SUNDAY BRUNCH WITH A TWIST: The Four Standalones Who Stand Out in the Crowd

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

WE HAVE gotten used to a Sunday brunch philosophy that deifies excess -- even the central idea of a brunch, which is an extended breakfast, has been re-defined to mean an endless, excessive lunch. Just about everything a hotel or a restaurant has to offer is laid out on buffet counters for guests to tuck into, with endless accompanying pours of bubbly and martinis, the dishes getting replenished as they get consumed. It's almost like an industrial assembly line, though no one minds, because all of us believe we are getting our money's worth. But are we?

Ask people in the food and beverage business and they'll say brunches are designed keeping in mind the limitations of the human appetite. It is not possible for regular people, unless they have unimaginably stretchable stomachs, to digest more than 250-450gms of food per meal. The 'industrial brunch' therefore lets you delude yourself into thinking you have endless choice, although you eat only what you would normally do and pay as you would for a regular meal on any other day that you choose to patronise the establishment. Fortunately for the dining public, restaurants across cities are moving away from the predictable and pumping new life into a Sunday habit that is getting hugely popular in the metropolitan cities.

CHEZ NINI

WHERE: 79 & 80, Meher Chand Market, Fourth Avenue Road, Lodi Colony, New Delhi

WHEN: 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

PER PERSON: Rs  2,500+++ (unlimited cocktails from the menu); Rs 2,000+++ (sans alcohol)

CALL: (+91-11) 9650257451

My favourite fish burger served
on a sourdough bun with okra
fries, tartare sauce and
salsa verde

CHEZ NINI's Sunday brunch goes against the paisa vasool mindset by letting each guest order one dish at a time from the menu of the day. It means you can have an endless a la carte meal delivered at your table, and wash it down with the abundance of sangrias and smoothies, spiked with dates and honey, or get awakened by the aroma of the Blue Tokai coffee blend from Coorg roasted exclusively for the French and fashionable Chez Nini. As your red wine sangria gives you an early afternoon alcohol rush, ask for the Watermelon Salad, loaded with creamy feta and grated hazelnuts, then move on to the French Onion Soup that comes with a blob of Himalayan gouda sitting on a crispy toast, and call for the Soft Poached Eggs served on a bed of sauteed spinach, bay leaf foam and crispy onion. The portions are generous.

With your hunger temporarily assuaged but not your curiosity, order the Eggs Benedict that come on gluten-free brioche, generously lashed with hollandaise and accompanied by seared slices of pork belly (divine!). Or go for the Rosemary Pumpkin Pasta Au Gratin, which is a tribute to the umami powers of parmesan. Or, better still, settle for my favourite: Fish Burger served on a multi-grain sourdough bun with okra fries, tartare sauce and salsa verde. Each dish comes with a twist, on wooden platters in diverse shapes, cooked a la minute and served at carefully calibrated intervals.

DIVA KITSCH

WHERE: D-17, First Floor, Defence Colony, New Delhi

WHEN: 12 noon to 4 p.m.

PER PERSON: Rs 1,850+++; add Rs 1,200+++ for unlimited sparkling wine, beer and cocktails

CALL: (+91-11) 40648861

EVERYONE loves Eggs Benedict, but what if the hollandaise comes spiked with Penang curry? That's the Diva Kitsch touch to the Sunday brunch. It's different because it doesn't complicate life -- and comes with an assured supply of endless prosecco. Let the Italian bubbles tease your palate and build up anticipation as you await the steady procession of dim sum being directed towards your table -- my favourites are the ones with Chinese greens and water chestnuts, wild mushrooms, chilli pork and the heavenly five-spice beef.

After you've had your fill of dim sum, you are invited to choose one of the many mains list out on the page-long menu. Eggs Benedict apart, you could opt for the breakfast platter with three eggs cooked in three different ways, or look at life beyond eggs -- check out the flavourful Udon Noodles and Laksa Curry, or the Pumpkin, Water Chestnut and Litchi Curry with unpolished rice (believe me, you'll love it!), or the Spice Chicken Roulade served with sake-drunk noodles, or the Asian-Style Beef topped with a fried egg, served (here's the twist) on a flaky Malabar parantha. The dessert platter is a temptress and like everything else, comes with a twist. Anyone for jaggery creme brulee? You can only get it at Diva Kitsch!

INDIGO

WHERE: 4, Mandlik Road, Apollo Bandar, Colaba, Mumbai

WHEN: 12 noon to 4 p.m.

PER PERSON: Rs 2,100+++ (with alcohol)

CALL: (+91-22) 66368981 / 80 / 99

YOU CAN'T talk about Sunday brunches and not mention Indigo, the original purveyor of the idea about a dozen years ago. Yes, it's a chafing dish brunch, so you may wonder what makes it special, but it has atmosphere (who can beat Indigo's ambience and then there's a live jazz band), it has class (unlimited pours of Billecart-Salmon champagne and not your everyday supermarket brand), and it offers variety (the small plates and bowls keep changing every Sunday and the entrees are cooked a la minute). The dishes are not your usual brunch kind, though you can't miss the Eggs Benedict or the long-time favourite -- Create Your Own Omelette!

My favourites among the entrees: Seared Mushrooms, Spinach and Gruyere Lasagne with charred tomato sauce; Risotto with Prawns, Squids and Mussel with olive tapenade; Smoked Scarmoza, Pinenut and Sun-Dried Tomato Ravioli with chive cream and braised greens; and Chili and Garlic Linguini with Leeks, Fennel and Capers. Sadly, you can only have one, but no such portion control applies to the grills, so go for the Cracked Cumin Rubbed Grilled Chicken, Peppered Minute Steak With or Without Fried Egg, or Cilantro Rubbed King Prawns with Wasabi Dressing (the vegetarian options don't look that exciting, so I don't want to be held accountable for them!). It's impossible to have a disappointing Sunday at Indigo.

OLIVE BAR & KITCHEN, MAHALAXMI

WHERE: Amateur Riders Club, Mahalaxmi Race Course, Mumbai

WHEN: 12 noon to 4 p.m.

