Warming the cockles of my heart…Punjab Sweet House, Bandra

It was one of those random Saturday evenings… I was at a loose end when some work at office, which I expected to take really long, got done at a decent enough hour for me to make plans for a dinner other than the TV dinner I was expecting, but was still late enough for me to have no company for said dinner, as my friends had all made their plans for the evening already.

Having resigned myself to the fate of a TV dinner, but not really looking forward to it, I got into a cab and asked the cab driver to take me to Bandra. As people who have known me for a while would know, Bandra is to me what manna is to a parched throat. Maybe that sounds like an exaggeration, but it is true that I find myself drawn towards the queen of the suburbs and its various sea facing promenades whenever I am happy, sad, angry, troubled, lonely, in need of a pick-me-up, or as was the case that day, at a loose end. The calm that I feel when sitting by the sea has few equals, except maybe eating food cooked by the mother…both experiences take me to a nice and happy place where all is well with the world.

But as usual, I digress…so there I was, sitting in a cab, waiting for inspiration to strike, when suddenly, it did. And yes, my idea was, once again, inspired by my favourite food blogger’s recent sojourn…I decided to go to Punjab Sweet House. I’d sampled a little of their legendary chaats once, when a friend, hungry from a long wait for me, had dashed in for some papdi chaat, and I’d made it there just in time to eat the last morsel.

The Punjab Sweet House at Pali Naka in Bandra, right opposite the lane leading to Toto’s was originally a sweet shop, which also catered to the chaat loving taste buds of the many Punjabi families in nearby Pali Hill. They have been known to made some of the most amazing dahi bhalle in town, and the experience of their papdi chaat, based on the one morsel I had sampled, is certainly one of the most divine this side of the Vindhyas.

Recently, the owners have, happily for us who have been brought up in north India and love the taste of good chhole (which, for the record, bear no resemblance to the concoction served in restaurants here, which is flavoured with curry leaves), forayed into the restaurant business as well, and the floor above the original sweet shop has been converted into a small, but comfortable restaurant. The restaurant, at first glance, is a strictly no-frills family restaurant, though some attempts have been made to beautify the interiors with paintings of rural settings in Punjab, depicting women in the pind (village, in Punjabi) engaged in various tasks of day to day life. There is also a half-boundary-ish wall running between the two sections of the restaurant, separating the tables for larger groups from the two and four-seater tables, which has been decorated with some form of greenery.

Frankly, though I had heard only good things about the food served at Punjab Sweet Hose, I hadn’t heard much by way of ambience and there was certainly little to comfort me, if first impressions were anything to go by. And while there is certainly something to be said about being footloose and fancyfree in a city like Mumbai, based on past experience, sometimes the same can also work rather to one’s disadvantage. So I walked in, expecting nothing really, and prepared to call the waiter to pack my food and walk out in the worst situation. However, I was in for a surprise, and a rather pleasant one, at that…my sincere apologies to anyone who takes offence at the negative stance I had as I entered, but in my opinion, it’s better than being thoroughly let down.

So I walked in, and settled myself in one of the two seater tables. While the waiters looked a little taken aback, they regained their composure quickly enough and were the image of proficiency and helpfulness as I placed my order…I suppose they aren’t really used to too many single girls walking in and eating in the restaurant. The restaurant wasn’t really full, much to my surprise, it being a Saturday evening, but that may have been because most people possibly chose to order in, rather than venture out to eat in a simple, old fashioned restaurant, promosing great food and nothing much else.

Initial survey done, I was ready to place my order. I was ravenous, so I went ahead and ordered for a plate of kulche chhole and a glass of lassi. Food came really quick and the first bite of the kulcha (which was stuffed with alu) took me back to the same happy place I am transported to by Ma’s cooking and all was well with the world again. The piping hot food and the chilled lassi wove its magic to lift my spirits and took away all the drudgery of the past week. It was a simple, heart warming meal, one I could almost imagine had been cooked by a loving mother and which had the same effect too. Though I was struggling to finish the second kulcha, I didn’t have the heart to waste it, and ended up stuffing myself way beoynd what I had planned.

That unfortunately, left no space for dessert, but I did end up packing some moong dal halwa to take home anyway and relishing it the next day, reliving my experience of that unexpected Saturday evening dinner in the company of me.

All in all, an unexpectedly lovely and heartwarming experience for the footloose and fancyfree diaries after all, I say!

