Thursday, April 18, 2019

The Orient...a fiasco

An act of CULINARY DECEPTION was foiled at Poirotesque pace over a midday meal at ‘The Orient’ in Calcutta. The fledgling eatery, for want of real Basa, palmed off like a practised trickster a poorer [truly so] variant called ‘Pangas’ as ‘Sliced Basa’ tossed with roasted chili and Sichuan pepper. While the maiden bite struck palpably with textural oddness, the second unleashed a stench unbecoming of this popular Indochinese fish. The truth cost a few rounds of arguments with the ‘Chef’ that eventually made a scrupulous waiter give away favouring my plain claims. I’m not privy to what could lead to the unavailability of Basa at The Orient. But, like acts of slyness are likely to earn them irreversible distrust with certainty. #uncookedwords

Selling Sonata as Xylys is stealing. I highly unrecommend The Orient.

'Ghoti-garam'...

Velocity of that mixing decides how toothsome the outcome would be. A plastic tumbler half-filled with a nascent mixture is held brim to brim with another and shaken rhythmically. An accidental snack, Ghotigaram thus combines 'chanachur' with happiness, chopped green chillies and onions, grated carrot, grated 'amra' or raw green-mango with panache. I love it served moist with a generous spritz of lime. Ghotigaram offers bliss if only shaken right. By the way, don't miss the focused light that adds a golden hue to the mixture. #uncookedwords

Murimakha aka Jhalmuri

While some snacks ride on rhythm of shaking, brethren of 'Murimakha’ aka ‘Jhalmuri’ bloom if only stirred well. Chopped onions, green chilies and coriander, 'Chanachur' (mixture), peanuts, chopped garlic, a generous squeeze of lime, diced coconut, secret spices, 'Aamchur' (mango powder) and mustard oil are tossed into puffed rice inside a steel drum and stirred briskly with a wooden stick that prolonged use has made look like Potter's rickety wand. The key here is the mix that makes or breaks the notoriety of Jhalmuri. [Though musts with most, I keep potato, cucumber and tomato strictly out of my deadpan version of Murimakha.] As the crowning jewel a crescent slice of coconut kernel peeps out of the Thonga – the ubiquitous paper bag of Bengal, that vendors append only on pressing request. #uncookedwords

Adda at Tung Nam...

Nothing elevates a purebred adda like delicious mouthfuls. If ever good-food stands for a rich discourse, aftertaste would be its resulting wisdom. So, at Tung Nam, meaty topics and juicy pork were blended to concoct the best adda that one could with like wherewithal. #uncookedwords


I root for underdogs and that largely explains my love of hogs. Besides, a yummy pork dish shows best how an awful animal earns widespread love, though posthumously, if cut and cooked well. And, Tung Nam was chosen thoughtfully as the site of toasting pork at its guileless [and, Chinese] best.

Let’s cut to the chase. A serene Chicken & Mushroom clear soup with a body as sheer as a lacy negligée flagged off the feast promisingly. Chili Pork at Tung Nam is not made of cubes like elsewhere but thin slices that blend with the ingredients like a chameleon in the woods. At a time when a fare is scorned if it fills the bowl, it was a welcome anomaly. Smug is he who discounts this timeless delicacy as timeworn. And, misbegotten. Eating Pork Chou Si was cherishing a fine specimen of oriental modesty served in an artless bowl. Fatty pork strips tossed in rice-wine tickled with a savoury crispiness and, once bit into, burst unhurriedly with the poise of a wine long-aged in French oak. I wonder if it were the third strip or the fourth that nearly yielded the flavorous epiphany my palate pursues so keenly in bites. Chow Si was truly what a sober Adam Jones of ‘Burnt’ would ecstatically cheer as ‘Perfect’. And, THIS IS HOW THE PORK SHOULD TASTE LIKE. Most often it doesn’t. Lending base-note to our placid spread was the mixed Mei Fun that, as stir-fried rice-noodles teeming with fresh pork, chicken, shrimp and peppers, delighted equally with lightness and flavours. And, didn’t make adults with generous appetite weep or thump the table in unfulfillment.