PER PERSON: Rs 1,850+++ (with alcohol); Rs 1,500++ (sans alcohol)

CALL: (+91-22) 33487711

Olive Mahalaxmi now has a
Guppy by Ai pop-up every
Sunday, introducing citizens
of Mumbai to the specialities
of Delhi's much-loved
Japanese restaurant

I CAN'T think of a more romantic setting for a laidback Sunday brunch that does justice to the grand vision of Guy Beringer, who recommended the practice as an antidote to Sunday morning hangovers in his 1895 essay unimaginatively titled Brunch: A Plea. Located in the serene, leafy expanse of the Amateur Riders Club at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse, away from the crush of humanity and the rush of ceaseless traffic, the restaurant seems straight out of the Italian countryside. And you get to spend an afternoon next to a stable of purebred horses.

Complement the rustic look with the sense of mystery and anticipation that a pop-up restaurant brings to a venue. For some time, Olive Mahalaxmi has been playing host to the food and charms of Goa's Greek taverna, Thalassa, and its owner-chef Mariketty Grana was lavishing on Mumbai her brand of "cooking (and feeding) with love". This lure of freshly baked pita bread, crumbling feta, gyro wraps packed with cured meats, moussaka and tender roast lamb made Olive Mahalaxmi the go-to place for every bon vivant who either lives in Mumbai, or passes by. Come August, and the vacuum left by Thalassa will be filled up by Olive founder-partner AD Singh's youngest brainchild, Guppy by Ai, the Japanese restaurant that has wowed Delhi with its California rolls, minute steak tuna tataki, signature pork belly, black cod with miso and wild mushroom gyoza. These temptresses will ensure Olive Mahalaxmi's tables are cleaned up by brunchaholics almost as soon as they are replenished. Dig in!

This article first appeared in the August 2014 edition of BT More, the monthly lifestyle section of Business Today. Copyright: Living Media India Ltd.

Korma Konnection: Seeking Food & Adventure in Purani Dilli

BOOK DETAILS

KORMA, KHEER & KISMET: FIVE SEASONS IN OLD DELHI

By Pamela Timms

Aleph; Rs 395

STAR RATING: ****

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

WHEN I was invited to an Ashok & Ashok mutton korma lunch by a friend a few years ago, I could smell what awaited me as I made the laborious climb up to his Gole Market barsati office. Whiffs of garam masala, browned onions and desi ghee gyrated like Madhuri Dixit around my nostrils, teasing me to add spring to my steps and dive for the lunch box being opened in my friend's office.

The gustatory extravaganza that followed piqued my curiosity about the Sadar Bazar duo, whose name sounded uncannily like a legal partnership parodied in a Charles Dickens novel. As I tried desperately to shake off a korma-induced slumber upon my return to my place of work, I typed in the names 'Ashok & Ashok'.

The first words that popped up on my computer screen were: 'Ashok & Ashok: A Taste of The Sopranos in Old Delhi'. "Oh, another blog post by a memsahib, a 'trailing wife'!" I murmured as I trained my droopy eyes on the words in front of me. I ate those words and lost track of time as Ashok & Ashok introduced me to the fascinating world of Eat & Dust, Pamela Timms's blog on her "food adventures in India," brimming over with wit, insights and recipes of the iconic dishes that define our street food experience.

As I finish reading Timms's first book, which opens with a racy whodunit centered around the mystery surrounding the origins of Ashok & Ashok, I can't help admiring the ease with which the French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin, his American translator and goddess of food writers M.F.K. Fisher, Charles Baudelaire, E.M. Foster and Anna Hazare meld together with the flies, the open drains, the searing heat and the glorious food of Old Delhi in this page-turner on our city of quirks and kormas.

"My first mistake, like Adela's in Foster's novel, was assuming I would blend effortlessly into Indian life," writes Timms, a Scottish journalist who arrived with her husband, Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor of The Daily Telegraph, in 2008. Effortlessly or not, Timms has delved deep into secrets that no author before her has attempted and put together a lip-smacking repertoire of recipes (more in her blog than in the book), starting with the Amritsari kulchas of the All India Famous (formerly 'Fames'!) Kulchas on Maqbool Road, Amritsar, to Sita Ram Diwan Chand's Chana Bhatura and Kuremal's Falsa Kulfi, to the jalebis of Dariba Kalan's Old & Famous Jalebi Wala, members of whose family are as uncommunicative as they are busy counting cash.

Pamela Timms is a Scottish journalist who came to India
about six years ago with her husband, Dean Nelson, South
Asia Editor of the U.K. newspaper, Daily Telegraph. Her
blog, Eat and Dust, is all about her 'food adventures'
in India. Image: Courtesy of Aleph Book Company

Gifted with a visual writing style, Timms takes us on Technicolor tour of Delhi, not limiting entirely to the older parts of the city. Her cast of neighbourhoods extends from the tony Vasant Vihar, where she settles into the life of an expat memsahib -- and where my favourite stopover for food books (courtesy of its Le Cordon Bleu-trained owner), Sheviks Toys (it started life as a dry cleaners' shop!), gets a cursory mention (albeit not for the books!) -- to the chiaroscuro confusion of Matia Mahal, where the Rahmatullah Hotel continues to serve hope and nutrition to the poor.

Along the way, Chittaranjan Park, Kashmere Gate and Civil Lines jostle for attention with the sights and smells of Haveli Azam Khan, famous for its Mota Biryaniwala; Gali Qasim Jan, home to the Fresh Corner bakery, which still sells macaroons made in the Anglo-Indian style with desiccated coconuts; Raghu Ganj, where Jain Coffee House's fruit sandwiches just don't seem to go out of fashion; Chitli Qabar's Diamond Bakery, which makes the city's best rusk waiting to be dipped into your early morning chai; and the Chandni Chowk-Jama Masjid quadrilateral, which has seen a return of its glory days, thanks to the Metro.

As we join Timms on her leisurely yet purposeful pursuit of our city's culinary wealth, we are introduced to people with interesting stories to share, such as Amit Arora (son of one of the two Ashoks of the mutton korma fame); Pran Kohli, owner of Sita Ram Diwan Chand; and Jamaluddin Siddique, the elder of the two brothers who run the famous Bade Mian's kheer shop (he's also the present occupant of the house in which Mumtaz Jahan Begum Dehlavi -- known to the world as Madhubala -- was born in 1933.