Of farewells and new beginnings... Yellow Tree Cafe

So the Girl Gang met up on Sunday, with respective husbands and boyfriends in tow, to bid adieu to Dipanwita and Avijit, who are moving back to Kolkata. On D's request to try out a new place, we settled on Yellow Tree Cafe in Bandra, a deceptively tiny- looking restaurant en route to Pali Hill.

Well, to be honest, I had anyways fallen in love with the place after listening to glowing reviews from a host of friends. And then when my favourite food blogger wrote about the restaurant in a positively loving tone, and then again, AND again, that sealed the deal for me. And that is how, at the first given opportunity, after having gently cajoled D into trying out Yellow Tree, a motley group of twelve came to occupy a large part of the first floor seating area of the restaurant.

What struck me as soon as I entered the place and then wound my way up the stairs to the first floor was the completely distinct ambience on the two floors. While the ground floor had a cosy, cafe-like feel to it, the first floor, with its whitewashed walls, turquoise blue lanterns placed randomly around the place and colourful seating arrangements seemed a lot more restaurant-y, if there exists such a word, albeit a really laid back one at that. The multi coloured sofas running along the walls with colourful throw cushions placed haphazardly around the place immediately perked up my mood, and set the tone for one of the best Sundays I've had in recent times, a Sunday marked by lots of animated chatter, a leisurely and really good luch spread over four hours, fond memories of college and an announcement from R about her impending wedding!

The icing on the cake was when Vittal, R's fiance joined us as well; though he was almost immediately overwhelmed by the sheer volume of our conversation; which of course was compounded by the fact that the poor guy understood almost none of it, given as most of it was in Bangla. The conversation flowed almost non stop, fuelled by the trays of antipasti that kept making appearances, within remarkably short periods after orders being placed. I must say, I was very impressed by the service and efficiency of the place. Another heart warming observation was that the waiters here seemed to actually know the whole menu and provided useful inputs wherever required.

Food, when it was finally ordered about three hours after we entered the place, also lived up to the hype generated by all my friends so far, though, as a friend pointed out, all the dishes looked almost the same - covered in brown sauce, with plum sauce decorations on most of them - the only exception being in the case of a pesto - sauce based preparation (Thankfully, I would say!) The taste of each of the dishes ordered, of course, was another story altogether - suffice it to say that the till-then boisterously noisy table fell absolutely silent as all of us dug into our food with great gusto. And then when we did surface for air after non-stop glottony, it was largely because the portions were really large, and it required a fair amount of effort to be able to finish each portion. Unfortunately, we were all so stuffed by the end of the meal that all of us, rather unwillingly, had to pass dessert by. So, a return to the restaurant is guaranteed, if only to sample the desserts I have heard so much about.

When we finally staggered out of the restaurant, it was early evening, something we realised with some amount of shock once we looked at our respective watches - time sure had flown, and the best part was that the waiters at the restaurant had not mentioned this to us even once. This was such a welcome contrast from horror stories of places which shoo one out (politely of course) the moment one's time in a restaurant extends beyond an hour or an hour and a half at best. Brownie points to Yellow Tree Cafe on that one for sure!

All in all, this lunch and Yellow Tree Cafe will surely form part of fond memories for a while to come. Though the occassion for which we all met up in the first place did temper the mood of the afternoon a little, R's announcement did make up for it a fair bit.

I wish D and A did not have to go back - they'll be sorely missed. But as they say, it's a small world...and one never knows what tomorrow brings. In the meanwhile, here's wishing them love and luck!

Update on attempts at cooking and allied matters

In my last post, in a bid to eat healthy, I had resolved to cook for myself on a regular basis and avoid ordering in or eating out. Sadly, I must admit that I haven't been very succesful in my attempt, with the grand schedule going for a toss within two weeks. Ah yes, I did survive two weeks, so pat on my back anyways. :)

Not that I did not cook at all in the past month...in fact, in the past one month, I have whipped up some fairly fancy food that brought back lovely childhood memories - chicken mince cutlet just the way Ma makes it, the traditional Bengali pulao to go with doi machch (fish cooked in a curd based gravy) and chholar dal on one occassion, which was a farewell lunch for a friend; phulkopir dalna (traditional Bengali curry made with cauliflowers and green peas) and porota on another. I even tried making mishti doi on one occassion. It didn't turn out exactly the way I expected it to be, but it wasn't all that bad either, so maybe there's hope yet.

