Smoke it up with Veggies

Get over smoked meat. The sizzling trend of red, smoked meat has taken a dazzling, green turn this season, with chefs 'smoking up' vegetables to give them a decadent, exotic spin. And why just vegetables? When it comes to fiddling with the kitchen contents, there can possibly be no stopping. Chefs of some of the famous restaurants in Vasant Kunj have already moved a step ahead by giving a smoky twist to cheese, butter, eggs, chocolate and even cocktails. Yeah, you read that right.

With molecular gastronomy picking up the culinary ropes a tad too fast, there is nothing out there in it that can't be fiddled with. Use a smoking gun and you'll understand why. Flavoring and tenderizing lies at the helm of the transformative science that makes 'smoking' such an easy-to-come-by concept in the first place.

The process of smoking is elemental, which eventually gives rise to something absolutely amazing. After all, smoking gives a delightful twist to the blandest of food and revs it up not only in taste, but in appearance too, hence making it hard to resist. It elevates the food from normal to valuable.
While the very process of smoking may sound a tad intimidating for the worry of an elaborate set-up and the fear of losing nutrition, the truth is far from it. You just need a charcoal grill that you can set up in your garden or your terrace and work up to it. As for the nutrition bit, no-- you don’t lose it just like that. Smoking, in fact, doesn’t kill nutrition but preserves it.

The smoky aura can further be lifted by pairing the right cocktails with smoked fruits, hence creating a melange of delectably novel flavours, too! Sounds heavenly, right? Tastes even more so! 

And that’s How we Got the Burger

There is a warm reverence in the way we talk about food history. The jewels of local fare that have run in the family for ages have become a part of the culture. We can trace the traditional back to the Mughal era and many even older. But ever fathomed the burger store next door is serving a legacy from the past or just a creation spotted a couple of decades ago?

Yes it’s an American dish, but burgers in Delhi are equally adored by the locals. Actually the origin of this favourite fast food is drowned in controversies and contrasting folklores. I will not touch the debate on who made it first. But the common facts floating around are quite intriguing.
 

It can be traced back to the medieval times when in Central Asia, people used to put beef under their saddles to make it tender and then it was eaten raw. However the modern burger did not come into existence before 1895. A theory says, it was served at a restaurant in response to an impatient customer’s quick lunch order. But whoever was the inventor would be proud to see burgers in Delhi have come this far.
 

And it was transformed into a commercial success after 1921 with White Castle launching the hamburger we fondly refer to. However, with quick popularity and insane demand, sloppiness in the cooking methods crept in. then in 1934, a store, Wimpy Burgers, inspired from famous cartoon series Popeye the sailor man took its popularity to a new level. Later of course, came the McDonalds’ which is how we recognize burger.
 

However, today this snack is not dependent on a single brand for its recognition. It is far more localized and has become a public property across the world. Some restaurants in Vasasnt Kunj nearly beat the set brands in taste.
 

Burgers share the spirit of America: all embracing and free. So chefs have taken to invent there variations. And honestly, nobody really wants to tie it down to a stereotype. So go ahead, choose your own variant or rather invent your own, and who knows you could be the maker of the next burger buzz.   
          

Quick and Easy Egg Recipes

Eggs are globally regarded as the staple food for breakfast from times long and of course for all the good reasons. Eggs are a rich source of vital nutrients essential for a healthy diet. However a single egg contains 80 calories and therefore its smart inclusion in your diet is imperative to avail the related health benefits. The health related benefits and the eating delight have warranted its place in morning menus in several restaurants in Khan Market and others.

Eggs are also a good storehouse of proteins which needless to say are an indispensable part of the bones, muscles, cartilages, skin and blood. Our body also uses these proteins to further build and repair the tissues as well as for making several enzymes, hormones and other chemicals found in the body. It is for this particular reason that Eggs Benedict savor on these not only for breakfast but also for the rest of the meals for the day. Here are some of the quick and delectable egg recipes:

-Shrimp and Bacon Deviled Eggs
The potato flakes provide these with the filling and then stir these in shrimp and parsley, add other spices as per your taste and finally sprinkle the bacon. You can also prepare a day ahead of any of the event you are planning to serve it. Wrap them with plastic and refrigerate.

-Simply bake it (Simple Baked Eggs)
It is a 6 ingredient recipe vouching for the swiftness when preparing this. With an elegant presentation it is a treat to an Egg Benedict and count for an excellent choice for a brunch. Break an egg into an already prepared ramekin, sprinkle these with pepper and salt covering each of it with cream and put them for baking.

-Egg Salad
The platter has a creamy texture and together with crunchy bacon, lettuce and tomato it is just pure heaven for all the foodies. You can also add lemon rind and sour cream to make it taste even better.

