The Baker Showcase - League of the Legends - Anniversary Special

A year since the Home Bakers Guild started; A year since my knowledge in cakes, cookies, frosting, fondants and all those terminologies expanded; A year since I made some good friends and a year since I started experimenting with small bakes.

Most of all, a year that saw oodles of talent, tremendous perseverance, some great knowledge sharing, instant brownies to elaborate wedding cakes, bouquets to theme cakes, appreciation, encouragement, record breaking likes and comments - the Guild saw it all. It's now that time of the year, the Anniversary Showcase special - The League of the Legends.

10 talented and experienced bakers come together for the largest bake sale ever. For those of you who have already been part of these events, I need say no more. For the rest, don't fret that you've missed the earlier editions. Be there on the 22nd, at Sandy's, Ganapathy Colony, Off Cenotaph Road, Chennai at 4 pm. The venue is one of my favorite places in the city - great food and a fantastic property.

I'm super proud to have been associated with this event as a blogger and volunteer ever since it all began. KP Balakumar - Thank you for the opportunity and here's wishing you the best! You've been doing a grand job and we know the amount of crazy background work it takes to set up the event and run the guild. You deserve all the success.

Here's a quick look at some of the bakers that are going to whip up a storm

Maaria Kulsum Tanveer - Adoniya

Does this lady need an introduction! An expert in theme cakes, Maaria is mighty thrilled to be part of this showcase. She has been part of many other bake sales but this is her first time with HBG and she claims she's in jitters (like we all believe that). 

Cup cakes, Ferrero Rocher cake and my favorite Espresso Cheesecake brownies and Red "Velvet" cakes are also part of this showcase. 

Karthika Shravanthi - Bakeman Begins 

The IT Pro turned future Le Cordon Bleu Pastry Chef is all set to wow us at this showcase before she heads off to learn the nuances of pastry making. 

Her last showcase was a sell out. And she plans to add healthy and gluten free bakes to her menu this time. Says Karthika "I've worked on all the feedback from the last showcase; so hopefully this one is going to be much better. I'm keeping my fingers crossed". 

Well, so are we. Good luck for the showcase and we hope to see you soon in a different avtar.

Rose Anne George - Oven 180 degrees 

The ever-smiling soft spoken Rose is famous for her French macarons. I've had the chance (the advantages of living close by) to taste her Dulce de leche cheese cake and May I say I was hooked. 

She's bringing some summer fruit flavors this time, eggless and otherwise, cheese cake platters, tarts and a lavender cake among others.

All the best Rose. I look forward to grabbing those blue macarons :-)

Divya Ninan-Eapen - Tangerine's Kitchen 

This gorgeous baker is bringing a whole load of twisted / braided / stuffed breads, not to mention the hot favorites - the choco chip cake and cream cheese cake. The vanilla bean pound cake, which I am eagerly looking forward to, is going to be on the menu. 

Mini quiches, mini cheesecakes and a little kiddie counter are going to be her specialties this time. 

Divya has her home-studio where she paints on sarees, stoles, tee shirts and the likes. You can check it out here - https://www.facebook.com/Rachel.HandpaintedFibreArt


Can't wait, Divya. All the best and see you soon

Neha and Sapna - The sweetest thing

Sisters in arms, Neha and Sapna are participating in their first showcase. This maiden venture is going to see them bring an assortment of "sweetest" things, with the specialties being chai cup cakes and bread and butter pudding. 

They say that "the sweetest thing" is to make their customers happy! :-)

All the best girls. Bring it on.








Watch this space for the post event pictures and articles on the 22nd of this month. If you don't make it to the venue, all you can do is drool at the pictures :-)

Spoonbill - Exotic Street Food

2 months later, after having managed to inch closer to my weight loss target, I decided to go ahead with one of the CFG Showcases at Spoonbill, Alwarpet.

It was great to meet the bunch of naughty fellows from CFG and that was something I truly missed.

Without further ado, let me present to you Spoonbill.

Charlie owns and runs Spoonbill. It's a resto-cafe and is open from 11 am - 11 pm. A few more branches will be opened in Chennai, before Charlie ventures into other cities.

As Charlie explained the menu, the gang was super hungry and waited impatiently for the food to arrive. Afterwards, it was literally "digging in". The crepes were torn apart, the burritos butchered and the desserts were squeezed within an inch of their lives.

I cover the veg menu here. Overall I loved all the dishes (or items as Faz called them), except that it was a general opinion that the fillings were a tad salty. Perhaps we are used to less salt in our household?

The first to arrive on the table was the Piadina (OTC & Cheese), followed by mushroom crepes, corn and spinach crepes. We then moved on to the Indian menu - hara bhara kebab and palak paneer kebab. The mexican burritos had a lot of beans and not enough salsa to compensate, so the flavor was lacking. The mozarella + jalapeno empanada from the Portuguese menu was piping hot but again a tad salty.

We then dug into the Turkish falafel salad. The bread (Brötchen) that was served with the non vegetarian dishes was to die for. Slightly hard on the outside but super soft on the inside, it was THE accompaniment.

The nutella and ice cream crepes made the perfect end to the meal.

The dishes are priced Rs 110 upwards on the vegetarian front. The desserts are priced at Rs 180 upwards.

*This post is part of the CFG Showcase. 

** Spoonbill is located in TTK Road, Alwarpet, opp Samsung Showroom.

Aromas of China

It'd been an insanely bad week and I was really looking forward to this dinner. Sometimes, you learn the hard way, to not expect.

Located in the heart of the food junction of Chennai, Aromas Of China boasts some really cool neighbors. The usual CFG gang landed at this place and by 730 we started dinner. The menu was sent well in advance.