Bowlfuls of greens were summoned soon after to cleanse our carnivorous spread of bloodstain. Besides, they by taste reconfirmed how it was not the greenness but the sameness of how the greens were cooked day after day that had got my goat all along. [And, I didn’t let any bovine indifference set in while chewing my mouthfuls.]

That unusual evening left Truffaut, Kurosawa and Coppola cut open over a meal like the loin of a hog. That said, stating that I didn’t miss the lushness of Malbec offsetting the repast’s quiet elegance would leave me ending with a delicious lie. So be it!

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Kuler Aachar...or, sticky 'Memories'

I love berries on the trees. But culled, sun-dried, sapped, shrivelled berries when left to roll in a dark semifluid of oozing fruit-sap and jaggery appeal to me more. 'Kuler Aachar' [Sweet Pickle of Berries] is that inviolate addiction none finds fault with in Bengal. And, falling for it young has mostly proved expedient in securing lasting joy in life. That joy that dwells in the kitchen. No! Don't even think of having it with a fancy fruit-pick. Using the thumb and the index like a tong, pick and lead a 'Kul' dripping with a viscous juice past the parted lips onto a welcoming tongue, and leave the rest to an amorous apparatus the mouth is. Teeth are summoned apropos to take pits out of the process. [Pits came in handy only when we conned weakhearted friends whom we couldn’t beat fairly into pit-spitting duels.] This process is run on every berry that disappears into the recesses of mouth. Mothers protecting generous stashes of pickles is glass jars and roving vendors selling a smorgasbord of it on rolling carts are the kind keepers fate of 'Kuler Aachar' mortally hinges on. #uncookedwords


[Erratum: Not Berries but Jujubes. However, Pope confirmed that to err is human.]

Monday, April 8, 2019

Yellow Chilli...

I would deem myself a failure if this text is not flailed by emissaries paid to praise the pointless. By pledging faith to their unctuous reviews what one risks most is TASTE. #uncookedwords

Firstly, mulling an pricey eatery at pompless Chandni Chowk was naïve and mindless. 'Yellow Chilli’, however, set off with fanfare in an area noted for offering goodfood for less. On Meredith Road it stood like Vuitton in a ghetto.

What exactly made a hungry soul resent 'Yellow Chilli’ on a promising weekday afternoon? The décor had rigged up a perfect foil to the failings that lay in store. A sloppy bowlful palmed off as Gosht Kalimirch ka Shorba as much numbed with raging black pepper as upset with measly mutton dices hiding at the bottom in dishonour. It was Für Elise played on steel-strings with utter shoddiness. Grittily textured Akhroti-Murgh Seekh - seasoned mix of walnut-chicken rolled into kebabs, would taste the same if I were nose-less. Like one surviving in the arid ravines of Chambal I lived through its roughness with sangfroid. Tariwala Murgh proved a dish one cooks for enemies – fiery, undramatic and made with a chicken stringy and tough. Like that I stopped an awful meal that boasted all but life.

Let’s not spill ink any more. I hope the day would never come when ‘Maligning Indian Food’ becomes their tagline. Until then I’ll stay as unstinting in offering battles on taste as I’m today.

Amuse Bouché at Yellow Chilli

I didn't toil that day to bring myself to love an edible I usually decamp upon sighting. A pale Raw Papaya forever typified that sterile goodness I hardly loved or fancied. #uncookedwords 


Quietly served in a tiny bowl, 'Papaya Relish' at Yellow Chilli played a perfect Amuse Bouché tingling tongue every time it drooped in despair. Thus Papaya, thinly sliced and pickled in some mysterious juice, had an upsetting meal affably redeemed, besides lending me a new name to recount.

In frame with Papaya Relish is another fiery wonder called Mukka Onions - pickled onions broken open with a blow from top and sprayed immoderately with Chilli powder.