A couple of years back, I organised a couple of Chandni Chowk tours for Delhi Gourmet Club members. One of the tours ended at Chaina Ram Sindhi Confectioners, outside Fatehpuri Masjid. One of the present owners of the shop famous for its Karachi halwa is the former Hindu College and Delhi Ranji Trophy cricketer, Hari Gidwani. Watching with obvious bemusement the palpable excitement of our group, Gidwani said, "If Delhiites rediscover Chandni Chowk, it's good for our business -- and for the city."

Timms has rekindled our sense of wonder about our city -- and has given Purani Dilliwallahs such as Gidwani one more reason to treasure their heritage.

This book review first appeared in Mail Today on August 17, 2014.

Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

FORTUNE COOKIE: No Freedom from Licence Raj for Our Restaurants

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

AS WE prepare to raise a toast to another Independence Day (so what if it's a dry day!), the lords of our bureaucratic jungle need to seriously ask themselves if they are honestly prepared to liberate the economy from the shackles that stifle entrepreneurial spirit. India officially bid farewell to the licence-permit raj, but for creators of wealth and jobs, very little has changed on the ground. Ask restaurant owners and they'll tell you how.

A restaurant honcho in a neighbouring state was explaining to me how it takes Rs 10 lakh to get an excise licence -- without which you can't serve liquor, which is a substantial source of easy revenue for any establishment -- worth Rs 3 lakh. The difference is the sum newbie restaurants pay as 'facilitation charges'. It is no longer OK to call a bribe a bribe! And the rules ensure that there are multiple points of and opportunities for bribe collection.

In Communist China, you need four licences
to start a restaurant, but you must get 12-15 in
India. And state governments keep ignoring the
demand for single-window, online licencing.
Picture for representation purpose only.

In this neighbouring state, for instance, you need to get no-objection certificates from four local officials, who, anyway, gave you the licences to open the restaurant (for some strange reason, you have to obtain an excise licence after you've opened a restaurant, which is why new eateries can't normally serve liquor in their initial months unless they are in five-star hotels). You have to go back to each one of them and re-establish your credentials (and the city magistrate get to sit  over your case twice, once to start the process and then to certify that the process has been completed satisfactorily) before your file can move up to the state excise department, which is another hell hole.

My source shocked me with his stories on the extent of bribery in the state excise department. Peons, who double as 'facilitators', demand 'walking money' to deliver a file from one office to another. Personal assistants of officials ask for gratification before they tap on the print command to get an important printout.

And even after you have greased the relevant palms, your file may come back with ridiculous objections such as the one raised on a particular restaurant's application. If more licences are given out in this particular district, noted the objective official, the workload of the district excise administration will go up so much that it wouldn't be able to handle it. The district excise administration was therefore advised to state whether it would be able to cope with the burden of handling that one additional licence!

Well, if the state exchequer earns Rs 3 lakh every year from each excise licence, it can jolly well second officials to the district excise administration to manage the 'overload'. Restaurateurs therefore take the easy way out and sign up facilitators who profession it is to liaise with the relevant officials--read, pay bribes to get files moving. A major fast food chain has a vice-president with a staff of three dedicated to this honourable task, which includes skilful management of accounts, for the facilitation charges are paid in cash.

Maximum government, as opposed to maximum governance, continues to be the bane of the country's Rs 75,000-crore organised food service sector, which contributes Rs 12,000 crore annually to the national kitty. That is exactly the point made by the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) at a recent meeting with Tourism Minister Shripad Naik.

Restaurateurs across India have to obtain 12-15 licences from 10-12 different authorities before they can operate. These licences have to be renewed every year, the rules vary from state to state, and worse, despite years of representations to various governments, the organised restaurant sector has not got anyone to agree to a single-window, corruption-free, online clearance. Did anyone say the licence-permit raj is over? It is, but in Communist China, where you need four licences to open a restaurant. Time to move from Chandni Chowk to China?

RESTAURANTS GO MAGGILICIOUS -- AND HOW!

LAST WEEK, I dropped in at Geoffrey's, the old pub-style restaurant that opened at Ansal Plaza in the days when such establishments were hard to come by and thereafter moved to Select Citywalk, and got talking with its 20-something owner, Shobhit Saxena. He had a friend with him who has just come back home after getting a bachelor's degree in financial management from Peking University, China.

Farzi Cafe's Posh Maggi, drizzled with truffle
oil, comes with a pan-seared foie gras on top.

The two were remembering their days at Scindia School, Gwalior, where their favourite staple was Maggi instant noodles, which they would cook by boiling water with two keys attached to wires plugged to an electricity connection. The keys were effective conductors of electrical heat. The hunger-driven jugaad would put immersion heaters to shame!

I have watched with wonder our national romance with Maggi, even though it is impossible to make it in two minutes, so you can imagine my surprise when I came across Posh Maggi on the menu at the newly opened Farzi Cafe at Cyber Hub, Gurgaon. A creation of the restaurant's brilliantly inventive young chef, Himanshu Saini, it is a portion of Maggi noodles drizzled with a generous dollop of truffle oil and topped up with a pan-seared chunk of foie gras. It was heaven on a plate, where everyday noodles were transformed by the Cinderella treatment they got. They were a treat even without the foie gras, for the aromas of the truffle oil linger around to tease your senses.

Maggi makes an appearance also on the menu of Beer Cafe, but in a humbler form, with three options: chopped vegetables, or eggs, or chicken.  My Big Maggi Moment, though, was at Tapri, Jaipur's trendy 'tea cafe' about which I have written more in a companion piece in this column. It has eight kinds of Maggi on the menu and they come with the most interesting names -- from Bachelor, which is plain Maggi, to Tadka, Green (with peas, spinach, broccoli, zucchini and capsicum), Firangi (for mharo beto angrez!) and Jaipur Rural (spicy), as opposed to Jaipur Urban (creamy). Restaurants seem to have wised up to our love for all things Maggi -- and how!

JAIPUR'S HIP CHAIWALA BECOMES A BIG HIT

Chai Chic: Tapri brews new style statement

JAIPUR has always been associated with classical food. Niro's took the flavours of Delhi's Kwality to Jaipur, even as Laxmi Mishthan Bhandar's ghewar and Rawat's pyaaz kachoris kept acquiring a fan following in the national capital. But never has the city seen a trendy hangout of the young (and the young at heart) at a 'tea house' named Tapri. Strategically located behind one of the showrooms of Surana Jewellers, Tapri, with its kitschy design, edgy menu and decent selection of teas, has made cutting chai, vada pao and the Rs 2 mini-pack of Parle Glucose-D into style statements. It is here that you see the cosmopolitan face of tradition-bound Jaipur.