A Village To Die For

Walking into the village lanes sounds a tad too retarded, right?
 

Or maybe not, especially when you are loitering into the lanes of Hauz Khas Village. People who don’t know much about Hauz Khas often mistake it for some flat-footed place- the kind of place that fails to arouse any consumer activity. But, ask a person who has experienced the marvels of shopping or binging in a restaurant in Hauz Khas and you would know how terribly mistaken you probably are.
Hauz Khas is a place where once you set your foot into, you will not be able to help but admire it for the chirpiness of its restaurants. Right from the quirky decor to glitzy menus, everything is admiringly bang on. There are restaurants where you will find walls decorated with pastel sheets and paintings- paintings that have stories to tell, like in Smoke House Deli. Punctuated with weird artefacts and a jazzy ambience, restaurants in Khan Market and Hauz Khas have an illusionary touch pivoted to them. 

Smoke House Deli, Flipside Cafe, Warehouse Cafe- these are just a few of the wonders that Hauz Khas is palmed with. Breathtaking ambience littered with every element of happy peculiarity is what makes it the most visited places in New Delhi. The cosy corner of SHD revs up the appetite and demands an instantly brewed espresso; the shakes and ice creams of Warehouse Cafe lit up the excited audience.

Hauz Khas Village and Khan Market in vicinity are studded with some incredibly Jazzy restaurants, breezy enough to put you in a culinary reverie. Be it Hauz Khas or Khan Market, there is a signature twist to every restaurant that you will ever set your foot into, and that twist is everything to die for!

Home Bars And Designs

Turning unused space in a bar??? If so, seems to be a great idea and if not, then it is advised to plan something innovative instead of having usual space. Be it an imitation of Mumbai bars or replication of having food like smoked food in Bangalore, the bottom line is that you should feel good about it! Well, having least said, follow up makes a mention of different set up that can be finalized from while having a home bar:

It’s no hard and fast rule that you must have a specific set up in your home bar; you can be as creative and imaginative as you want. There are umpteen options to choose from and you will come across while searching:

Outdoor Wet Bar: you can always use your imagination and cross the boundaries. No matter how small is your house, you can always use it effectively. Yes, likewise to those innovatively constructed bungalows, you can also set up you own small bar in the backyard or patio area. Teaming it up with an inbuilt barbecue would serve the purpose well. Apart from this, just ascertain to the fact that arrangements are taken care of.

Lighting Options: instead of making it too gorgy to handle, try and have a low-lit ambience so as to create perfect setting. Do not forget the better your bar is lit, the more it will add-on to the fun and style element. Bright and vibrant spotlights may kill the lively essence.
Countertop-concept: if you do not have a spacious area for bar, no worries! Still you can add-in perfection to your bar, for which granite countertop has to be accredited. Apart from this, you have every reason to replicate the acclaimed designs of bars in Mumbai.

What to eat while in Mumbai

While in Mumbai, never miss out on anything. Well, that’s the melody that I have practically crammed; because Mumbai spoils you with choices, quite literally. While many people call Mumbai ruthless, I would aggressively digress. Okay, it might be polluted and terribly crowded. But it takes care of your needs, specially your eating needs like no other Indian City. There are restaurants in Mumbai, and then there are some best restaurants in Mumbai, too.

Be it breakfast, lunch or dinner, Mumbai never fails to surprise. With a never ending slew of some absolutely breathtaking restaurants coming up every other month, the consumers are as good as pushed into a dilemma. Take Baba Ling’s Ling Pavilion in Colaba, for instance which is a Chinese restaurant.

Or wait, correction- It’s one of the most authentic and distinct Chinese restaurant that produces the most authentic and distinct Chinese restaurant. Be its pork soup dumplings, pepper prawns or chilli garlic pomfret or even eggs Benedict that are hard to find anywhere else, everything is equally lip smacking and tongue ravaging.

The next stop, again, can be a tough deal. Even while writing this, I feel slightly baffled! What to write about next?

Probably Sindhudurg at Sena Bhavan. If you ever face a craving to have the best Breakfast spiked with all the typical Maharashtrian elements, Sindhudurg is the place to be. Masalas are freshly brewed and the food has the exquisite element to it. In vegetarian and Non vegetarian both, you will be blessed with ample choices.

If you wish to pamper yourself with a royal ambience, try The Sahib room. It’s an upscale fine dine that would leave you marvelling at its lavish aura. The food is terrific, and creatively cooked. No decoration drama, rather the flavours are tampered with, and for good too!

The list of divine restaurants in Mumbai is eternal, and immortal. The chase to find the best among the best, that even rules out the posh restaurants of Vasant Kunj, the will leave out panting for breath!

