Author: Reeta Skeeter

Tea, Snack, Main Course and Dessert

It wasn’t planned. But it happened. And it did good. It rejuvenated two tired souls.
We indulged, feasted, shopped, tattled and were transmuted to two new beings.
Tea, we did not drink, but shopped for. We shopped at Needs, the superb supermarket situated in DLF Phase-IV, Gurgaon. Needs has the most amazing variety a supermarket can house. No wonder it has become my favourite. Below is the picture of the array of teas and biscuits,cookies,shorbreads, they have on offer. I was stupfied by the variety. I still am. I have never ever seen so much variety under one roof in Delhi!!!

Bangkok 9
This cute little eatery (read Thai and Oriental Cafe) is tucked away in a warm little corner of the food court at The Mega City Mall, Gurgaon. We ordered Po-Pia Thod or Thai Spring Rolls for starters. Wrapped in rice sheets and deep fried till golden brown, they are the yummiest crunchies once can have. If I visit Gurgaon and don’t eat the Phad Thai noodles (which we ordered for the Main Course) here I feel like the trip lacked something. This was the reason, that in the midst of the then ongoing Gujjar clashes, when I reached Gurgaon with a plan to have a Greek Pizza, I ended up having Phad Thai noodles at Bangkok 9. Phad Thai noodles, that’s my best bet at Bangkok 9. They are tangy, soft, juicy, crunchy and have My Peanut!!!
AND AND AND more than anything else, Pritika (the one who accompanies me here and everywhere) and Bangkok 9 are the ones behind my resurrected interest in the delicious Thai cuisine. Pritika is the one who told me that Thai food is not all about Coconut (which I truly, deeply hate). So this post would have been meaningless without a mention, a salutation to the duo.
Costa Coffee
And then came the Dessert, ‘Chocolate Travoletta’, a titillating delight that can be sampled at Costa Coffee cafes around the town and beyond. I am not too sure if I spelt the name of the sinful delight right. It costs about 28 INR and is inarguably the best chocolate dessert any cafe can attract me to.

Rude Food – A Matter of Taste

Not much has been happening on the food front. The daily diet of Miss Skeeter is becoming rather boring. She just eats what she gets to lay her hands on. Not good! Perhaps she is not feeling very well. Nevertheless she shall bounce back. She plans to make a conscious change in her dietary intake.
Meanwhile, Miss Skeeter visited this restaurant named Urban Pind in GK-1,N-block. She ordered some Pizza which had four different kinds of cheese on it. She did not like it much. Though she did relish her ‘Pink Panther’. The weather was awesome as it was raining! So overall the visit to Urban Pind was not bad. Miss Skeeter happened to have two days off in a row which is a rare happening. She enjoyed to the fullest!
A Matter of Taste: She watched the first episode of the seven-part series of ‘A Matter of Taste’ hosted by Mr.Vir Sanghvi. As expected, the show was awesome! Mr.Sanghvi explored how the Indo-Chinese food came into being. He also formally agreed to accept the Indo-Chinese food as a separate cuisine. This indeed was a big step.
Next Sunday 8.30pm on Travel and Living, he would explore the Sino-Ludhianvi cuisine. Skeets looks forward to that, and all the other episodes and hopes she gets to watch them all 😀 And for all food bloggers the show is a MUST WATCH!

When its summertime and the time to dine

Much has been written about Dilli ki Garmi. And now its time to sit up and beat the heat!

Cool! Ain’t it?

In the past few days, i’ve been trying to find places to chill. Saltz @ GK-1, M block is a lovely place to chill out on a hot summer Sunday. When you don’t feel like doing anything head to Saltz, sip their Thai Cold Coffee, order a Gelato of your choice and sit ‘n’ stare by the window seat (they hv a few).

