Peaches - The world on your plate

That's the tagline for Velachery based Peaches' restaurant. This is my 3rd visit and if they have most certainly improved on one thing, it's the owner smiling away to glory! :) The previous review can be read here

A group of bloggers from CFG were invited for the Showcase today, as Peaches' were revamping their menu. Chef Kaushik (aka The Mad Chef of Eatitude Consulting) has been the culinary consultant for Peaches'.

After we'd all settled in, the chef explained how this evening'd progress.

The evening began with some coolers - scooped watermelon in some condensed milk and elaichi & nuts, and a blue curacao flavored cooler (the blue curacao will always remain a personal favorite of mine, for various reasons). These were right on the spot.

To follow, was supposedly hot tomato basil soup, but as it reached the table, it was less than lukewarm with an overdose of basil flavor and aroma. Perhaps, if this had been hot, would have been a yum soup for a cool evening. (I personally favor the French Onion Soup here)

The starters saw a parade of paneer in various avtars floating to the table - Malai paneer with cashew marinade, achari paneer (marinated in satrangi achar), and angora paneer. There were also an assortment of vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower & zucchini steamed and soaked in sauce. (If you are a broccoli lover like me, then you'd be appalled at the way this broccoli was bathed in sauce). The phuket paneer completed the parade. This was a vegetarian take on the phuket fish - lot of spring onion and soy flavors and quite spicy.

Malai Paneer Tikka

Achari Paneer

Broccoli Steam and Doused in sauce

And it's fairer counterpart - the cauliflower

Phuket Paneer

Angoori Paneer (Stuffed)

My pick was the achari paneer, and the malai paneer was a tad chewy.

The next dish on the table was Cream and Cheese Mushroom Tortellini. This was terribly bland on the first bite, and the next bite saw a rush of flavors zipping across your tongue.

Cheese  & Cream  Mushroom Tortellini

To give us a break from paneer, the chef brought a round of Chennai kuchi varuval - a local take on French Fries, with loads of curry leaves flavor and some crispy fried corn. This was paired with bovonto with vanilla ice cream - Wow, Really Wow. Who'd have thought the humble dark colored bovonto could team up with the fair maiden vanilla ice cream and produce such brilliant flavors! Quoting Raghu here - This is not a beverage, it's a rage! :D

Chennai Kuchi Varuval

The Beve"rage" - Bovonto + Ice Cream

Crispy Fried Baby Corn

Interval! Time to walk around a bit, and settle the food, so you make space for more. The evening had just begun!

And 2nd half begins.

The main course consisted of varieties of rotis - pudhina, lacha paranthas, kalonji, and the til kulcha. The Til Kulcha was a tad salty.

The gravys comprised of bharwan tamatar, Subz Kohlapuri and Dhaabawale Dal. Subz Kohlapuri was supposed to be very spicy but apparently my taste buds didn't seem to mind the spice.

Dhaabawale Dal is my favorite and when eaten with Shahi Jeera Zaafrani pulao, is a pathway to heaven. Truly delicious.

Subz Kohlapuri

Bharwan Tamatar

Shahi Jeera Zaffrani Pulao and The Dhaabawale Dal (I was too busy eating that I forgot to shoot the dal)

This was followed by the quintessential biriyani - the kofta biriyani, where the rice, vegetables and masala are kept in a pot, covered with the dum and put inside a tandoor. There was an overpowering taste of elaichi and cloves, and nothing else!

As we thought we were nearing the climax (the desserts) one more main course was set on the table - I quite forgot its name, but this was a pasta with lots cheese. The pasta was slightly hard (a tad more than al dente) and after all that, I really couldn't do justice to this in terms of taste.

In between all this, a green colored liquid called lime mint cooler was served. It was so watery, I was cursing myself for not ordering one more round of the bovonto.

Finally, the plates were cleared and the desserts were brought. First one - carrot halwa samsa (rabdi rolls) was filo pasty filled with carrot halwa, fried and dipped in rabdi. This was delicious. The next one was Oppa Gangnam - a combination of banana, pineapple, butter, served on a sizzling platter with honey sauce and sesame. My taste buds did not do a gangnam dance. This one was a thorough let down.

Carrot Halwa Stuffed and Fried - Rabdi Rolls

Do you see the halwa inside? :)

Oppa Gangnam

It's heartening to see the restaurant improve on a lot of aspects, yet if there's one thing that still needs major improvement - it's the service. The waiters were confused, harried, and didn't know what to serve whom. My table was constantly missed out, and had to ask for dishes multiple times. Some dishes were placed in one corner of the table, while the other corner waited impatiently. A wrong dish was served in between - a sev raita - about which no one had a clue.