Evening Delights :Hot Momos With Tea

So there I was in the middle of my random wanderings which have become a lot more frequent than before. Just out of nowhere, I realized I had ignored my hunger pangs way too long and the sudden craving for food was not unwarranted.

Luckily, I was blessed to be passing by one of the most popular destinations for food in Delhi. Though the place is not entirely familiar to me, I had heard a lot about restaurants in Khan Market being one the hottest of all eatery settings Delhi hosts.

Of course, a lot of it had to do with my old friend Rahul boasting of restaurants in Hauz Khas for a personal fetish for meat and I not being very comfortable his ways of devouring into flesh. Nevertheless, our friendly banters had made us challenge each other on knowledge of local places and in only a few months after meeting at college, we had started hitting it off together and discovering new palates and places to eat.

I stepped out the car and made way up a very small joint selling steaming hot momos. The tiny restaurant in Khan Market had all it takes to be a hotspot except may be ambience.  But for food explorers like me, such places are the best bet for their flavours and the feel of the city.

I had a plateful of those little veg delights arranged neatly in an ordeal fashion, each resting side to side like little white angels. The fiery red sauce spread casually on the sides, interspersed with a bit of white mayonnaise was the perfect blend.

As around the cup of hot tea, shooting off a strong aroma of cardamom based masala, the mini-meal was complete. And it was Rahul standing next to me, grinning ear to ear at us bumping into each other, the reason for which was our shared love for food.

Burger Bonanza

Busting a myth most humbly, I would begin by saying, a foodie is not known by a big belly they can’t help but by the number of eateries they have visited and explored in their most sacred food quest. It is a marvel in true terms  when they know, how best fit is pakoda’s for rains with chutney or a smoked lamb burger with lots of cheese, perennially  with of course the obvious knowledge of the best joints and restaurants which serves these in the entire city.

Walking to the metro, munching in office or enjoying your favorite TV show, burger in Delhi is a national food, bewitching and delightful. Apart from it being convenient to carry around, you can pick the ingredients, to savor it accordingly. If calories bother you, prepare it the healthy way. Since my calorie count permits me, my personal prized is a smoked lamb burger, possibly one of the driving forces in my life after kebabs. After evident exaggerations, I can’t help confessing even the mention takes me down the memory lane when I was still treating myself to Delhi and its ways and food.

Before moving to Delhi, I did hear volume about its street food with golgappas and burger topping the chart. Burger in Delhi is a merry mix of desi vada pav and hamburger from Germany. As interesting as it sounds, so its flavors do not fail you. Something as simple and cheap as that, has become my share of happiness during my stay in town. Delhi in general always offers something or the other to its dwellers, the warmth of its people is reflected deeply in the taste this city offers. More than its palatability, the city’s food is the first mnemonic I have registered to my memory, the first encounter I had with the place.

Are you planning to conduct a cocktail party?

Cocktail party! How fascinating and exciting it sounds when we talk about having a cocktail party either with our friends or with our family. So, have you ever thought of planning to conduct a cocktail party? Or have you ever thought how to conduct one? Well, let me tell you. Any party cannot be conducted in a night. Preparations are anyway required to have proper arrangements before hand so that you can avoid any kind of problem during a party. You can have so many available options of Best cocktails and even their recipes for your party. But, what are the prior steps that you need to take before hand.

First of all, make the guest list. Obviously, any of your friends will definitely feel bad if you forgot to invite him. So, by not taking any risk, do make a guest list that has the list of people whom you want to invite. Once you are done with your guest list, the next thing that you have to carry out is to calculate budgets of how much can you afford to spend and how much are you actually spending. The third step is to send invitations to the people in your list. You can call them personally or you can even have printed invitation cards to make it a formal invitation. It is preferable to send the invitations two weeks prior to the actual day of the party.

At last, you need to have the drinks, oh no, I must say cocktails. You can even prepare them at home but it would be really difficult for you to prepare for a group of people and for that purpose you can order it. You can get best cocktails in almost every part of India but yes, there are best restaurants in Bangalore that serve the best cocktail that you can ever get in India.

Now you can prepare cocktails at home

Summer is on the way and it is the right time to organize get together parties as you get countless delighting options such as cocktails in your parties, without getting effected in terms of bank balance in any way. Basically, Cocktail is a mixed drink made of liquor and other flavoring agents that are consumed. Earlier, cocktails were prepared with combination of rum or whiskey with a small amount of vodka. But now, it may contain milk, honey, fruit juice, spices, cream, water etc.

Today's best cocktails are prepared using these ingredients but without water mainly in bars and hubs. One of its disadvantages is that sometimes bartenders add both non-alcoholic and alcoholic ingredients together that can be really hazardous for your health. Therefore, many people prefer to prepare cocktails at their homes as it is not really difficult to prepare it. Its main benefit is that even a sip of a cocktail may keep you relieved and distress from headache.