Mighty excited about my succesful attempts at cooking the traditional stuff, in addition to my regular of roti, sabzi, pastas and salads, I was recounting all my successful experiments of the culinary variety one of these days in a conversation with the Mother.

The Mother too, was suitably thrilled and made all the right noises of encouragement at the right times. And then she said, "Tui to puropuri expert hoye gechish - fancy khabar ranna korte parish, eka eka eto bochor dhore okhane achish, shob shamlachchish...shudhu ekta bor jutlei to hoy!" (You've become such an expert - you've learnt how to cook fancy stuff, you've been staying alone there for so many years, taking care of everything...now all you need is a husband!)

Err?

To cook or not to cook...

I have, over time, noticed the general look of awe mixed with pity on the faces of most people when I tell them that I stay alone. "So what about food?" is the first question that generally follows thereafter, to which my reply is, "Why, I cook myself".

The shade of reverence that is unmistakable in the faces of most post this statement has me wondering, is it really such a big deal?

Now I don't claim to be a woman whose kitchen is a treasure trove of exotic ingredients nor would I write home about my ability to whip up fancy meals in a jiffy when unexpected guests come calling. But I sure would like to believe that I can survive in a city (gastronomically speaking) without the friendly guy at the takeaway counter of the neighbourhood Dominoes'/ udupi/ *insert name of restaurant on speed dial* being able to rattle off my order to the cook without me having to open my mouth.

And having grown up in a household where Ma made the most complex of dishes look deceptively easy to make, I genuinely believe that it is not that difficult to rustle up a simple meal when one is starving but not in the mood for heavy takeaways.

Honestly, I thought one of these days, how difficult can it be to make oneself some dal chawal or a bowl of sphagetti? And that is how, I decided, one fine day, to try cooking for myself on a regular basis for a month at a stretch, the idea being to avoid eating out/ ordering in for both lunch AND dinner for a month to see whether it is a feasible option, or whether I should just throw up my hands and give up my cherished secret dream of being the domestic-diva-meets-awe-inspiring-professional.

There, I said it...I dream of being the mythical superwoman. I love the thought of being able to efficiently and elegantly, without breaking into a sweat, handle the home, the hearth, the workplace, the man, the friends...you get the drift. Yeah...I am quite the maggu like that. Talk about competitive spirit being used in the wrong places...

Anyhow, to get back to the topic at hand...the topic, or rather the caption of this post, is what runs through my mind every time I am faced with the prospect of cooking, and though I am fairly decent as a cook (even if I say so myself), the shamefaced admission must be made...the latter option wins fairly often especially the question is posed at the end of a long day.

So, there - that is my challenge for the coming month - to avoid eating restaurant food to the maximum extent possible. That necessarily entails planing for meals in advance, carrying a dabba to work for both lunch and dinner, not being tempted to order food when everyone around me is ordering, shopping for the week over the weekend, cooking substantial amounts over the weekend, and hopefully, ensuring more than the passing lip service to principles of 'healthful eating'....

Does that sound daunting? You bet! But let's just try this out anyhow and see how long I last.

Wish me luck!  

Beta, aaj maine gajar ka halwa banaya hai....

I'm sure all of us remember this dialogue from some or the other Amitabh Bachchan movie aired on Doordarshan on some Sunday afternoon, back in our childhood. This dialogue, along with another along similar lines, i.e., "Beta, aaj maine aloo ke parathe banaye hain" epitomised the selfless love and devotion of the long suffering mother of Indian cinema in the 1980s and earlier (played either by Nirupa Roy or Reema Lagoo) towards her son, the angry young man fighting evil society and its even more evil scum, the leering ganglord/ rich arrogant industrialist/ corrupt policeman (insert as applicable).

But this post is not about Hindi cinema of yore, or even about the angry young man or his wronged mother who brought him up single handedly and groomed him to avenge the wrong inflicted upon her. This post is about the other, often overlooked star, the gajar ka halwa. 

For no matter how cliched this sounds, there can be no denying that gajar ka halwa at home meant indulgence of the motherly kind, and any announcement of the intention of the Mother to make gajar ka halwa was promptly followed by yours truly falling all over self in excitement and promptly offering to help her (which help, the Mother mostly refused with a benign smile and strict instructions to go study, or sometimes indulged by allowing me to grate carrots using the handheld grater). In fact, gentle reader, such was my love for this delicate Indian dessert, that I had to physically restrain myself from rubbing my hands in glee and ensure that the silly grin which automatically found its place on my face was firmly kept in control, often by indulging in other activities such as talking thirty eight to the dozen, if it were possible, which often had the Mother ready to drop whatever she was doing and bolt out of the house until I had calmed down somewhat...