Tapri is the Marathi word for a roadside tea stall (Rajasthanis would call it chai ki thadi) and that is how rookie HDFC Bank executives Ankit Bohra and Sourabh Bapna launched the brand, which was born out of a business idea presentation for their MBA programme, a couple of years ago at Lal Kothi. They broke even in six months and they have graduated from streetside to high street, but their menu favourites -- poha (served imaginatively with Bikaneri bhujia), dal omelette, Ishpecial V.P. (vada pao!), eight varieties each of grilled sandwiches and Maggi, and ten pages of tea options -- have stayed the same. What's different is that they now get full houses of Jaipur's hip set.

AND NOW, MAGGI GOES MAKHNI

THE MAGGI wave seems to be catching on. I was at T1 (or Terminus One), a smart restaurant with a smarter menu from Vikrant Batra, promoter of the hugely popular Cafe Delhi Heights, at Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj, and lo and behold, I was served an ISBT Makhni Maggi drenched in a soul-satisfying creamy gravy with a dollop of butter on top. Dishes such as these play on people's nostalgia and take them back to the familiar territory of tastes they have grown up with. This is why Indian food has become fashionable all over again and restaurants are investing time and money to delve deeper into the country's treasure house of cuisines and revive old recipes.

The column first appeared in Mail Today on August 14, 2014.

Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

DINING OUT: Jackfruit Burger Leads Surprises at Depot 29

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

QUICK BYTES

WHAT: Depot 29

WHERE: B 6/2, Levels 2 & 3, Commercial Complex, Safdarjung Enclave (Opposite Hauz Khas Deer Park rear entrance)

WHEN: 12 Noon to 3:30 P.M.; 7:30 P.M. to 12 Midnight

DIAL: (011) 43139867

AVG MEAL FOR TWO (MINUS ALCOHOL): Rs 2,000+++

Depot 29 serves limited selection of beer and wine because it hasn't got its liquor licence yet.

The Spartan decor of Depot 29 allows you to
focus on the food, which is just the kind of
cafe food -- a mix of Mexican and burgers
in this case -- that is coming back in fashion.

THE CLOSEST Safdarjung Enclave's B-6 Block Market has ever got to gourmet food is Yamato Ya, the city's first Japanese convenience store, tucked away in one non-descript corner facing, to use a favourite Delhi expression, the 'back side' of the Hauz Khas Deer Park. The only time it gets busy is when the young residents of neighbouring Arjun Nagar descend upon the lone department store that doubles as the local booze shop to slake their thirst with chilled beer. And the only restaurant it had -- It's Greek to Me -- faded away like the Hellenic Civilisation; the general somnolence hasn't spared even the Cafe Coffee Day outlet.

Chef-Restaurateur Ritu Dalmia of Diva fame
with Vikas Narula (left) and Girijashanker
Vohra, her two Depot 29 partners.

In the last some months, the B-6 Block Market has dramatically turned around from being the neighbourhood nerd to the new people magnet. The transformation started with The Hungry Monkey, which positions itself as a 'Modern European' restaurant, but is essentially the new must-be-seen-at hangout of South Delhi's rich kids. In this busy market, Ritu 'Diva' Dalmia, who, like AD Singh, has become a serial restaurateur working on different formats and cuisines, teamed up with two young men -- Vikas Narula and Girjashanker Vohra -- to launch Depot 29 in what used to be an office. It takes an invigorating climb to reach the restaurant, unless you opt for the fashionably old-fashioned elevator that welcomes you with a lingering whiff of Chanel No. 5. On your way up, the only sign of life you see is a door promising the opening "very soon" of a Thai spa.

This review first
appeared in
Mail Today
on August 8,
2014. Copyright:
Mail Today
Newspapers

Depot 29 is a case-book study of Dalmia's new business model. Optimal square footage (1,800; split into two levels), seating for 48, a stripped-down industrial look, regular furniture (a tad uncomfortable for the horizontally challenged), the cheapest possible crockery, cutlery and glassware, but the food is just the kind you'd want to return to the restaurant for, or order in. Depot 29 was packed to capacity on a sweltering afternoon -- and I was the only man in it, apart from the people working there! It was clear that it had been quick in acquiring a following through the power of the word of mouth.

Comfort food -- quesadillas, tacos, burgers, savoury and sweet waffles -- rules the menu, though the 28-year-old chef, Ekansh Malik, is a Le Cordon Bleu, London, graduate who's come back after working under Atul Kochhar at Benaras. My significant other and I just loved the chicken and corn empanadas; she couldn't stop gushing over the grilled prawn and bacon tacos (I am told the ones with pulled pork are to die for!). The chicken and grilled prawn burger that followed unsettled me. It was a bit too dry and without personality, and the bun was lifeless too -- I made this point in a social media group and Narula promptly Inboxed me that they were re-engineering the burger (that's good PR!).

The sense of disappointment did not last long because the jackfruit (kathal) burger, which I ordered for a lark, was the best thing I have had in many days. What we asked for next didn't look -- or taste -- promising. The burata, which had collapsed and was oozing oil, was a rip-off. The guacamole dips and corn chips were average. But these are not likely to be remembered after a meal that ends with the Depot 29 banana waffle served with a generous helping of toffee sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. It was like heaven on a plate.

The service was friendly and informed -- and Narula was around all the time. I struck up a conversation with this pleasant, bright-eyed young man after he saw me struggling with the mustard and promptly got me kasundi. He started life taking the usual high-achiever career route -- engineering, then management -- and worked in Mumbai as well as Sydney before deciding one day to become a restaurateur. The corporate world's loss, I hope, will be our gain.

