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! :) 

Peaches - Peachy ! :)

It was an impromptu lunch with a friend, and I'd wanted to try Peaches. After their famous "Who is Peaches" advert and having seen the menu already online, I was intrigued by their spread, especially the somaras ;-).  (After Aswin's performance yesterday, I was in no mindset to take my camera to lunch.)

I called in for reservations and was very politely told that they aren't expecting much crowd and there was no need for me to reserve. Boy, were they wrong! (And at that, they need to master the art of crowd management)

Directions: Peaches is on the 100-ft bye pass road, opposite Rose Ceramics, above Andhra Bank. If you come in from Velachery Main Road, this is to your left. 

I was terribly hungry (just had Priya's cup cake for breakfast :P) and ordered the French onion soup. You do not need to by 2 a soup here. Portions are not big. The soup was hot, hearty and cheesy. A good amount of bread was dunked in. I did find that some onions were crisp in parts; I'd always thought that the idea of the onion soup was to caramelize the onions and let them sweat, so I wonder how the onions turned crisp! The friend ordered a cream of peas soup - was neither creamy nor chunky. It was a smooth broth which started to get grainy towards the end! (Scope for improvement? That's the Masterchef AU in me talking)

The bruschetta platter was on the starters and it won hands down. Soft, fresh bread with liberal dosage of cheese and vegetables, just melts in the mouth. This is a must try.

I'd wanted the Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls, sadly it wasn't available. So I ordered the spaghetti veg balls. I'd asked them to make it in white sauce as I am not too fond of the red sauce. I counted exactly 2.675 veg balls of which the .675 ball was mashed into the pasta. The pasta itself resembled a soggy semiya upma, over cooked in a very garlicky sauce.

The friend ordered the Paneer Tikka Burrito. 2 thick burritos filled with achari paneer (they usually serve hariyali paneer but you can customize) and some biriyani kind of rice made its way to the table. I sampled a bite, definitely good, but tends to get soggy after a few minutes. And then perhaps you can eat it like a chapati and sabzi :P. And what was that onion tomato on the side? Salsa? :P

We skipped the dessert as I was too sleepy. I hardly got any sleep last night (with the CFG anniversary fever running high), so the friend decided to order some coffee. And it took forever for the filter coffee to reach the table. Did they go to some plantation to pick fresh coffee beans, I wonder aloud!

Service was slow, which I really loved, but after a point it got to me. There was just one person taking orders, and the staff did seem efficient but not enough for the Sunday afternoon crowd.

This place has the potential; the staff are courteous, ambience is simple and excellent; music is pleasing! (One of the owners who was around in an orange kurta had this permanent scowl on his face - smile please, you'd perhaps look more handsome :-) ) - if only they can iron out these small things; This place is already a crowd puller!

And the bill for all the above (2 soups, 1 starter and 2 mains) totaled up to INR 700 odd.

PS: They do home delivery too :D :D 

Delivered Diet - Pind, Velachery

*Title courtesy - Bharani Shivakumar**

Update at 8:08 pm

This is more or less a live blog post. I was completely exhausted after judging the food fest event yesterday and decided to give a day off to my kitchen tonight.

I was juggling between Pind, Petawrap and Mast Kalandar. I have tried Mast K a million times earlier on and wanted something different; food that wouldn't cost as much in delivery charges.

All I wanted to do was put my feet up and flick between channels on television. Funny People starring Adam Sandler is on now. I'd switch to MasterChef Australia in an hour.

So as usual, I looked up to my fellow foodies on CFG, to suggest what I can do for dinner and as usual comments poured. I looked through the menu of Pind, and decided to order tawa ghee phulkas and diwani handi (with less tomato).

I placed a call to Pind at 7:45 pm and the lady who picked the phone took my order. She said it'd take 45 mins to deliver. And I say - so that would be 8:30 pm? She says - no ma'am , 8:45 and I say, then it would be 1 hour! She started laughing and said ma'am we'll deliver between 830 - 845. Talk of Indian Standard Time! She almost hung up when she realized she hadn't taken my address or phone number! All that done, I now wait for the food to be delivered.

Update at 8:15 pm - Another 30 mins to go!

Update at 8:30 pm - No sign of the food, Just as I typed this, ding dong. Food arrives! Yay!

Update at 8:35 pm - The food has arrived well packed and hot. The gentleman who brought it to the door was quite pleasant that I couldn't resist tipping him. And it's now time to taste!

Update at 8:50 pm - Dinner done; Hands washed; (Sorry Bharani, had to do that before I updated the post :P) Phulkas were perfect, with that perfect amount of ghee. The portion of the sabzi would perhaps serve 2 - 3 people. So I have enough stock left over for next 2 days. (I could have asked if they served half portions) Not too spicy, not too tomato-ey, not too mushy - just the way I like it. The sabzi had mushrooms, corn, carrot, beans, peas, paneer, bell pepper, onions and tomatoes. Pickled onions and mint yoghurt completed the side. At INR 220, and free home delivery, PIND delivers!

And now, it's time for MasterChef Australia. Enjoy the evening!