Veg Siomai
Braised Thai Noodles

My maiden visit to Saltz came on last Saturday. I was accompanied by a Thai food lover. In the company of this Thai food lover I am learning to appreciate Thai cuisine as this person orders stuff for me that does NOT contain coconut. And now about the ambience, food and masti: Ambience was excellent! The place is done up in blue, light silver and white. A perfect summery joint! Highly recommended! Food was only ‘ok’. But the fact that we can order Gelato from the Gelato parlour downstairs makes it cool as u don’t necessarily hv to order food. The menu is influenced by the South-East Asian region. It has many Thai items as must be apparent by now. Service again is only ok. There was only one more table occupied still the service was slow. If you are headed for a quick lunch or hunger is getting on to you, this is so not a place to be.
While we waited for our lunch, we checked out the GK crowd from our window seat 😀 One that amused us the most was a gentleman sitting under a tree and reading a newspaper. He was so lost in his own world that it appeared as if he was sitting in the balcony of his sea-facing apartment and readign it. LOL.

Can u spot him?

Anyway, we ordered Veg Siomai (Indonesian Steamed dumplings) for starters. They were simply yummilicious and were served with some hot red sauce. For the main course was ordered Thai Chicken Curry by the Thai food lover and I ordered Braised Thai Noodles which were served with Black Mushrooms and greens. The Thai Chicken curry was adjudged not good by the Thai food lover. My verdict for the Braised Thai Noodles was Pass. They were a bit bland, but that is the way they were supposed to be. The dessert was what we enjoyed the most. But sadly I’ve forgotten the name. However, a pic follows 🙂


Last words: Saltz was Sweet 🙂

Creamy royal fare

Perhaps a book can be dedicated solely to it. The gourmets can have conferences over it. The chefs can kill for its much guarded ancient recipe. And if a debate is held about the country that has the credit for its origin, prehaps a war could be fought between the claimants. Such is this delectable dish’s fame. I talk about Dal Makhani, the Dal which is also known as Dal Maharani (perhaps named so due to its royal descent), Dal Bukhara, Kaali Dal, Dal Peshwari and so on. It is undoubtedly the most celebrated dish of the Punjabi and Moghul cuisine. No, I do not mean to start a war here. Just penning what I deem true to the best of my knowledge.

The Preparation: Elaborate. That is what the preparation of this Dal can be precisely described as. The Dal has to be cooked on slow heat for long hours. The more it is cooked, the more the flavour intensifies. Traditionally it is cooked over a charcoal-fired clay oven overnight. That is just about the boiling part. The ingredeints which give it the royal creamy taste are the clarified butter (ghee), the white butter and the cream used therein. OODLES of these three ingredients are added. Health freaks can stay away from the pleasure of even ‘tasting’ this sinful preparation.

I have been a die-hard fan of this Dal myself. So much so that I refuse to allow mommy to cook it at home. Reason? She can’t put enough clarified butter leave alone the other fats. My experiment with the Dal Makhani: About 5 days ago, I decided to make my own Dal Makhani. It was my first REAL attempt at it and second general attempt. The result: I ‘could’ eat it meaning it was ok. R said it tasted as if a Bigdi Buddhi (signifying someone who has a heart that would not have an attack when adding fats to food 🙂 yay!) had made it. P and M loved it. I did not really relish it much. 🙁 But I will not give up till I make ‘THE’ DAL.

Places where you can get to savour really delectable Dal Makahni: Bukhara at Maurya Sheraton (Delhi), Punjabi by Nature (all branches in Delhi), Invitation (Ashok Vihar), Baujee Ka Dhaba (Gurgaon, Metropolitan Mall), Moti Mahal (they are the ones who are famed to be responsible for introducing the Dal to Delhi’s cuisine and making it an integral part thereof) and Bombay Brasserie (Dhole Patil Road, Pune).