The Lalit's 28th Floor Gets New Gastronomic Destination Set to Open on Aug. 15 Weekend

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

The Grill Room at The Lalit's 28th floor is all
set to re-open with a tempting new menu

THE LALIT'S rooftop, perched on the 28th floor, is one of Delhi's prized pieces of real estate offering a panoramic view of the sights that define the Capital, from the Ba'hai Lotus Temple to India Gate, Red Fort and Jama Masjid, and Akshardham Temple. It has seen two Thai restaurants, first the Silk Orchid and then the international franchise, Blue Elephant, come and go on one side, and a grill-based restaurant on the other, which has seen many avatars, and is all set now to re-open on the Independence Day weekend as The Grill Room presided over by the talented Ishika Konar, an IHM-Kolkata alumna whom I'd first met at the Pullman Gurgaon Central Park.

Pullman's loss clearly has been The Lalit's gain. And she's fortunate to have as her guide the brilliant chef, Nimish Bhatia, a fount of knowledge and experience who assiduously stays away from the limelight. Bhatia is the Corporate Chef of The Lalit group, so he has collected more frequent flyer miles than most people I know, because he has 11 hotels under his charge, and he has been slowly but surely making a difference to their restaurant offerings.

I got a foretaste of the combination of Bhatia's vision and Konar's skills -- she's a dab hand at the grill -- at a preview dinner where I had been invited by my Delhi Gourmet Club partner in crime, Rocky Mohan, who's too well-known to be re-introduced. Ravinder Kumar, The Lalit's Corporate General Manager (F&B), and the chain's most reliable pillar of strength, gave us company and was his quietly witty self.

As our conversation moved from a discussion on micro-greens to foreign imports imperilled by the new food safety and standards law, to Rocky's experience at The French Laundry, we had a remarkable meal (each one of us ordered different items) of goat's cheese and onion jam tart, cheese empanadas, grilled prawns with a soul-nourishing beurre blanc, baked and blow-torched provolone, grilled Cornish hen's breast (as succulent as they come!) and a wagyu-style steak that didn't require a knife to be cut, such was the extent of the marbling. As you'd expect from a good chef, Bhatia did not make us believe that the steak had just been flown in from Japan, which is not possible under that country's law; it had come from America, he clarified.
The Grill Room is all about honest food, down to the flavoured salts served with the breads, the piri piri sauce and the morel mash. A welcome addition to Delhi's gastronomic repertoire.

Leisure Inn Grand Chanakya Revives Old Jaipur Favourite; Offers Starred-Hotel Comforts at No-Star Prices

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

Rooms at the Leisure Inn Grand Chanakya
on Jaipur's arterial M.I. Road come with
free WiFi and a host of other facilities
at an average rate of Rs 2,200 per night.

IT'S A COMMON refrain of hoteliers at every industry meet to extol the virtues of branded budget hotels. They say this under-developed category, ignored by established hotel chains, caters to not only the vast domestic leisure market, but also mid-level executives travelling on work to Tier-II and Tier-III cities and towns. It's all talk. None of the major chains has done anything significant to translate this talk into action on the ground. Quality budget hotels, meanwhile, continue to elude the domestic leisure and mid-level corporate traveller even at a traditional tourist hub such as Jaipur, which has little to offer between five-star or heritage hotels and 'three-star' properties that wouldn't qualify for any star at any place anywhere else in the world.

It is this market that the Leisure Inn Grand Chanakya taps into -- and it sets the benchmark for others seeking to enter this potentially lucrative business. The Jaipur hotel located on the busy Mohammad Ismail (M.I.) Road, the Connaught Place of Rajasthan's capital city, is the first hotel to be managed in India by the Australian multinational, Staywell Hospitality Group. Where else in India can you get a room, measuring between 450 and 650 square feet, at an average rate of Rs 2,200, with an exceptionally comfortable bed, effect air-conditioning, complimentary WiFi, electronic safe, coffee and tea maker, moderately priced mini bar, and a toilet with an attached shower stall equipped with gleaming, effective fittings.

The hotel has an interesting history. A vertical construction -- yet another example of how budget hotels can come up at lower development costs -- it is located on the site of the old Chanakya restaurant, which used to be a popular foodie magnet famous for its traditional Rajashthani vegetarian dishes before it had to shut down because of labour problems.

Chanakya was the brainchild of a prominent local businessman, Lekhraj Odhrani. His son, Murli Odhrani, managing director of the Dubai-based Petrotech Enterprises, is in the business of providing oil and gas exploration tools and equipment in the Indian sub-continent, Middle East and Russia. It is he who has partnered with Staywell to give a second lease of life to Chanakya -- now renamed Grand Chanakya, with an imposing mural showing Chanakya, India's Machiavelli, entering a temple -- and add the 52-room hotel above it.

In its slicker avatar, Grand Chanakya continues to draw a steady stream of old loyalists and new faithfuls -- I will always remembers it for ker-sangri ki subzi (richer than the standard lean preparations), yellow dal sexed up with a garlic tadka, and the unmissable besan choorma. The wind-swept terrace bar, Arya, is where you can spend a pleasant evening with your favourite poison and friends, digging into unforgettable grilled items such as murgh ke sooley, noorani seekh (chicken and mutton with a quilt of egg yolk), subz kurkuri (Indianised spring roll -- highly recommended) and mushroom galauti served on biscuits, instead of the standard baby ulte tawa ke paranthe.

You can't get a better package in Jaipur (the hotel, by the way, also has a fitness centre and spa to complete the experience). The Leisure Inn Grand Chanakya promises to be a game-changer both for corporate off-sites and for middle-class domestic travellers desperately seeking places that offer a starred-hotel experience at no-star prices. Staywell has taken over the old Peppermint hotel at Sector 14, Gurgaon, so it has made its intention to stay and grow in India abundantly clear. That's good news for us.

DINING OUT: A Rare Bird in a City Teeming With Options

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

QUICK BYTES

WHAT: New Menu @ Rara Avis

WHERE: M-27, Second Floor, M-Block Market, Greater Kailash-II

WHEN: 12:30 to 3 P.M.; 7:30 to 11 P.M.