Peaches' is a great place to dine with family / friends / colleagues. It's located on Velachery 100 ft bye-pass road, above Andhra Bank, opp Murugan Kalyana Mandapam.

The menu is available here

*This blog is part of CFG Showcase.

Cake Saga - French Loaf

Did I say I was a good girl and curbed my sweet craving? I am on a sugar high today, all credit to the CFG Showcase at the French Loaf, Harrington Road, covering their Christmas special :)

It was a very warm and Christmas-y ambiance - Christmas Trees, Plum Cakes, Friends; All that was missing was some snow flakes and carols.

The table was lined up with various goodies that are going to be part of French Loaf's Christmas Special. For the next one week, these choicest goodies will be available at their counters.

Ashwini (PR - And I mean Public Relations, Oriental Cuisines) and Swapnil (Marketing, French Loaf)  offered KK and me some hot chocolate, as we waited for the rest of the folks to turn up.

Chef Boopesh explained the various items on the table, starting from the cherry fruit cake, cherry fruit cake in a cup, plum cake and going on to even elaborate on how the photos are printed on the cakes.

Sometime in August, every year, they start sourcing the ingredients for the plum cake - raisins, berries and the likes. That's the time you get the fresh and top quality ingredients. These are sourced from Chennai and Bangalore. This is then soaked in whiskey, rum and brandy for 45 days. Then, on an auspicious day, the cake mixing happens. Oh, the plum cakes were egg-less :-)

As I moved through various cakes and chocolates on the table, the one thing that caught my attention was the mince pie. Now, mince normally would indicate meat. In this case, this is a mince of the rum-whiskey-brandy soaked raisins, sauteed in some butter and brown sugar and brought to a jammy consistency. It's then filled into pies and baked. This is my pick for the season. Totally loved the texture and the flavor.

There are celebrations cakes and assorted celebration cookies and chocolates, packed into tall tins. Christmas greeting cards on chocolates is a treat to the eyes. There was also a CD cover chocolate slab :)

The chocolate truffle was amazing. Stollen Bread was a little dry, but Chef explains that's how it's supposed to be. I was too happy munching on white chocolate coated almonds and chocolatey butterscotch :)

So what are you waiting for? Head to your nearest French Loaf and enjoy a sugar rush!

Merry Christmas!

Drool more at the pictures below

Dieter's Delight - Sprouts Tikki

I've been a good girl this past week, haven't eaten out, stuck to my workout regime, and most importantly curbed my sweet craving. and I decided to give myself a little treat, something that was tasty, yet healthy!

So this could actually pass off as a dieter's delight.

Here's your recipe!

Step 1: Grind to a coarse paste (almost like that of paruppu vadai) the following

1 cup sprouts
1 green chili
1" ginger
half an onion
salt to taste

Note: add very little water

Step 2: Transfer to a bowl. Add half a chopped onion, finely chopped coriander and mint, a pinch of garam masala and mix well.

Step 3: Make into tikkis (make a ball of this paste in your hand, and flatten it). Roll these over some rice flour to hold them together.

Step 4: Heat a griddle, add few drops of oil, place a few tikkis, and cook until brown. Turn over to the other side and repeat process.

Step 5: Serve with mint walnut chutney - recipe from Ammee's Kitchen.

The week that was...

..was an incredibly mad week. 4 dinners, 2 lunches, a spa session, client presentations and amidst all this, I found time to read a bit! Oh yes, all this was during a busy work week!

Dinner one was on Tuesday at Tasneem Aunty's house, with my gang of girls, where I got to flaunt my short skirt without being worried what anyone'd think ;-) The menu was exhaustive - , corn tempura, biriyani, jeera rice, coconut rice, poori, channa, dal, quban ka meetha, kajur - sigh! The food was as delicious as the conversations!

Dinner two was on Wednesday - well that's more of high-tea, at Tuscana's new menu launch, followed by some awesome icecream at Bellaria (right next to Park Sheraton) and of course, pulling Bharani's leg with the hot latino chick. (wink wink)

Dinner three on Thursday was with my super duper bestie girl friend to catch up on a lot of things (I'm not saying what they are). This was at Eco Cafe Chamiers - 2 spicy hot chocolate, 2 veg sandwich, 1 carrot cake and 1 bottled water at INR 850. (not to mention a huge haul of books at flat 50% discount)

Lunch one was at work, with my clients, on Friday. The food was packed and delivered from Fortune Palms, OMR. Very mediocre lunch - maida roti, corn and palak sabzi, paneer butter masala (and the paneer was beyond biting), dal, jeera rice and moong dal halwa.