In India, some of best restaurants in Bangalore are really popular for their best serving cocktails. In fact, everyone today is fond of having a cocktail experience at in these restaurants in Bangalore. The quantity of alcohol is the least in cocktails when compared to any other alcoholic drinks. This is one of the prime reasons to why the cocktails prepared by bartenders containing more of alcohol can be injurious to health.

Since its price is too high and people have started preparing them at their homes, let me tell you the three basic steps to prepare it. It includes blending, mixing and then shaking. Add your ingredients in a common bowl and blend them properly. Mix the ingredients as gently as possible. Then, shake or muddle it before pouring into the glass. You can serve it chilled as it tastes best when chilled in brown shaped glasses that are made to stand on a stem over a flat surface.

Choosing the right glass for serving cocktails

The myriad of options in glassware can get rather overwhelming when it comes to choosing the right cocktail glasses to serve to your guests. While visiting some of the best restaurants in Bangalore I have always noticed that the silverware and glassware are both specific to the kind of food or drink being served. But, what works with what exactly was hard to figure out. I did not want to make a social faux pas by serving the right dish on the wrong platter and certainly not to the wrong palate.

After a while, it occurred to me that there is a specific pattern as to what drink goes with which glass and I researched further. If you were to understand why a certain thing is served in a particular way, it gets a lot easier than memorizing things. So, here’s a brief explanation for you to know the right way to serve the best cocktails.

Lowball

A lowball glass has a thick glass bottom and are uniformly shaped and short and stout. These are used with drinks that are poured directly into the glass and served, i.e. they don’t require mixing glasses and shakers. Besides this, drinks that are typically served with ice cubes can also be served in it. The shape and size is ideal to maintain and retain the temperature for long. Carbonated or soda cocktails are not served in these as it risks spilling due to the short size.

Highball

These are tall glasses shaped more or less like lowball. Drinks which require mixing in the glass or have an effervescent component are ideally served in these. The narrow body reduces the surface area allowing the carbonated essence to last longer. There are other variations to these such as a flute which is used with champagne and Collins glass for more fruity drinks. However, the three are interchangeable and if you don’t own one of the best restaurants in Bangalore and need it for home use, it is more practical to purchase just one.

Coup

These are stemmed glasses but round at the bowl, unlike a martini glass; and the both play pretty much the same role. Any drink served that is usually served without ice and requires stirring are served in these. The stem allows the liquid to stay unaffected from the warmth of your hand. 

Making springtime cocktails is easy

The spring season is on and who cares if the first day of spring saw a stormy weather. Spring is short lived, the sunlight appears mid-day and all of the snow-covered mountains reveal their greens in a few days. So I assume the start of spring would certainly be a fantastic day to indulge in a few best cocktails to celebrate the onset of springtime and the end of the cold winters. Loaded with the bountiful winter season citrus delight, incorporated with a lightness that is synonymous with warmer summers, this cocktail seemed an excellent choice to bid adieu to the gorgeous Delhi winter season.

This recipe comes from a few ‘best cocktails’ and guide to drinks that incorporates the use of in-season elements to derive the best of blends of traditional drinks with a twist with some of your very own original creation making entry as well. You can create a guide of cocktail recipes organized by season and refer to it each time the weather shifts.

One point I admired was that making these cocktails would certainly not hurt your budget. I cannot tell you how many cocktails I’d make with their lengthy list of unique ingredients, but the experience was worth it. When on vacation I had this wonderful Sugary Citrus Fizz cocktail at what I term is one of the best restaurants in Bangalore which made an entry in my guide book.

While this drink might be apt for the winter season, I found it perfect for our very first day of springtime. So grab some limes and oranges and celebrate with me.

For the Lemon Brulee Garnish I use a lemon slice and turbinado sugar and for the drink, 2 ounces gin, juice of 2 limes, juice of an orange, juiced of half a lemon, an ounce of any type of orange liqueur, an egg white (optional), a teaspoon of powdered sugar and 4 ounces of chilled soda water.

To make it, place the lemon slices in between layers of paper towel and delicately squeeze to take out as much juice as feasible. Place a piece of aluminium foil on a biscuit sheet; lay the lime piece on the foil and cover with the turbinado sugar. Broil momentarily until the sugar starts to brown. Turn the slice over, broil the other side and remove from the oven. Place it on waxed paper and allow it to cool down.

To Make the Cocktail, place all cocktail components except the soda water in a jar filled with ice cubes. Shake for about two to three minutes until the egg white foams into a soft meringue. Strain into a glass loaded with ice and round off with chilled soda. Layer the scooped foam from the shaker over the cocktail and finish it with a lemon ring garnish.