Gaggan Anand Sets Out to Reinvent the Cuba Libre at his 11-Course Theatre of Molecular Gastronomy for Centurion Card Holders

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

A CULINARY team representing four nationalities -- Indian, Thai, Spanish and French -- is working overtime at the ITC Maurya even as I write this post to put together the first-ever Progressive Indian feast being curated by the inimitable Gaggan Anand in his mother country.

Gaggan Anand is all set to unveil
India's gastronomic event of the
year on September 4 in New Delhi.

The 11-course meal, priced at Rs 15,000 per person for owners of the American Express Centurion card, will feature items that are not on the menu of Gaggan's eponymous Bangkok restaurant ranked No. 3 in Asia and No. 17 in the world. These are being created especially for the two-city (Dellhi and Mumbai), eight-dinner event, facilitated by Mangal Desai and Nachiket Shetye's Cellar Door Kitchen. Among them will be a drink that Gaggan proudly calls the Indi Libre. An exciting take-off from the Cuba Libre, the concoction consists of the famous rum that Gaggan appropriately describes as "Rocky Mohan's Old Monk", ginger, kala namak and Thums Up (a far better choice, I believe, than the standard, sweeter Coke).

I met Gaggan at the hotel's 28th Floor Executive Lounge, where he'll present the four back to back dinners starting from Thursday, September 4. A bundle of positive energy sporting his trademark unkempt ponytail, Gaggan talked excitedly about the 250 kilos of ingredients that he and his team had carried with them from Bangkok to New Delhi. These include fresh yuzu and wasabi and one of Japan's best sake from Tokyo, fresh coconut milk extracted out of burnt Thai coconut from Bangkok, and white asparagus from Chiang Mai. For his genre-defining white chocolate paani poori, he contacted Cocoberry's Asian region head and got her to source for him the world's best white chocolate shells. And he has also brought along his dehydrator, his liquid nitrogen mixing bowls and a host of other gizmos from his kitchen, apart from customised Gaggan-endorsed sake cups made in Japan.

Foie gras was the only favourite ingredient of his that Gaggan could not get. "But why has the government issued a blanket ban on foie gras?" he asked -- and added: "Not all foie gras is extracted out of force-fed geese. I get my supplies from the Spanish ethical farmer, Eduardo Sousa, who produces the world's best foie gras without force-feeding his birds." At Gaggan's restaurant, no farmed fish is allowed and 70 per cent of the fresh ingredients used are organically grown.

Gaggan's 11-course meal will be more or less carb-free, so there'll be no "naan breads", he warned, though a truffle oil risotto will take care of carb cravings of the guests. Among Gaggan's exclusive creations for this series of meals is a drink he has named Yos (Japanese for 'drunk') Samurai -- it comprises an exclusive sake, umezu (pickled plum 'vinegar') and fresh juice of a yuzu, the tart citrus fruit that physically looks like a small grapefruit. Coconut lassi is the other one, but the matcha (green tea) ice-cream sandwiches with a topping of freshly grated wasabi are designed to take the privileged diners by surprise.

For Dalal, who first met Gaggan two years ago when both were in Copehagen for an internship at Rene Redzepi's Noma restaurant, and Shetye, it's the first big step towards "taking Indian cuisine to the world". Of course, they had their moments of fun (and creative tension) -- "our WhatsApp exchanges, if not R-rated, are certainly Not Safe For Work!" Dalal said with a chuckle -- but they were surprised by the spontaneous interest in the event. "We didn't have to scream and shout that Gaggan is coming," Shetye said about the response to the sold-out event. "I am surprised by the buying power of Delhi," Gaggan added.

Unsurprisingly, Dalal and Shetye are planning four pop-up events next year. Gaggan has already mentally mapped out his next outing in India -- a picnic brunch at a Himalayan resort with freshly sourced local ingredients (you can't get any cooler than that!). With such electric excitement in the air, it was hard to let Gaggan get back to work. He returned to the kitchen with one worry hanging over his head. Would all his guests arrive sharp at 8? Forewarned about Delhi's habit of being always fashionably late, he said with a degree of finality: "Those who come late will have to start at the course that is being served." Consider yourself cautioned.