With the passage of time, I moved out of home to go to college and thenceforth, to Mumbai, but whenever I met the parents during the winter months at the college hostel when they came to visit, or back home, or at our house in Kolkata when the parents were in town, the Mother always ensured that there was a bowlful of gajar ka halwa for me.

This year, during the Holi weekend, I was sitting at home after having cancelled out last minute on some friends who were going out of town because of the possibility of me being required in office during the wekeend, and having a merry pity party, missing home and familiar surroundings (compounded by the festive atmosphere and the near complete absence of friends in town, who had all headed off to various places in the wake of the rare three day weekend), when suddenly I decided that I wanted to do something which would, at least in part, recreate the feeling of home. Ergo, I decided to make gajar ka halwa.

A quick call to the Mother followed, resulting in what seemed like a laughably easy recipe for gajar-ka-halwa-in-a-jiffy. A quick trip to the grocers and an hour of peeling, grating and following vague instructions and instinct later, I found myself staring at a kadahi full of some yummy looking gajar ka halwa (even if I say so myself). 

Now, it was time for the acid test...the tasting of said yummy looking gajar ka halwa. Having grown up surrounded by mouthwatering food, what with the Mother being a cook par excellence, it was with trepidation that I took a spoonful of the halwa to taste, and then felt the corners of my lips twitch into a silly grin, reminiscent of the silly grins ages ago when I finally got to taste the halwa made by Ma. The halwa tasted perfect, just like the ones I had had right through childhood. The Mother was duly informed of said accomplishment accompanied by appropriate delighted squealing, and the smile on my friend T's face when she tasted some of the bowlful that I had taken along when I went to meet her for Holi in the evening confirmed my initial delight.

And that is how, I managed to recreate some more of home in my adopted city, in the process of making this city home as well. Of course, the fact that I played Holi with my neighbours for the first time, and participated in the Holi puja along with the other members of the society also deepened the feeling of settling down and being accepted by the city at last, and need I say it, it sure feels good to come home to a home away from home :)

Of never ending work and unreasonable clients...

Disclaimer: Crib post ahead. You have been warned.

Ok, so we'll keep this one short and sweet...or maybe not (the sweet bit, that is)...after all, it IS a crib post. So, to get to the point...am sure all of us have gone through times when there is frenetic activity at work and life just seems like a blur, where days merge into each other...well, I am going through such a phase now. Not for the first time, obviously, but what makes it especially disconcerting is the fact that I am travelling so much after a prolonged gap. 

Now I am a girl who likes her seven hours of beauty sleep. So you can imagine how distressing the past fortnight has been for me, when I tell you that every alternate day in the past fortnight (and I kid you not on this one) has been marked by early morning flights, along with its attendant evils, namely waking up at unearthly hours and the brain downing shutters in the early parts of the evening because of lack of said quota of beauty sleep.

That the client in the matter (legalspeak for assignment) for which I have been travelling so extensively is Cruella De Ville personified does not help matters for my poor addled brains either. For it really is not a pleasant situation when one manages to drag self to office on a Monday morning, bravely defying Monday morning blues, only to be ambushed by a call from said client, precisely fifteen minutes after switching on the system, which client thereafter systematically proceeds to numb my eardrums by way of a ten minute soliloquy in a voice that resembles the sound of a chainsaw more than a human being at the pitch that would put a drill sergeant to shame.

Several weak attempts at reason later, I finally manage to get in a word sideways when said lady pauses for breath and hurriedly apologise for not meeting her expectations (given how she has been going on and on about the Firm not meeting her expectations etc.)...never mind that our team was totally not at fault on this one and the reason for said ten minute soliloquy was a missed sentence in a 200 page document, which statement was, in my humble opinion, not a big deal really....ah well...

So anyhoo, after having pacified said lady and sweettalked her into talking in a voice that at least began to faintly resemble that of a homo sapien, I was only beginning to thank the God Almighty for such small mercies when she erupted again...this time very graciously (and entirely without being asked to, please note) to tell me how I should arrange my day to ensure that her work got done and how I should forget about my obligations to all my other clients just so I could focus on her work. Once I had managed to recover from the shock at the nerve of the lady, I quickly put the phone down at the first opportunity in order to avoid a tongue lashing, which in my opinion, was certainly in order for said lady. 