Dinner four was at my fav couple - Sindhu and Sathish's house, on Friday. This was super long in coming, but when it did come, it was amazing. Ragda patties, Grilled Mushrooms, Paneer Tikka, Chapati, Baingan Sabzi, Amrut Ki Sabzi, Biriyani, Raita and carrot halwa. This was followed by Sathish's special - thums up + vanilla ice cream. Interspersed with some brilliant conversation, we ended the evening at 11 pm with some mint flavored green tea.

Lunch two was at Kalyan Nagar Association, at the Iyappa Poojai of my childhood buddy Shanky's dad. I was already stuffed with all that I have mentioned above, but who can resist an authentic tambrahm elai virundhu - sambhar, rasam, beans curry, vaazhakkai curry, aviyal, chakkara pongal, paal payasam, vadai, appalam & pachidi!

Rounded this all up with breakfast at ID - dosai, vadai and kasi halwa on Sunday morning. NEP was very mediocre, but hey the food made up for it! :)

And now, it's time to pull my socks and hit the treadmill with a vengeance! :)

Tuscana - New Menu Launch

Tuscana on Chamiers has revamped its menu now. But, you have to wait... until Saturday! Why? Because the menu card is not printed yet - that's why! :-)

We were some of the privileged lot to attend the soft launch, which was followed by high-tea.

So at about 1630, the usual suspects landed at Tuscana. Chef Willi, the long-haired cheerful man was around in his red suit, almost reminding me of Santa, what with Christmas sseason and all that! Mr Sachdev did a round of introductions and we got started.

The new menu card has a thick glossy outer cover, with a red fiery Tuscana written on it. The pages are filled with various dishes that you might want to try on your next visit. (Psst: The rates have gone down on many items by almost a hundred rupees and yes, Vipin is aware of that! ;-))

But, if you do not get on your plate what's written on the menu card in Tamil, then please understand that the dish was simply lost in translation! (Obviously the chef and the translator don't necessarily agree with each other is what Vipin has to say about this)

The menu revamp excludes certain dishes that were available earlier. This is so because of the lack of availability of ingredients, or cumbersome process in procuring the ingredients.

Oh, the entire ERP system is changed as well. They have now designed it in-house, so they can pull out reports easily! (Now, why does that remind me of work!)

As we milled around meeting friends and taking photographs, the dishes for the high tea started streaming in. The welcome drink was more than welcome for the parched throat. A simple orange juice it was. The table had an array of bread sticks, hummus, olives and salsa.

Orange juice

Salsa

Bread sticks

Olives

Hummus

The first dish to arrive, as part of the high tea, was a bruschetta platter. Crisp bread with mushroom and assorted pepper topping was delicious. This was followed by cheese cauliflower tart. It also had carrots and some bell peppers.

Bruschetta Platter

Next to arrive was the much awaited pizza. Gluten free, Multi grain (this is on the new menu) and the regular variety were on the cards. The multi grain was good, except I thought the crust did taste like those multi-grain biscuits and perhaps could have been slightly softer on the texture. I loved the broccoli and spinach pizza. Perfect texture and the broccoli was perfectly steamed. Neither too soft nor too crunchy and yes, there was a generous dose of broccoli on the pizza.

Food was flowing from the kitchen, like some akshaya pathram and at some point, we were stuffed! A couple of us just stepped out for some fresh air and Chef Willi wanted to know if we were done. He brought the desserts out to us - coffee pannacotta and vanilla pannacotta with some blueberry topping. The coffee was good, while the vanilla was way too sweet for our liking.

As we wound up yet another launch, I realize again that the need for improvisation and innovation in the food scene is at an all time high.

Merry Christmas folks!

Note: Tuscana is on Chamiers Road, opposite Park Sheraton. They also have a restaurant in Nungambakkam.

Cafe Ashvita - Food and Fun!

It's been a while since I attended a CFG Showcase and had quite forgotten how much fun these events are. Aside from the food, which typically ranges between extraordinary and a total-letdown, the fun and family element is what makes these CFG Showcases a great success.