DIAL: (011) 33036648

AVG MEAL FOR TWO (MINUS ALCOHOL): Rs 2,200+++

The Smoked Salmon Salad (above) delights
you with its zesty freshness, even as the
full-bodied Gazpacho seduces your taste
buds to ask for more at Rara Avis

RARA AVIS (which means 'rare bird', by the way) opened around two years back, at a time when the city was seeing an unexpected efflorescence of European cuisine. Tres opened to admiring reviews, thanks to the understated brilliance of the talented duo Julia Carmen Desa and Jatin Mallick; Chez Nini got the attention of sophisticates, although no one knew the inventive Nira Kehar before she opened the restaurant; and Rara Avis started off by getting a buzz going because of its romantic, wind-swept terrace, before people discovered that Jerome Cousin, who's the polar opposite of the flamboyant Laurent Guiraud, the second Frenchman in the troika that runs the restaurant, is a master of home-style, no-fuss, soul-satisfying French food oozing the gentle warmth of the Provencal sun.

In the last two years, I have got to know Rajiv Aneja, the third member of the triad, and have admired him for making the brave switch from being a tyre industry executive and then a marketing consultant to running a restaurant with the love and the drive of a mother rearing her first child. In these two years, the M-Block Market, GK-II, which was once the domain of Diva, China Garden, Hao Shi Niann Niann, China Garden, Not Just Paranthas and the local hardy perennial, Chungwa, has seen a number of restaurants come up, starting with Uzuri (another success story scripted by the Heston Blumenthal acolyte, Rishim Sachdeva) and the unbeatable Mini Mughal, and then, one after the other, Amalfi, Artusi and Yeti: The Himalayan Kitchen.

Here's a market teeming with options, but I keep going back to Rara Avis for its French Onion Soup and Chicken Cordon Bleu, and I know people who swear by its Snails in Garlic Butter (I could never have imagined Delhi flipping over for d'Escargots!), Salmon Salad (the salmon is neither stale, nor rubbery, which is how it is served in most other places) and the rectangular pizza-like Flammenkeuche, an Alsatian speciality that we must thank Jerome, a third-generation restaurateur, for introducing to the city. The service is friendly and generally flawless, with the hands-on Guiraud keeping a close watch, and there's not an evening when Rara Avis isn't busy.

It took another visit to Rara Avis, spurred by a call from Aneja asking me to check out his new menu, to make me fall in love with the place all over again. My meal started with a Gazpacho from heaven (full-bodied and seductive), moved on to the Smoked Salmon Salad, and then moved from one beauty to the other -- Bechamel and Chicken Croquettes, which I recommend to anyone who goes to Rara Avis (apart from the classical Duck Breast with Orange Sauce); the light-as-air Fish Carpaccio marinated with lemon and dill; Grouper with Beurre Blanc (it was so heartening to have the French mother sauce made exactly the way it should be!); a reassuring Creme Brulee; and a scoop of Chocolate Mousse that made me wonder why I ate anything else.

It was Jerome's off day, so his No. 2 -- a smiling young man who seemed to be from the hills -- was at the kitchen. The restaurant, clearly, does well even without its head chef. I was a tad disappointed, though, by the Filo with Prunes and Bacon (it was dripping oil) and the Sea Sole with Mustard Sauce (too creamy!), but these quibbles apart, the overall experience was one that made me decide to return soon.

POSTSCRIPT: I was introduced to Laurent many years back -- it was his first night in the city and he was having dinner at The Imperial -- by Mark Walford, my wine merchant friend from London. My friend knew Laurent from the days he owned a Michelin-star restaurant at Pays Basque, south-west France. Over the years, having seen him at Manre and at Olive, I have been surprised by Laurent's humility. He has not once bragged about the Michelin star. He lives in the present and enjoys every bit of it.

This review first appeared in Mail Today on August 1, 2014.

Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

FORTUNE COOKIE: How the 'Food Safety' Circus is Denying Us Our Daily Pleasures

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

IT'S BEEN less than a month since the government made the ill-advised move to ban foie gras (goose liver) imports on the ground that the delicacy is injurious to the birds because of the way they are force-fed to fatten their liver.

Well, foie gras may not be the only sign of refined taste that may disappear from our plates because all hell has been let loose by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). Like the misdirected logic of the foie gras ban (name one animal product, starting with milk, that doesn't involve some form of cruelty or the other!), the rules being pushed by the FSSAI seem to have been conceived at Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

Thanks to new food safety standards that
are completely out of sync with the evolving
taste buds of post-liberalisation India, we
have a situation where Parmegiano Reggiano
(the original parmesan), above, is now
considered unsafe for the nation's health
and therefore unfit for import.

The Food Safety and Standards Act, without doubt, was legislated in 2006 with the good intention of bringing the provisions of seven-odd central acts, beginning with the antiquated Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act of 1955, under one comprehensive, contemporary legal umbrella. A brainchild of the previous government, it was welcomed by all as a salutary initiative, but the mood changed once the rules framed under the Act came into effect in 2011. It sent food importers running for protective cover, but none was forthcoming.

For starters, the new rules are based on the list of 355 edible food products recognised by the PFA Act of 1955, which is surprising because the Codex Alimentarius, the Bible of food standards prepared jointly, and updated continually, by the World Health Organisation and the Food & Agriculture Organisation, lists more than 3,500 categories (not items!) of edible food products. In what could be a scene straight out of Catch 22, or Comedy Nights with Kapil, the new rules, for instance, allow green olives to be imported, but bar the ones that are black, because it regards black olives as green olives gone bad.

The new rules don't recognise the existence of mayonnaise, or of sausages, unless they carry a 'cooked meat' label. They are OK with cheese made with pasteurised milk, but they don't allow Parmegiano Reggiano (the original parmesan) access to the Indian market because it is made with milk that is not pasteurised. Nor do they accept that there's something called 'canola oil', leading to a piquant situation where the FSSAI wants canola oil shipments to carry labels describing the product as 'rapeseed oil', which their Canadian importers are refusing to do.

Labelling, of course, is another parallel circus act. Not only is the FSSAI making absurd demands (like insisting that all wine labels must mention expiry dates!), it is asking for all food labels to be translated into English. Try as hard as you may, you cannot get a Japanese sushi rice producer, or a Thai manufacturer of condiments, to invest in a machine dedicated to printing labels in English for the Indian market. The world uses their products without blinking an eye, so why should they make an investment for a market that, anyway, is quite small! I believe the Japanese had an apoplectic fit when they were asked by FSSAI to produce a health certificate and a certificate of provenance (both in impeccable English!) for each container of fish that arrived from their country.