Ironically, I happened to glance at that precise moment at a pamphlet that the company in question uses, and which had been lying around on my desk, which says in bold letters, "CUSTOMER IS KING". It was at this moment that I took this to be a signal from the good Lord and chose to swallow all the righteous indignation I had been bursting with precisely three seconds ago...for as far as said lady was concerned, she certainly practiced what her company preached and in her mind there was obviously no doubt that the customer, which in this case was her, was certainly king (or is it queen?)

And that is how, gentle reader, it came to pass, that I am now working to meet the lady's whims and hoping we can meet her expectations this time around (pun totally intended)...it's time to sign off now, and sign in for a call with Cruella for a status update. Ah...life!

On the positive side, maybe this experience will teach me to appreaciate the semblance of music in the sound of a running chainsaw... :)

Toodles!         

MIA

Hello hello....so I've been missing in action, and there's been radio silence...an explanation is in order, and about time too, along with a quick update...

The past fortnight has been rather hectic, what with work, travel and lots of socialising :) This hectic fortnight saw me travel on alternate days for work, turn a year older, be a part of some showdowns and some reconciliations and meet some wonderful new people. And of course, meet Usha Uthup! :) 

But to begin at the beginning, as they say...some work, which had seen me spend a month at Kolkata last year, has revived and required me and a colleague to be present in Kolkata again. The work panned out in a manner that I was required to go to Kolkata a day before the parents were supposed to come down to spend some time with me and celebrate my  birthday with me. Decided to take full advantage of the fact that the birthday is on a national holiday, and so it transpired that I was on a flight to Kolkata on the morning of my birthday, after having brought in my birthday with a quiet dinner with R, with whom I share my birthday, PB and her husband, AA. Talked to AA properly for the first time that day in the two years that PB and AA have been married, and generally had a really good time catching up with them. Also learnt a valuable lesson along the way, that often a lot of our preconceived notions of how well (or otherwise) we'll get along with some people are just that....preconceived, and often, misplaced notions :)

But to get back to the day of my birthday, there I was groggy eyed, waiting for my flight to be announced, in line for a cup of coffee, when I heard this really familiar voice...looked up to see that said voice belonged to none other than THE Usha Uthup...yup, that's right...in person, standing right in front of me!!!

Suddenly, I found myself walking up to her and gushing about how I realised it was not an appropriate time to bother someone, given as it was early morning etc., but how I just had to come tell her that I was a huge fan...made myself stop with great difficulty and dashed off before I could prattle anymore, and promptly texted and told the whole world (ok, some five people) about how I had just met and talked to THE Usha Uthup...but then, given how huge a fan I am of the lady's inimitable style, the slight streak of exhibitionism may be forgiven, nyet?

Anyhow, after that excellent start to my 26th year on this planet, landed in the City of Joy to an effusive welcome by the parents, endless messages from friends (which I found really touching) and a whole lot of activity that had been planned by the parents. Also met some lovely people in the course of the evening, and spent a charming couple of hours chatting with them about a world that is as different from mine as chalk is different from cheese...and the evening was marked by a whole lot of cake cutting activity with the extended family...all in all, a good day indeed :)

The week that followed was fairly humdrum, marked only by work, work and then some more...got a break on Sunday, thankfully, which was spent in meeting family and friends and then it was back to work again from Monday through Friday. Dashed back to amchi Mumbai on Saturday morning, in order to prepare the house for the parents, who landed in town on Saturday evening. Though the visit is a fortnight behind schedule, it sure is good to have them here, and amazing to be able to spend time with them for a prolonged stretch...if the beginning of the year is any indication, it sure does look like this is going to be a good year :)

Did miss a lot of stuff while I was away in Kolkata..missed being in office on the day it was SM's last day in office (SM is a dear friend and ex-colleague, who I almost wasn't going to talk to ever...but that's another story for another day) on the day it was NB's 25th birthday (who is another colleague who has transitioned to being a dear friend), and on the day of a colleague's wedding...and most importantly, missed some yummy Parsi food at said wedding...I did tell you I was a foodie, did I not? :)

Am finally back in town, and it sure feels good...And now, dear reader, hopefully, I shall be a lot more regular in posting about me, my life and the myriad issues that have my attention at the moment :)

Till then, toodles!