FORTUNE COOKIE: Sula Vineyards to Serve a Slice of Goa at its Destination Winery

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

I FIRST went to Nashik, India's wine country, about a decade ago and spent a couple of nights at what was then Sula Vineyards founder-CEO Rajeev Samant's home in the winery he had launched with the promise to put what he described as "our own Napa Valley" on the world wine map.

Goa's most famous shack restaurant, La Plage

(above), opens this Sunday in a gaily colourful

setting at Sula Vineyards, Nashik, giving wine

tourism in India a fashionable new direction

It was in the middle of a blazing summer, but as soon as the evening would set in, a rejuvenating cool breeze swept the leaves off the courtyard and brought the mercury down by a good number of notches. That was the signal for the cook to bring out my favourite Dindori Shiraz, a hearty red that turned out to be a match made in heaven for his Kolhapuri chicken. I used to wonder then if Nashik's newbie wineries such as Sula would be able to capitalise on their location in the lap of nine lone hills of the Sahyadris and make wine tourism a viable business vertical in what was till then an industrial town whose only other claim to fame was (and will forever be) its proximity to Shirdi, hometown of the original Sai Baba.

A decade later, Samant, a Stanford graduate who did a stint at Oracle, has not only made Sula the country's top wine brand straddling 70 per cent of the market, but also turned Nashik into a premier wine tourism destination. His old house has made way for a boutique hotel and last year, Sula's vineyards drew over 170,000 visitors from all over the world. It was a model that Vijay Mallya's Four Seasons wines sought to replicate in a picture-perfect Italian villa at Baramati (Sharad Pawar's bastion in the backyard of Pune) till the company's financial troubles got the better of the project. Fratelli, a successful new wine player, has also been doing something similar, though on a more modest scale, at its state-of-the-art winery in Akluj, the old cotton trade outpost in Maharashtra's Solapur district.

Sula, however, continues to be the leader in this new business, and now, by teaming up with a Goan institution, the celebrated French restaurant La Plage, it has taken wine tourism to a serious new level. For Samant, getting La Plage (whose restaurant at Sula Vineyards, which opens on Sunday, July 6, is called Soleil) to Nashik was "a big thing personally" because, as he explained to me, his second home, which is in Goa, is just behind the restaurant on Ashwem Beach in Morjim.

Imagine savouring a glass of Sula's
award-winning Shiraz, Rasa, even as you
soak in the verdant scenery of vineyards
in the shadow of the Sahyadri hills!

La Plage, which literally means 'the beach', is a stylish shack restaurant, which was launched in 2002 as a humble six-table establishment serving breakfast and lunch. Its founding trio -- Morgan Rainforth, a Welsh-French national who had studied cookery in Provence and had had enough of working with temperamental French chefs; his girlfriend Florence Tarbouriech, whom he met in Barcelona; and her long-time friend Serge Lozano -- fell in love with Goa on a backpacking visit and decided to stay on by doing what they knew best: running a restaurant. It turned out to be a gastronomic coup and very soon, celebrities from Amitabh Bachchan to Jeremy Irons and Kate Moss joined La Plage's growing fan following, savouring the French fare that Rainforth dished up with remarkable consistency.

International acclaim has been pouring in on Rainforth and his mates, like Goa's monsoon showers, and though the thatch-roofed restaurant, guarded by palms bent by centuries of sea breeze, stays shut from April to November, its loyalists show up without fail as soon as it opens for its unbeatable chicken liver pate with onion jam and the Thali au Chocolat. Well-known for being a ceaseless innovator, Rainforest surprises his guests with the tasteful simplicity of dishes such as fillets of tuna, served rare and encrusted with sesame seeds, and drizzled with a sweet-tangy soy sauce; or calamari stuffed with ratatouille; or the sardine filets with wasabi cream. Just the kind of food that'll make you yearn for a bottle of wine.

