on that cryptic note, here's my post on the luverly flagship Moshe's at badhwar park (where the swish set would drive by with hands over noses. IF they had their windows down- it's a fishing village/slum, but more on that later perhaps)
so, on a weekday some time ago, finding myself in a deep funk and having a blah day at work, i decided to play hooky and visit Moshe's- named for Moshe Shek; who's something of a jamie oliver-type phenomenon in mumbai- a yummy chef that a bunch of peeps would want to get naked with. me? i don't know, i'd have to meet him to take that call.
so, off to Moshe's i went. cosy, wood-panelled, high-roofed (and housed in part of what once must have been, an astounding south bombay home) with tall windows and a feel of a quiet, natural gentility. except, that i was there on a friday afternoon and it was packed with office-goers, along with the few south mumbai perfumed swishies who we otherwise would never rub shoulders with.
i got a table for four, and then felt guily for being the only person at it because there was a waiting line for the place. but that lasted only for a bit, hell! i deserved me some goodness just then. on to the food though. i had a something to drink, don't remember what, a juice- ah yes, watermelon (dear god! this senility!) pretty nondescript, but lovely for the weather, and for the fact that i walked over! don't ask!
do go to Moshe's with company, it's a shame to be there alone and not have others from whose plates you could sample a wider variety of eats. i ordered a salad nicoise and a humus & chicken appetiser. sat back a bit anxiously (hooky guilt) and waited for what seemed like a long time (don't go if you've played truant and need to get back to work/deadline/crabby boss/angry significant other)
the food did arrive, and it was lovely. now, i've never had a great salad nicoise, so perhaps in Nice they'd bung in fresh anchovies and that would lift the dish to no end. but i know i loved the freshness of the the other ingredients. my humus dish was good too. i like humus, but the chicken mince'y accompaniment overpowered it a bit more than i would have cared for.
unfortunately, my meal there was all together too threadbare for this to be a rousing 'yaay! get your arse to Moshe's!' kind of review, but i suspect that's what i will say after a couple of more meals there (it's on my afore-mentioned list of swish work-lunch options)
Moshe's (and possibly Indigo, which i haven't visited yet) makes a great case for switching away from a lifestyle where entertaining myself is all about cheap hooch, greasy bar food or cheap takeaway. i mean, that food's great too, but i do feel it's time i upgraded to a more refined place in my life- where conversation gets more interesting (as opposed to slurry) helped along by attentively cooked food and good tipple.
Moshe's, Badhwar Park, Cuffe Parade
code: casual swish
meal for two (with tipple): Rs. 2500/- (my guess'timate)
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Thursday, May 10, 2007
kitsch kulture
so, you're thinking, "shit! she's gone K ape-shit on us like ekta kapoor!" not a chance. but you can't help but think 'kitsch', 'konkan', and therefore, 'kulture', when you visit any of the Awchats' Mahim restaurants. Namely, 'Goa Portuguesa', 'Culture Curry' and 'Diva Maharashtracha'. I'd planned to treat my friends to dinner at 'Goa Portuguesa', reached there to find it full; walked on through into 'Culture Curry', and wound up choosing dinner off both menus. hooray integration!
The Awchats' third restaurant, Diva Maharashtracha, is a couple of doors away (haven't been there yet), while the other two share the same premises; hence the happy sampling from two of the kookiest-looking menus ever. The designs and dish names reference every sidey, happy-tacky, filmy bit of silliness from Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. And, if you're from around those parts, as i am, they're double the fun!
we love our tipple, and for this night, beauty stuck to his beers, sahu and i stuck to our large RCs (his on soda, mine on the rocks), sodab, kappu, fish and teju ordered wine (Riviera) and jonty had beer AND opted for, what has to be, one of the freshest-tasting cocktails i've ever tried- Lakewater Snake. yeah, you're thinking, 'what's with the name??' but it works! it's essentially a gin & tonic, crushed ice with strips of cucumber(!!) and a glazed cherry, topped with a couple of pudina leaves for garnish. 10 for drama, 8 for taste, 9 for making you go 'aaah, refreshing!' (cheesy, but true) and a 20 for living up to that name!