The Good Lord made them all…

Rajma chawal, Kadi Chawal, Chilly Cheese Toast, Maggi, Chole Kulche, Chole Bhature, Pasta, Chilly Thecha, Kaali Dal, Butter naan, Paneer Tikka, Baby Onions pickled in vinegar, Green Chutney, Seekh Kababs, Hot n Sour soup, Tomato Soup with croutons, Crispy – wafer-thin Dosas, Yummy hot sambhar, Poppadums, Pickles, Aloo Tikki Burger, Vada Pao, Crispy salted green chillies, Aloo chaat, Golgappe, Cheesy fritters, Aloo chops, Grilled Sanswiches….

Of winter rains…

Just as I had begun to think that the scorching summers are coming back earlier than expected, the rain Gods showered mercy. And with the showers came back the winter delights; they can be savoured for a few more days now. Also came a reminder that Skeeter must cook all the pending winter delicacies that she had thought of while the winter lasts. Writing this post with the hot water bottle on me and a steaming cup of Kashmiri Kahwa by my side is pure pleasure… Nothing could’ve been better… Cheers to the winters!

Onion Pakodas… Thx to Asha for the excellent recipe

THE Pizzeria

I invite * to join me for luncheon at a Pizzeria where Pizzas are baked in a mango-wood fired oven. Time and Date: will be told personally.
The Pizzeria that I speak of, is located at Vasant Vihar (New Delhi), by the name Sartoria. I know quite a few places in Delhi which bake their Pizzas in ovens, but sadly the ovens used are the electric ones. Sigh!

A clay oven…Can u spot the chimeny on the top?


Another clay oven

Traditionally, Pizzas are made in either a wood or a coal fired ‘Brick Oven’. But these days ‘Clay Ovens’, fired by the same fuels are more popular. If you have ever chanced upon a ‘Brick Oven’ and have had a Pizza baked in that, I must say you are DAMN lucky!

A wood fired oven

I conclude by saying that Reeta yearns for a Pizza baked at a Pizzeria which has a ‘Brick Oven’; and the Pizzeria be situated at one of the lesser known places (approachable only by foot) in the bylanes of Himachal.

And my ideal Pizzeria would look something like this:


P.S.: For those who would like to own the latest electric oven chk out the one being sold by Kalamazoo, while I ready myself to savour one made in an oven fired by mango-wood.

Not Just Paranthas

One can see many ‘Dhaba-theme’ restaurants coming up all over Delhi these days; NJP is another such place. ‘Not Just Paranthas’, is a cute little eatery tucked away in a bylane of West Delhi’s Rajouri Garden. The food is good; the ambience, cute; the menu card, innovatively designed to take the form of a newspaper.

Food

We ordered Chur Chur paranthas which are their speciality, having an extra dose of butter and crushed with hands giving it a unique touch; aloo pyaz parantha; gobi paranatha; mooli parantha; Dal makhmali (balck lentils); kabul chana masala and Dal sukhi chatpati (Yellow lentils for dad). I just had a small bite from each of the paranthas, all were ‘ok’ barring mooli which was ‘bad’. Personally, I prefer mom-made paranthas anyday, so I had ordered a plain Naan to go with Dal Makhmali. Dal Makhmali which is the dearest to my heart was excellent; Kabuli chanas were nice but the fact that they had bits of paneer in it did not go well down my mind and tastebuds. Dal Sukhi Chatpati was liked by the elders; I did not even touch it so can’t say much. The chuski bar (serving Indian style flavoured ice-lollies) is an attraction for the kids.


Fun

Having seen too many ‘Dhaba-theme’ restaurants, the charm of visiting them is fading away. Still I liked this one. It was nice to see sweet li’l soemthings decorated all over the place. At NJP, all the seats are made of rassi (jute rope) and wood. There are knick knacks like small models of cycle-rickshaws, lanterns hung here and there, old vessels placed all over the restaurant. The loos have ‘Shreemaan’ and ‘Shreemati’ written over the doors to differentiate the one for men from that for women. What I liked best was a signboard saying -Kripya bhojan ke liye hathon ka prayong karein’ i.e. please use hands to eat your food. And what was even better was the spoons that were laid neatly over all the tables :D…pooooohhh