I foresee two serious consequences of this legal mayhem. One, the unmet demand for imports will increasingly be met by airline and shipping crew 'hand-carrying' food items at exorbitant prices. This would hurt the government because of the loss of revenue involved. A food importer was saying to me that in the days, pre-liberalisation, when the hand-carrying trade was all that was happening, imported salmon cost Rs 4,000 a kilo in the grey market and the government got nothing out of the business. The price has dropped today to Rs 1,100 a kilo and the government is getting its share because salmon is being imported via legitimate channels.

The FSSAI, however, has been able throw a monkey wrench into this business as well. It insists now on checking each consignment of imported fish. The process takes five days, on average, and frozen fish have a maximum shelf life of seven days. There's therefore a scramble to sell fish, hurting legitimate importers by squeezing their margins, whenever stocks are freed by the FSSAI.

There could be another, more serious, consequence of this moronic reading of the laws. What if the rest of the world starts viewing the FSSAI's actions as non-tariff barriers and starts retaliating? Indian agricultural exports then will suffer more than the imports that are getting blocked because of the food safety circus.

JOOST THE WAY WE LIKE IT! RIVOLI SINHA'S FRESH FRUIT JUICE DREAM

Rivoli Sinha, who has tied up with
Australia's Boost chain of fresh
fruit juice stores, ensured that
her company broke even within
a year of launching operations. 

PEOPLE in the food business love to joke that no one ever pays to go out and have a healthy meal. An alumna of Switzerland's prestigious Les Roches Hotel Management School, Rivoli Sinha set out to prove this long-held theory wrong, although she had the more comfortable option of taking up a position in the Rs 2,500-crore security services company founded and owned by her father, R.K. Sinha, the BJP's newly elected Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar.

Rivoli, who's barely 30 and was given her unusual name by the godman Mrityunjay Maharaj (it is the Spanish word for 'revolution'), came across Boost, an Australian chain of fresh fruit juice stores, on a visit Down Under coinciding with the takeover of a local company by her father. She brought the brand home, but realised soon that she would have to find a new name because Boost was already a popular milk supplement brand. She zeroed in on Joost, opened her first outlet at a South Delhi fitness centre, and broke even within seven months.

"Profitability is the only reason why I got into this business," Rivoli said over a sampler from her juice menu at Joost's Cyber Hub outlet, one of her eight stores. She made it clear she was looking for PE funding to finance her expansion plans.

Rivoli has tapped a market waiting for an alternative to canned juices made from concentrates and fresh juices produced at roadside stalls in the most unhygienic conditions. And she has managed to raise the bar by literally travelling the extra mile. She visits Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district every February for the annual auction of hapoos (Alphonso) mangoes -- this year, she picked up five quintals. She insists on only late-harvest Sweet Charlie strawberries from Mahabaleshwar because their natural sugar content rules out the need for additional sugar. She sources her blueberries and raspberries from New Zealand, but she has found a supplier for blueberries in Himachal Pradesh. And she gets her wheatgrass from a grower in Sonepat who uses the hydroponic growing system to stop bugs from thriving on the grass. This attention to detail is getting her the footfalls -- Joost's 8ftx7ft outlet at the Medanta Medicity serves 400-500 people a day. That must be keeping the cash registers ringing.

PIZZA EXPRESS OPENS AT AMBIENCE MALL, VASANT KUNJ, ON AUG. 25

Pizza Express, which has had a fairly
successful run in Mumbai, is famous
for its dough balls and garlic butter dip.

AMBIENCE MALL in Vasant Kunj, long dismissed as the poor cousin of its upscale neighbours (DLF Emporio and Promenade), is fast becoming a gourmet magnet. Its transformation started with the arrival of Yauatcha, the dim sum restaurant from London that opened here after a successful launch in Mumbai, then Starbucks, and finally, Indigo Deli, Rahul Akerkar's restaurant franchise designed for the malls. Yauatcha has had mixed luck, Starbucks has returned to normal life after those early headline-grabbing queues, and Indigo Deli, having seen a great opening, ran into a kerfuffle over table reservations, but none seems to be struggling to survive.

Come August 25, and they'll be joined by Pizza Express, the international chain of Italian restaurants born in the UK, famous for its invention, dough balls served with garlic butter dip, reaching Delhi via Mumbai. A floor above, Mistral, the restaurant run by  PVR Cinemas, has turned around its menu under the supervision of Mayank Tiwari, who has worked with both the Olive and the Smoke House franchises. There's also talk of Jamie's Kitchen opening -- it'll be the country's first Jamie Oliver restaurant -- some time later this year on the other side of Indigo Deli and Pizza Express. The mall, it seems, has finally come of age.

HAVE YOU HAD YOUR WHEATGRASS FIX?

WHEATGRASS juice is the new must-have for the city's fadwallahs, who are forever looking for a manna from heaven that would make them immune to all forms of illness and aging. Grown from cotyledons of regular wheat plants in trays filled with water, and harvested every seven days, chlorophyll-rich wheatgrass had its share of glory when, thanks to the publicity attracted by Anne Wigmore of the Hippocrates Health Institute, it was touted as the remedy to cancer. The American Cancer Society dismissed these claims after a host of scientific studies rejected the theory that wheatgrass juice, which is bitter and needs some getting used to, reverses the progress of cancer. All it does is pump you up with dietary fibre, which is good to have in plenty.

This column first appeared in Mail Today on July 31, 2014.

Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

TOP CHEF AWARDS 2014: Delhi Gourmet Club to Honour Bukhara's Executive Chef J.P. Singh with Lifetime Achievement Award

Out of the 17 awards to be given
away today at the Top Chef
Awards 2014, the only one
disclosed so far is the Lifetime
Achievement Award to be
conferred upon Executive Chef
J.P. Singh of the Bukhara.

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

THE DELHI Gourmet Club's Top Chef Awards 2014 kicks off in less than ten hours today (July 22) with just one award, out of the 17 being given away, being disclosed by the founder-members of the Facebook group (in the interests of transparency, I must say I am proud to be one of them). It is the Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be given away by the chief guest, Parvez Dewan, Secretary, Tourism, Government of India, to J.P. Singh, the man at the helm of ITC Maurya's (and indeed, India's) top-grossing Bukhara restaurant.