SWISS SCOOPS WARM UP ICE-CREAM MARKET

Movenpick has arrived in Delhi
with new global flavours such as
the popular crème brûlée (above)

AT RS 175 A SCOOP, Mövenpick is the second international premium ice-cream brand to enter Delhi (at the Select Citywalk, Saket) after Haagen Dasz, which despite its "Danish-sounding" name (a tribute to the treatment of Jews in Denmark during World War II) was born in Bronx, New York. Mövenpick is Swiss, the brainchild of a restaurateur named Ueli Prager, who opened his first outlet in Zurich in 1948, and the name he gave it is now famous as the ice-cream brand.

The restaurant became famous for the unusual ice-cream flavours on its menu, and as its outlets opened across Switzerland, the brand Mövenpick was born, but only after its takeover by Nestle in 2003 did it spread internationally.

 Boston University MBA Tarun Sikka
is the premium ice-cream brand's
national franchisee

Mövenpick first arrived in India in 2008, but the going wasn't good and its operations were wound down. With a young franchisee, Boston University MBA Tarun Sikka, driving it now, the ice-cream brand entered the country from Chennai and Delhi is its second pit stop. Bangalore and Mumbai are the cities next on its growth trajectory, and Sikka is confident, "without being over-ambitious", that he'll be able to cater to the niche market that Movenpick serves. "Do you know Movenpick is the top-selling ice-cream brand in Bangladesh?" Sikka declares triumphantly, adding that it's already on the menu of 30 hotels across India, including the Taj in Delhi and Grand Hyatt in Mumbai.

What I find refreshing about Mövenpick ice-creams is their unusual range of flavours -- crème brûlée is my personal favourite and I believe its masala chai variant is an international fast mover. The ice-creams are without artificial preservatives or flavourings, yet they are produced in such a way that their shelf life is 18 months; the sorbets hold good for a year. Each season, Mövenpick releases two sets of ice-cream: 16 flavours are fixed and another seven or eight are from its 'experimental' range, but what sets each one of them apart is the flavour intensity provided by the six or seven layers of the base ingredient in each scoop. There's a reason why good taste comes at a price.

NO CELEBRATION FOR OLD MONK AS IT FUMBLES IN YOUNG MARKET

ONE of the most anticipated rankings in the business of beverages is the global wine and spirits consultancy IWSR's Real 100 List, which stacks up local brews that are more powerful than most international best-sellers.

The old market leader has been left way behind
by United Spirits Limited's Celebration rum,
the world's No. 9 alcoholic beverage

This year's Top Ten List has two pieces of news relevant to our market. One is that Officer's Choice, which grew by nearly 5.5 million nine-litre cases in 2013, surpassing McDowell's No. 1, is officially the world's largest-selling whisky at 24.16 million cases. Across beverage categories, the two are at Nos. 5 and 6, compared with Johnnie Walker's No. 8 (19.28 million cases).

The second news, and this is a shocker, is that Mohan Meakin's Old Monk, for long the country's top-selling  Indian Made Foreign Liquor brand and the world No. 2 rum after Bacardi, has officially been relegated into a far corner by another United Spirits Limited (USL) heavy-hitter, Celebration, which reached 18.9 million cases (and the No. 9 position) in 2013. For those of us who've lost our alcoholic virginity with Old Monk, it's sad to see its sorry decline because of bad marketing and lousy distribution. Mohan Meakin's geriatric leadership doesn't seem to realise that nostalgia alone doesn't get the cash registers ringing.

KOREA'S JINRO SOJU IS THE WORLD'S NO. 1 ALCOBEV

WHAT makes Jinro special? For starters, it is the world's most consumed alcoholic beverage brand, it is produced in South Korea, and it sold 65.66 million nine-litre cases in 2013, according the global wine and spirits consultancy IWSR's authoritative Real 100 List. Jinro has been in the business of making soju, the Korean cousin of vodka, since 1924 and it was acquired by Hite, the manufacturer of Korea's largest-selling beer, in 2008. What's interesting about Jinro is that its label tells you whether it's being served to you at the right temperature. Each bottle comes with a temperature-sensitive paper tab in the shape of a frog, the company's label. It is white when the bottle is warm, but turns blue when it is cold and drinkable. Cool, isn't it?

