thai curry with steam rice with a dish of steamed vegetable. Now for the non-vegetarians, I will like to mention that once when I was visiting this place with a group of friends who picked up some chicken and prawn dishes, well, they weren’t too impressed with it. So will surely like to hear from some non-vegetarians what they felt about this place. The desert menu is slightly week, but the presence of French Loaf right outside provisions for a good work around.

Munchkins Thai Ban Bandra

We spent the last Sunday evening at this cozy little restaurant right behind Cafe Basilico at Bandra.We were a group of 5 veggies,who were hungry and also wanted to spend a leisurely evening.Since my friends were already in, so we didn’t need to wait, but I noticed that this place seemed to have the least waiting. The place is actually nice,decor cozy & the food even if not super, but surely very good. So my guess is takers for Thai food gets narrowed down when you sit between one of the best Italian joints in town and another very good Chinese restaurant down the same street.

However for a Sunday evening I welcomed the fact that the place was not over crowded,when usually each table’s conversations,culminates into too much noise with a dash of rhythm added by the cutlery clicks. Anyways, so here is what we ordered; for soups with began with a spicy Tom Yum Soup, a strong recommendation only for people who love spicy food. It has a beautifully blended flavor of Thai chillies with vegetables garnishing it.The other soup ordered was the good old sweet corn soup, which was just like the good old soup,nothing exquisite nor disappointing.

Our plates saw Vegetables with Salt and Pepper and Nam Prik Praw Je for starters,where the latter being a recommendation from the staff. The Vegetables with salt and pepper was a complete let down, where it only contained vegetables that deep fried and served. Personally, I am slightly averse to deep fried food (except french fries) but friends who usually relish fried stuff also didn't enjoy it too much. However Nam Prik Praw Je was delightfully yum, it was vegetables stir fired in a mild spicy sauce.Simple and yet very tasty worth giving it a try.

So a little about the tastes of the group that I was with, a couple of us including me weren't too fond of very spicy food, mild spicy worked for us, some thrived on really spicy food and some didn’t enjoy excess of coconut .Why I mentioned this is because our ordering for the main course was super, as it catered to all the above likes and dislikes. We ordered, Phad Thai Noodles,Gaeng Kiew Warn (spicy green curry), Gaeng Phed (mildly spicy red curry) and 2 portions of steam rice.All our ordering bang on right, delicious and enjoyable. Phad Thai Noodles, was mildly spicy with a dash of sweetness spread across, it didn’t have coconut flavor, but a lovely peanut garnishing, that added refreshing crunchy feel to it.The green and the red curries where the typical Thai curries and nicely done. The Green one was strong and spicy while the red mild and nicely flavored. So as a complete picture each of us got to have what we liked and a little bit of everything.

All this came with a bill of Rs.1700 that included 15% Citi Bank food discount.So we didn't have any deserts as that we had plans reserved for that.But a quick mention that their desert menu was strictly alright with only few choices.

Will I go back? Well yes, on a lazy weekday when I am tired and hungry and don't want to experiment on the food and yet have something nice to eat, I will pick Thai Ban.

Will I recommend? Its not a must try, yet a nice place that will do the opposite person no harm in trying, so yes.