for eats, we ordered a happy melange of goan, mallu and andhra khaana and most of it was good- i won't say rocked, because authenticity is such a fluid, rooted-in-memory concept, 'rocked' can never be a universal adjective. that, and i am a fence-sitter. so yeah, the food's good, go! that's the highest praise you'll hear from me (unless i choose to describe home grub- then it's ROCK central!)
er, anyway, where was i? oooh, appams (very passable), prawn theeyal (blah prawns, half-decent theeyal) chilli-pork sausage (good), something xacuti, something cafreal (i've forgotten which was chicken, which was pork) squid, mussels... you get the idea. i liked what (my buddy) fish had, an Andhra dish, prawn royallu, i think. his dish had far fresher prawns and that went a long way in upping the taste factor that kappu's theeyal lacked.
at this point, i must give a shout out to the fabulous staff we had waiting on us. so it was a slow night, therefore attention, i can get. but these guys were SMILING! now by any standards, we're a raucous bunch, raising eyebrows all about with our loud talk, smoking and varying degrees of demandingness (is that a word!?) but at Goa-Culture-Portuguesa-Curry (hey! I was buzzed, two menus, two restaurants, two sets of differently-dressed staff serving me! of course it all blurred into one whee-happy giggle-fest!), the guys seemed to love each of us; separately, equally and as we were!
go there peeps! if an experience is a combination of many effects, i give GCPC a vibrant 10/10!
Goa Portuguesa/Culture Curry (or, GCPC, as i like to think of it), Mahim
code: casual-swish
meal for 8 (with lots of tipple): Rs. 6000/- ( you do the math!)
The Awchats' third restaurant, Diva Maharashtracha, is a couple of doors away (haven't been there yet), while the other two share the same premises; hence the happy sampling from two of the kookiest-looking menus ever. The designs and dish names reference every sidey, happy-tacky, filmy bit of silliness from Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. And, if you're from around those parts, as i am, they're double the fun!
we love our tipple, and for this night, beauty stuck to his beers, sahu and i stuck to our large RCs (his on soda, mine on the rocks), sodab, kappu, fish and teju ordered wine (Riviera) and jonty had beer AND opted for, what has to be, one of the freshest-tasting cocktails i've ever tried- Lakewater Snake. yeah, you're thinking, 'what's with the name??' but it works! it's essentially a gin & tonic, crushed ice with strips of cucumber(!!) and a glazed cherry, topped with a couple of pudina leaves for garnish. 10 for drama, 8 for taste, 9 for making you go 'aaah, refreshing!' (cheesy, but true) and a 20 for living up to that name!
for eats, we ordered a happy melange of goan, mallu and andhra khaana and most of it was good- i won't say rocked, because authenticity is such a fluid, rooted-in-memory concept, 'rocked' can never be a universal adjective. that, and i am a fence-sitter. so yeah, the food's good, go! that's the highest praise you'll hear from me (unless i choose to describe home grub- then it's ROCK central!)
er, anyway, where was i? oooh, appams (very passable), prawn theeyal (blah prawns, half-decent theeyal) chilli-pork sausage (good), something xacuti, something cafreal (i've forgotten which was chicken, which was pork) squid, mussels... you get the idea. i liked what (my buddy) fish had, an Andhra dish, prawn royallu, i think. his dish had far fresher prawns and that went a long way in upping the taste factor that kappu's theeyal lacked.
at this point, i must give a shout out to the fabulous staff we had waiting on us. so it was a slow night, therefore attention, i can get. but these guys were SMILING! now by any standards, we're a raucous bunch, raising eyebrows all about with our loud talk, smoking and varying degrees of demandingness (is that a word!?) but at Goa-Culture-Portuguesa-Curry (hey! I was buzzed, two menus, two restaurants, two sets of differently-dressed staff serving me! of course it all blurred into one whee-happy giggle-fest!), the guys seemed to love each of us; separately, equally and as we were!
go there peeps! if an experience is a combination of many effects, i give GCPC a vibrant 10/10!