This column first appeared in the Mail Today edition dated July 3, 2014.

Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

Punjab Grill's Gurpreet Singh Gehdu Says Chak De and Reinvents the Indian Bar Menu

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

I BECAME an admirer of Gurpreet Singh Gehdu after I sampled his Winter Menu some months back at Punjab Grill, Select Citywalk, Saket, in the highly entertaining company of Rohit Aggarwal of Lite Bite Foods (LBF). That was before Aggarwal disappeared into Mumbai's cavernous new T2 terminal to set up one food outlet after another and then vamoozed off to Bhutan, via Darjeeling and Sikkim, with his motorbike buddies.

So, I got tempted when Sonali Priy Kapoor, LBF's marketing communications head, reminded me about the launch of the restaurant's Chakhna (Tasting) Menu this past Friday. I was initially in two minds about going for it because I wanted to sample the Gua Baos being served at the opening of i-kandy on the same night at Pullman Central Park Gurgaon, but Sonali's power of persuasion prevailed over my reluctance. I thank Sonali for it. I got one more opportunity to eat out of the hands of the incredibly talented Mr Gehdu and also spend a delightful evening in the company of Vivek Vaid (Tiger's Gyaan), Avininder Singh (Foodie Surdie), Maneesh Srivastava (former HR professional, photographer and blogger at Mystic Foodie Mantra) and Gurpreet Singh Tikku.

The incredibly talented Gurpreet Singh Gehdu at
work at the Punjab Grill kitchen. (Below) The
quartet of vodka-laced flavoured chuskis is a
part of the Saket restaurant's Chakhna menu.

My faith in Gehdu, who was with Old World Hospitality before he moved on to LBF, was reinforced by the ingenious way in which he raised the commonplace matthi into the realm of the sublime by serving a platter with a fondue, where he added Old Monk rum in place of the white wine and kirsch (cherry brandy), which are used traditionally in the Swiss favourite. The other accompaniment was a mildly hot imli (tamarind) chutney. The combination was brilliant because of the ease with which it transformed an everyday experience into a novelty.

The accompanying drinks had a similar magical effect on me. I couldn't decide, in fact, which one was better -- the Rasbhari Margarita (the au naturel cape gooseberry sorbet, I thought, was an idea that needed to be popularised at once), or the Gannewali Margarita (the sugarcane juice in this drink was tempered with mint, black salt, ginger and lemon juice).

Giving them heady competition were the vodka-laced chuski in different flavours, though I can't say I was as enthused by the Old Monk RimZim. The cocktail may have revived memories of RimZim, the popular 'masala cola' that Coke recently brought out of the cold storage after canning it following the acquisition of Ramesh Chauhan's Parle Agro portfolio in 1993, but it lacked character. I still prefer my Old Monk with either honey and warm water, or Coke and soda in equal measure.

My favourites of the evening were the Sunny Side Up Tuk Tuk in a Khameeri Roti (a kheema patty crowned by a fried egg, sunny side up, in a khameeri roti packet), melt-in-the-mouth Amritsari Machchhi served innovatively with crunchy old-fashioned potato chips, addictive Tandoori Kukkad Wings and imli chutney, and the unforgettable Tawa Chicken Keema with Fryums (the fry-and-eat tube-shaped snack items produced by the TTK Group). It was like a marriage procession of many textures and tastes brought together by the brilliance of an adventurous chef who pushes his creative boundaries without diluting the innate strengths of timeless recipes. Without doubt, Gehdu has raised the bar for Indian bar food and given birth to a new genre of Indian tapas.

Turning Point Wines Get A Capital Welcome as Delhi Gourmet Club Serves Paradise on a Plate

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

IT WAS only appropriate that the wines being showcased at the Delhi Gourmet Club's 68th event are called Turning Point. DGC's first-ever al fresco wazwan lunch on Saturday, January 25, was indeed a turning point for the club, which is now, despite being a 'Secret Group', a 5,000-strong Facebook community.