Well lit ambiance, white crockery and stylish cutlery are just some positive aspects of this place. The seats weren't that great, especially the sofas and some even compared it to a share auto.

I quite didn't like the jasmine flavored tea that was served.

The eight treasure soup lacked flavor. I couldn't find one treasure in the soup, leave alone 8. The soup was too corny, er, I mean, too much corn flour in the base. (Aarti - your effect is rubbing off ;-) )

The crispy chilli corn pepper was crisp. A decent starter. The vegetable konjeenaro dry was terribly dry, tasteless and crisp. If we were able to manage spoonfuls of any of the above, it was largely due to the chilli sauce. It tasted yum and we almost finished 3 - 4 cups of this sauce.

A veg momo appeared on the plate and I really don't have much to say about this.

As we waited for the main course, we almost lost patience and considered stepping off to Haagen Dazs for some desserts. The chilli butter noodles was decent on the palate while the dumplings in soya chilli sauce and mix veg sichuan chilli sauce left a lot to be desired.

Given that the meal so far was a complete let down, we were hoping the desserts would save the evening and save they did. Hot chocolate rolls, Almond flaked Darshan.. er.. darsaan (Jenny - couldn't help it :D ) and vanilla ice cream were good. The vanilla ice cream though, didn't seem to have any vanilla in it.

Unless I'd lost my olfactory senses this morning, I could neither sense any aroma nor was there any China (except of course the mandarined lanterns and the fact that they were trying to celebrate Chinese New Year of the Snake ;-) ) in this place. And surprisingly, it was full for a Thursday evening.

For the first time, I am going with a rating mechanism here

Food: 1/5
Ambiance: 3/5
Service: 2/5 (I am tempted to say 1, but there were moments when the service was okay)

* This is part of CFG Showcase. Food is subjective and your taste buds are different from mine. 

* A meal for two would cost around INR 1500+ - each dish is priced at 300 upwards

*Aromas of China is on KNK Road, opp Kryptos By Willi.

Tadka Talk - A vegetarian's delight

A 2nd visit, in over a month - a perfect time frame to decide if the quality of food has been maintained! The first time was for the food tasting & trials when Shafee had called some of us from Chennai Food Guide. I was impressed, to say the least - the food, ambience, pricing and most of all, the proximity to home.

And when a CFG showcase happened here, I had to be present! Shafee, Chef Jugesh Arora and Chef Deepa Arora welcomed us and we were shown to our seats.

The ambience is simple and clean. There are no distractions. An open kitchen to your left, and the seating to the right. There's also a spacious private 15-seater. The service apartments upstairs are clean and well maintained, mostly taken up by corporates.

The showcase menu was the Chef's Tasting Menu, a sit-down buffet priced at INR 385+tax. 1 soup, 1 starter platter, unlimited main course and 1 dessert is what you get and this is much more than the money's worth. The service is quick and efficient but they let you eat your meal in peace :)

Punjabi home style food (ghar ka khaana) is the USP of this restaurant.

We began with a welcome drink - spiced kiwi and mango. I love the sour taste of the mango and it's an amazing palate cleanser. This was followed by the medium spicy black channa soup (choliya di rassa) - a perfect beginning to the meal.Oh, Raghavander can't eat mango, so the welcome drink was replaced with a kesar badam lassi.  This had just 2 reactions - a big yes and a tentative no. I belong to the big yes group. The tang of the yoghurt with the subtle flavor of the kesar is a winner.

Then arrived the starter platter - Paneer Amritsari, Tandoori Phul and Lahori Seekh Paneer Cholia Te Khumbwali. These are best eaten with the mango chutney. Each dish is perfectly cooked, the paneer with a slight tinge of ajwain.

The plates were cleared. The papad, raita, onions and pickle were arranged. The foodies that we were, we quickly made a dish out of this and crunched into the papad, strewn with some onions on a bed of raita and a small dot of pickle ;-)

As we waited for the main course, Ila and Chinna joined us. The rest of us couldn't wait for them to catch up ;-) We dug into some super soft butter naan and the roti. The breads were complemented by Kadhai Paneer, Aloo Gobi and Rajma. I loved the dal from the tasting and hoped it would be there but the rajma was a good replacement.

The rice dish, lahori sabzi biriyani, was a perfect blend of spices and vegetables. And no, this is not the spicy tomato ricey kind of biriyani that is served in the name of biriyani!

As I licked my plate (and my fingers) clean, the finger bowls arrived. The water was warm and the lemon a decent sized wedge. The bowl was big enough to dip my fingers and clean them, (There, I've reviewed the finger bowls too.. Happy? :-P)

And now for the grand finale. I had an amazing dessert for tasting - some gulab jamun on a bed of gajar halwa and a slice of kulfi and I was hoping the chef would serve the same this time around too! I did get 2 desserts but plated separately. Rasmalai and warm gulab jamun. The rasmalai had an extra bit of rose (gulab) flavor and the chef feels that his halwai might have been thinking about his valentine! The gulab jamun was warm and delicious with the right amount of sweet.

As I wind up, I can only hope they maintain this quality for a long time to come! Three cheers to Tadka Talk!

*This is part of the CFG Showcase.

* Tadka Talk is on Ramgiri Nagar, Opp TCS, Taramani Velachery Link Road (Behind Sony Center)

**Someone please ask Fazil why he was blushing so much.

* 5 month old Arnav, the youngest CFG member, was the apple of everyone's eye here. Sreehari & Aparna's son delighted us by being a very good boy! :)