Goa Portuguesa/Culture Curry (or, GCPC, as i like to think of it), Mahim
code: casual-swish
meal for 8 (with lots of tipple): Rs. 6000/- ( you do the math!)
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
we can't pack that for you ma'am
so D, Saddi and I went out for lunch the other day. to 'all stir fry', the nice chinese place in Gordon House (yes, she of 'polly-esther's' fame). and it was brill. the place is clean, pretty, has huge-ass mirrors and a plasma screen playing old bruce lee films on a loop(on mute, unfortunately)
Saddi got frisky and decided to opt for a kiwi daiquiri and i chose a mocktail, inexplicably called 'summer-freeze'. both suffered somewhat from the common curse of being too sweet, but i may be in a minority here in having that opinion (NOW see why i call myself a fence-sitter?!)
lunch at 'all stir fry' is an interesting experience, for the first timer, anyway. they have a make-your-own-wok option which i suspect a bunch of people pick for the drama of it. essentially, it's an orientalised version of kadhai-vegetables, and waaay prettier.
imagine a salad bar. meats (hallelujah! beef and pork too!) & seafood to one side (raw or semi-cooked), veggies- peppers, corn- baby and kernels, greens- broccoli, bok-choy, spinach, more. plus, the usual suspects- onion, & tomatoes, lying in wait next to paneer, tofu and a selection of noodles to the other side.
all waiting, misty-coolly, for you to come and bung them in your bowl, hand it over to a chef who stir fries the lot (in a suitably awesome, fire'y display of woksmanship) in a sauce of your picking. oh! and yeah, he's in a glass-enclosed booth with sliding doors; to keep the rest of your a.c.'d space from getting warm (lifestyles of the cool and comfortable)
right. i'll cut to the chase; no gastro-porning. the food was great. all the more fun for the novelty of it. we're gonna try their a la carte menu next time, and I have it on my list of semi-swish, accessible work-lunch places. although frankly, it's a crime to have to work afterwards :p
incidentally, here's a heads-up, you can't make a doggie-bag of your wok leftovers (i tried) logically, since you can make yourself an unlimited serving, they've cheapo-proofed themselves from people who'll order and cart away leftovers for non-paying, non-doggie others.
so, get there really hungry, or serve yourself sensibly. have fun!
all stir fry, gordon house, colaba
meal for two (with tipple) Rs. 2000/-
Saddi got frisky and decided to opt for a kiwi daiquiri and i chose a mocktail, inexplicably called 'summer-freeze'. both suffered somewhat from the common curse of being too sweet, but i may be in a minority here in having that opinion (NOW see why i call myself a fence-sitter?!)
lunch at 'all stir fry' is an interesting experience, for the first timer, anyway. they have a make-your-own-wok option which i suspect a bunch of people pick for the drama of it. essentially, it's an orientalised version of kadhai-vegetables, and waaay prettier.
imagine a salad bar. meats (hallelujah! beef and pork too!) & seafood to one side (raw or semi-cooked), veggies- peppers, corn- baby and kernels, greens- broccoli, bok-choy, spinach, more. plus, the usual suspects- onion, & tomatoes, lying in wait next to paneer, tofu and a selection of noodles to the other side.
all waiting, misty-coolly, for you to come and bung them in your bowl, hand it over to a chef who stir fries the lot (in a suitably awesome, fire'y display of woksmanship) in a sauce of your picking. oh! and yeah, he's in a glass-enclosed booth with sliding doors; to keep the rest of your a.c.'d space from getting warm (lifestyles of the cool and comfortable)
right. i'll cut to the chase; no gastro-porning. the food was great. all the more fun for the novelty of it. we're gonna try their a la carte menu next time, and I have it on my list of semi-swish, accessible work-lunch places. although frankly, it's a crime to have to work afterwards :p
incidentally, here's a heads-up, you can't make a doggie-bag of your wok leftovers (i tried) logically, since you can make yourself an unlimited serving, they've cheapo-proofed themselves from people who'll order and cart away leftovers for non-paying, non-doggie others.
so, get there really hungry, or serve yourself sensibly. have fun!
all stir fry, gordon house, colaba
meal for two (with tipple) Rs. 2000/-
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