Delhi Gourmet Club's founder-member Rocky
Mohan (left) with Shafi Waza, one of the four
brothers who are carrying forward the great
gastronomical legacy of Khan Abdul Ahad
Waza. Picture: Shalini Chauhan

It was the first time that the club had invited a well-known catering company, none other than the inimitable Ahad Sons, which is carrying forward the legacy of Khan Abdul Ahad Waza, to present a traditional 16-course wazwan lunch. A celebratory wazwan meal can accommodate up to 32 courses, but the club's three founder-members (Rocky 'Mr Old Monk' Mohan, Atul 'The Guru of Sikandalous Cuisine' Sikand and yours truly) decided that 16 would be more than enough! And believe me, they were.

Of course, with Rocky, whose book Wazwan: Traditional Kashmiri Cuisine is the most insightful on the subject, to guide us, with the suave Shafi Waza, the third of the four brothers who are now the custodians of Ahad Waza's legacy, personally supervising the proceedings, and with Mohit 'Chowder Singh' Balachandran orchestrating the service with club member Nikhil Alung, we could expect the lunch to be a memorable affair, even though the weather wasn't.

Turning Point wines, which have just been launched
in Delhi and Gurgaon, share the limelight with
the invincible Old Monk, Ketel One and Bacardi.
Picture: Ajay Gautam

It was a cold and gloomy day (we joked that we had brought Srinagar's weather to Delhi), and the ever-hospitable Rocky, at whose sprawling Vasant Kunj farmhouse the lunch had been laid out, was worried that the chairs would be wet. The weather made no difference to the elevated spirits on the ground, for there was enough warmth to be had from the wood fires, the lavish spread of delectable wazwan dishes, and Turning Point wines, which have just been launched in Delhi and Gurgaon after a fairly good run in Mumbai and Pune.

Turning Point is the brainchild of Ashwin Deo, whom many of you'll remember as the man who steered Moet Hennessy India very successfully in the company's early days. A product of Nashik's wine lands, Turning Point is India's first wine label that addresses young people, the  country's largest population segment that hasn't evinced much interest in wine.

I suspect it is because wine has been presented in a manner that it comes across as some 'serious' drink that only 'connoisseurs' can appreciate. The truth is, wine, like any other alcoholic beverage, is meant to be savoured in the company of friends, with good food to accompany it, and not intellectualised upon. Turning Point wines draw you in with their bottle design -- it's sassy, youthful, vibrant. You just have to keep a bottle on your table to get people talking about the wine. It's a great ice-breaker.

But Turning Point wines have more to offer than their sleek bottles and meaningful conversations. The wines are made from grapes sourced with great care from contract farmers in Nashik, and matured and bottled at Ravi and Kailash Gurnani's York winery with expert advice from the roving biochemist-turned-oenologist from Bordeaux, Marc Dworkin. I had the Turning Point Rosé, made from Zinfandel grapes, and I was surprised by its lively freshness. It was not overly sweet; instead, it balanced crisp acidity with a hint of fruitiness.

I thought I would stick with the Rosé, but I changed my mind after I had the Cabernet Shiraz. It was young, flavourful and delicately balanced. The vines from where the grapes are sourced for the Turning Point Cabernet Shiraz are 10-15 years old, yet there's no rawness in the wine, which made it a perfect match for the food that was served piping hot from silver containers by by Shafi's men, all clad in white kurta, pyjama and skull cap.

And what a feast it was, from the nadru (lotus stem) fritters and mutton lahabi kebabs circulated as appetisers during the meet-and-greet hour, to the pounded mutton kofta with an apricot at the centre, the ruwangan chaman (my most favourite paneer dish), the unbeatable Hind roghan josh and its polar opposite, the aab gosht (mutton cooked in a milk curry), the unputdownable haak (Kashmiri spinach) and monje (turnips), the spongy gushtaba bearing the unmistakable Ahad Waza stamp, and the sooji halwa, phirni and kahwa (Kashmiri tea) at the end. It was a meal I won't forget in a long time.

For DGC, it was without doubt a landmark event -- a brilliant showcase of a regional cuisine rooted in tradition and a new wine label that has set out to re-write the old, cobwebbed rules of wine drinking.