This is one of the three awards that were decided by the jury, headed by Manjit Gill, Corporate Chef, ITC Hotels, and Founder-President of the Indian Federation of Culinary Associations. The idea to honour Singh and Bukhara, which is celebrating its 35th birthday in the first week of August, came from Varun Tuli, owner of the much-awarded Yum Yum Tree restaurant and now also a very successful A-List caterer. Being an observer at the jury meeting, I was surprised by how the decision was wholeheartedly accepted by all the other members, including Manish Malhotra, who has pioneered a style of cooking that is taking Indian cuisine in a direction that is completely different from that of Bukhara.

The other members of the jury were Chef Bill Marchetti, eminent food critic Marryam Reshii, Chef Girish Krishnan (JW Marriott, New Delhi Aerocity), Chef Mickey Bhoite (Le Cirque, The Leela Palace New Delhi), Neeraj Tyagi (The Claridges) and Magandeep Singh (India's first French-certified wine sommelier). Top Chef Awards Delh-NCR 2014 is being co-presented by Pullman Gurgaon Central Park, powered by Le Cordon Bleu-G.D. Goenka University, and supported by Elle & Vire, Delverde, Torani, Granini and Nestle Professional.

Some months back, the Delhi Gourmet Club,
represented (above, third and extreme right) by
Rocky Mohan and yours truly, honoured Bukhara
for serving the best seekh kebabs in Delhi-NCR.
Bukhara's No. 2 Purshottam Singh and ITC
Maurya's Senior Executive Chef,
Manisha Bhasin, received the award.

A graduate of the famous Dadar Catering College (Institute of Hotel Management, Dadar), J.P. Singh has spent all his life in the hotel chain that was created by ITC's first Indian chairman, Ajit Narain Haksar, primarily as a vehicle to earn hard-to-get foreign exchange during the high noon of the licence-permit raj era. A passionate foodie, Haksar was also responsible for creating Bukhara in the then-uncelebrated Maurya Sheraton in 1978. It was he who poached Madan Lal Jaiswal (J.P. Singh still can't get over his colourful language!) from a now-defunct hotel named President on Asaf Ali Road, at the intersection where New Delhi meets Purani Dilli, which was famous for its tandoori preparations.

Jaiswal was given the task of running Bukhara, which he did with great flourish (he even opened the New York Bukhara), till he died in a car crash. It was under Jaiswal that Chef JP, which is how everybody knows Singh, joined Bukhara in 1991, and like everyone and everything associated with the restaurant, continues to be a part of it -- like the 17 chefs working with him, including Purshottam Singh and Balkishen, who has travelled the world, from New York to Ajman to Hong Kong, with the Bukhara brand. Prem Rajput, the maitre d' who would charm his guests into coming back — again and again, and Jaiswal formed quite a formidable team. Together, they scripted the early success story of the Bukhara.

Interestingly, Jaiswal's 'gurubhai' Todar Mal was the leading light of The Oberoi's Mughal Room, which Haksar almost disabled by poaching a dozen chefs from what was then Delhi's premier Mughlai-Punjabi restaurant in a five-star hotel. Haksar wanted to move the centre of gravity from the contemporary market leader (and not the caricature of the original that it has become today), the colourful Kundal Lal Gujral's Moti Mahal, to Bukhara.

In Bite the Bullet, his autobiography, Haksar devotes some pages to the Bukhara, where he says he got the idea of people eating with their hands and wearing aprons, instead of spreading a serviette on the lap, after seeing a BBC TV drama based on the life of Tudor King Henry VIII. If English royalty could eat with their hands, why couldn't we, he reasoned with himself, and the practice has been in vogue since the day the Bukhara opened its doors. The practice has even survived one of the early (and rare at the Maurya) European manager's attempts to do away with it! Apparently, his argument that international visitors were being put off by the practice found no takers in the higher echelons of the ITC.

According to Haksar, the seating (which I find highly uncomfortable -- conspiracy theorists insist the design is driven by the idea of making people leave as soon as they finish eating!) and decor were inspired by a World War II film set partly in the North-West Frontier. There was a scene in it, Haksar writes, where British officers were seen dining at a rugged local eatery. The image stayed in Haksar's mind when he was planning Bukhara with Rajinder Kumar, the architect who became famous after the Maurya came up. Haksar borrowed the idea of the glass-fronted kitchen (which was a novelty in its time), or so ITC insiders whisper, from Rama International, a hotel that ITC managed for Iqbal Ghei and Pishori Lal Lamba in Aurangabad.

Bukhara started as a 60-seater and its entry, oddly, was through Amrapali, the 'coffee shop' that was subsequently renamed Pavilion. The strange layout had an adverse effect on the image of Amrapali, for there would always be a little crowd of Bukhara diners awaiting their turn hanging about in the 'coffee shop' or ordering starters from their favourite restaurant. Thanks to the 1982 Asian Games, when the hotel underwent a major refurbishment, this layout was changed in favour of what we see now.

Chef JP, who was toying with idea of becoming a doctor before listening to his heart and training to be a chef, joined ITC Welcomgroup in 1981 from the lowest end of the pecking order -- as management trainee at Mumbai's Ambassador Hotel and then, Demi Chef De Partie at the Sea Rock Sheraton, which was bombed in a terrorist attack in 1993. He was a Chef de Partie (CDP) at the Patna Maurya before he joined Bukhara, where he's now the hands-on executive chef -- even as he and his team feed more than 400 people a day, and make more money than any other restaurant in the country (Rs 8 crore a month, one hears from the competition!), his constant exposure to the tandoor has no effect on his even temper.

Like his temper, Bukhara thrives on consistency. The restaurant's mutton supplier has been at it for more than 25 years and so have the vendors respectively supplying the tomato puree for its celebrated Dal Bukhara and the brass vessel in which it is cooked on charcoal fire; its sole fillets unvarying weigh 300gms and its jumbo prawns, sourced from one of the ITC subsidiaries in Visakhapatnam for as long as anyone can remember, uniformly weigh between 80-120gms. Similar weight specifications are followed for capsicums and potatoes, and a mutton leg piece meant for a raan is never used for a burra! The butter and cream content of the Dal Bukhara, moreover, has never been allowed to exceed 6 per cent of the total portion size. Consistency of quality and an even-tempered chef -- you can't get a more winning combination.