Surfire...

Describing distaste is not fun. So, let's keep it at a minimum! 

I never grieved frequenting my workplace in London so long as it stood precisely nine minutes away from Holmes’ humble pad at 221B Baker Street. As neighbour to super-sleuth Feluda on Rajani Sen Road in Calcutta, Surfire too could be as coveted had its promising fare agreed to the rigours of that fabled quarter.

Lack of balance between vinegar and chili-peppers lent the Chorizos in Dosa a cloying tang I proved utterly unfit to admire. [By the way, Chorizo of my kind is smoky, brisk and oftener from Spain than Mapusa.] Appams were homely, porous, bowl-shaped, versatile and like a chaste ingénue that eschews coarseness in touches. With a gritty texture and vapid chunks of pork almost vying for rushed deliverance, a hodgepodge callously passed off as Vindaloo suddenly made my Goan jaunts appear too few and far between. Middling prawns in Chettinad were awful, unsavoury [and perhaps lately uncanned]. In a richly delicious Butter Garlic Crab I found culinary restraint and mastery at their snooty best, setting off an oomph enough to coax Adam quit pursuit of Eve forever. Its relish was decadent, redeeming and timely! Mutton Pepper-fry is a fairly renowned dish that, I understand, owes its prevalence to easy alterability to suit palates. The one with parched mutton dice I had that evening was ill-cooked and lifeless, sadly resembling a miserable gravel. The word ‘Roadside’ spells taste to me. Thattukada Mutton, or 'Mutton cooked the roadside way', delighted as sappy mutton cubes leisurely soaked in hefty and deliciously coconutty gravy - besides salvaging a failing evening from oblivion. Such arrows in the quiver are always rewarding. Like that the curtain fell on an eminently drab meal.

Plain-speaking is what I espouse, come what may. I wish Surfire whatever it takes to flourish.