So, Cafe Ashvita it is today. It was the perfect weather to sit outside and what better than a CFG Showcase to do it! The usual suspects, ranging from kinder garten (KG) to post graduate (PG) were present and a few new faces too (as is wont to in any CFG meet). 4 vegetarians and a whole bunch of non vegetarians were around, and surprisingly, the good doctors Wasim and Madhu shared the table with us lesser mortals - the vegetarians. Of course, Sathish (who bore the brunt of the fact that the veggies were still not invited to Sindhu's Kitchens) also shared our table.

Psst: KG jumped into the water as soon as he came ;-)

Ashwin, owner of Ashvita surprised us by saying that we were going to have 5 soups, 11 (or was that 14?) starters and then the main course followed by 6 desserts. I kid you, NOT.

Oh, before that, the choice of welcome drinks was a surprise in itself - Mojito, Margarita or Tonic Water. These will be soon retailed at Ashvita. Mojito had a strong hint of mint, which would be a perfect combination with rum. The margarita was more like a lemon juice. (One 250 ml can is priced at INR 75)

That sorted out, Ashwin and Munira, the PR, was constantly at our side explaining the various dishes in the menu. Without further ado, here we present the dinner from Cafe Ashvita.

Soup menu: 
Tomato soup, with loads of pepper, and some pasta and egg drops - wow factor.
Mushroom and garlic soup, with a hint of coconut milk - Perfect for a cool winter evening.
Green peas and cream soup - supremely bland especially after having eaten the above two.
Clear pumpkin soup with loads of coriander - Almost like a rasam but great.
The fifth one was a chicken soup for the non veg soul.

Note: Ashvita doesn't serve sea food,

Starters: 
Hold your breath, for here we present so many kinds that I had to use the mojito as my palate cleanser :P

Crispy spinach and sprouts - This was very nice, crispy true to its name.
Masala papad in a cone :-)
Onion rings, with some spring onion, salt and pepper flavored.
Punjabi breakfast (with some kind of sweet roti that was almost like a poli), eggs and potatoes. The potatoes were too soggy, and the roti was slightly hard to chew on.
Fried rice patties with a hint of saunf
Fried momos (with varied fillings), the sauce on top almost looked like jam :)
Fried potatoes with mayo, onions
Paneer and Mushroom Tikka
More mushrooms
Big boss Kashmiri
Big boss paneer tikka

The starters overall were great, lots of flavor, each dish concentrating on just one prime flavor. This is a refreshing change from the myriad of flavors that go into dishes these days. The big boss Kashmiri was my pick, along with the crispy spinach and sprouts. 

The main course was another big spread - dal makhni, pan fried noodles, and vegetables, tomato mushroom rice (a big disappointment), saffron plain rice, vegetable jalfrezi. The bread basket had egg parotta, aloo paranthas and butter rotis.

Honestly, the main course was a disappointment. The dal makhni was good and so were the vegetables but other than that, nothing to die for.

Then arrives the final course of the day, the desserts.

Oreo milk shake
Kit kat milk shake
Mocha milk shake
Beetroot halwa
Lemon Sponge Cake
Vanilla Sponge Cake (the only difference is in the icing :D )


Totally loved the desserts, but these aren't dishes that you can't make at home. And Bharani tells me the gulab jamuns here are to die for! :)

And no meet is complete without a group photo (although Rosh forgot to turn on the camera the first time around ;-) )

Fuzzy gave the vote of thanks and then class disperse :) That was one gigantic meal !

Ashvita is situated off RK Salai (Opp Dominos). Their buffet is priced at INR 595 for 4 starters and the buffet. They also have a store that sells quaint little stuff. :) The ambiance is great, both the inside and the outdoor.

Note: This review is part of the CFG Showcase event
Note 2: This place is not for the diet conscious. This is purely for satisfying the taste buds! 

Dieter's Delight - Broccoli Stir-Fry

Broccoli is one of my favorite vegetables. And it's one of the easiest to make. And whenever I can find some fresh broccoli, I make sure I pick up a head.

After all the wedding feast over the last week, I had to take it easy. And the dieter series is revived!

This is a fairly simple recipe and wont take more than 20 minutes including chopping.

Boil a huge pot of water with plenty salt. Add the broccoli florets. When they turn a bright green (after about a couple of minutes), strain and keep aside.

Heat a shallow pan, drizzle some olive oil and when the pan is really hot, toss the broccoli florets. Add the broccoli stems, carrots and any other vegetables of your choice. Keep tossing on high heat for a minute.

Transfer to a bowl.

For the dressing, squeeze the juice of 1 lemon and add some fresh ground pepper. Pour on to the broccoli and dig in!