Chill out at Cool Cats

Well, I Think this is the first time I’m reviewing an ice-cream parlour. Before I get into details, I’d like to inform readers that my posts concerning restaurant reviews will aslo be appearing on www.chennai.burrp.com.

Well, getting down to business, Cool Cats is an ice cream parlour located on the road leading to the Besant Nagar bus depot. It lies somewhere between Spencer’s supermarket & the Maharaja supermarket. Quite ideal for desserts after you’ve had dinner at Tharavad or Golden Palms or Eden. The ambiance is nothing to boast about. Its just a counter with ice cream vending machines visible in the background. A small bench inside & a couple of chairs outside. Surprisingly, the place is famous for its take-aways. People stream in all day taking ice creams home.

Coming to the ice creams, they have a printed menu, but the specials are pasted on the wall and change frequently. Unfortunately, these are crudely hand-written, but they serve the purpose. They advertise a variety of exotic flavours, but usually, Vanilla is served with a sauce of the mentioned flavour poured over it. They offer varied choices ranging from Litchee to watermelon. In fact, it was here that I chanced upon watermelon ice cream. I was curious to know if it was in fact watermelon ice cream or Vanilla doused in watermelon essence. On confirming the former, I ordered. The ice cream wasn’t very smooth (The Vanilla is very soft & creamy) and it had a faint taste of frozen watermelon. It also included strawberry sauce poured liberally over it.

Vanilla freaks looking for a bit of change can go here. I found this out too late after ordering what was advertised as a triple flavoured scoop – black currant, orange & mango. It turned out be Vanilla with the mentioned syrups. But the Choco Dip cone is really wonderful (Vanilla cone, dipped in chocolate sauce & sprinkled with nuts). But the chocolate coating is not uniform & ice cream tends to drip from the sides as one friend found out too late. So be careful while eating this one.

Portions are substantial & can even qualify as dinner, especially if you’re a girl. Girls usually feel full after one ice cream here & so do some guys. Prices aren’t all that expensive. The costliest one turns out to about Rs.60, and thats an enormous ice cream. Quite cheap if you consider that Barista charges over Rs 80 for their ice creams. Prices start from around Rs. 20

People of all ages frequent this joint – families, couples, schoolboys & I even noticed an old couple once. It makes a good hangout, though you can’t actually hang out here. There is no space. But grab an ice cream on the way to the beach. It will last at least till you reach the beach.

This place also offers cocktail samosas & cutlets. I’ve tasted the samosas & they are delicious. They are quite cheap, but they also sell out rather fast. A trip early in the evening would prove luckier if you plan to have these

For the rating,
Ambience: 2
Food : 4
Value for Money: 4
Service : 4

Overall : 3.5

So go ahead.
Cheers!

The Great Cook-Off

This post is long overdue and is an important event as it heralds the entry of the Tastemaster into the world of cooking. Prior to this day,the Tastemaster’s fascination with food was limited to mainly eating & brief forays into cooking basic items like rice & eggs. The Great Cook-off is the transition of the Tastemaster from a rookie to a professional cook, hence mastering all 3 arts needed to be a Tastemaster, namely, Eating, Not Eating & Cooking. I’ll relate my experiences of the day here. I will not dwell too much upon the details of the recipes used. Maybe that will serve as a seperate post some other day when I’m suffering from writer’s block.

The day was sometime in May & was actually an attempt to show off my cooking prowess to my closest friends, Susie, KF & Ball.Susie had consented to come down to Chennai from Bangalore (Bengaluru for the perfectionists). The seed for this day had been sown during a lonely train journey from Kochi to Chennai (Returning after attending Susie’s sister’s wedding). The idea took shape & invitations were sent out to all concerned parties. A work plan was prepared with thorough care given to the timing & several recipes of my own invention were laboriously written down.Gordon Ramsay would’ve been pleased. The day was a Sunday & the Friday evening & the Saturday preceding D-Day were spent shopping for the event. The shopping list was quite extensive. 3 Kgs of Chicken (A rather chance discovery saved me some money here. I found out that the packaged chicken sold by Godrej actually cost about Rs 30 less than the one sold at the butcher), Half a kg of prawns ( I had not yet mustered enough courage to enter the fish market & haggle with the vendors. Also, I had no experience with cooking seafood before & I didn’t have any clue as to how to de-vein & shell the prawns.Hence I settled for Sumeru Frozen Prawns.I mixed up packets of small & medium sized prawns to save money), vegetables, cheese & what-not.A lot of time was spent on searching for Red Wine, but to no avail. Apparently, people in Chennai do not drink Red Wine. So that was cut out of the shopping list. After a brutal day, with the refrigerator loaded, I climbed into bed.

D-Day dawned early & I was up starting my preparations by 7.30 AM. Thawing & Cleaning the chicken & the prawns, preparing marinade, chopping vegetables, All this took up a lot of time. I had no help & I had refused any from my friends. I won’t bore the readers with minute details of my work plan. I had 2 chicken dishes in mind, A starter & a Curry. 2 prawn dishes, soup, salad, fried rice ,custard & ice cream for dessert. My masterpiece was supposed to be Chicken wrapped & steamed in banana leaves. This had a Thai influence, but not Benjarong. This Cook-off predates Benjarong by at least a month. I had chanced to sample a similar dish at another Thai restaurant a few years ago & I wanted to replicate it. The end result wasn’t a perfect replica, but rather my own improvisation. I had planned to serve these as starters & hence cooking these was first priority. My friends trooped in around 11:00 & were at once curious as to the menu, the recipes & I had to drive them out of the kitchen. May in Chennai is the hottest time of the year & after a couple of wrong turns on the way to my house, they had parched throats. I had a special treat for them. Chilled Ice cream soda! (I have been practically raised on ice-cream soda,courtesy my late uncle & I had wanted my friends to sample it at least once). I had procured it from City Centre ( A mall, quite far away. The strain of getting those bottles gave me a sore shoulder for a couple of days). As expected, my pals were curious as to what it was & were eager to try it out. I served the Soda & it was well received by all. I then proceeded to serve my starters (Chicken wrapped in banana leaves). This naturally brought out exclamations of surprise as no one had expected such an exotic dish. The chicken had been marinated in White Rum & it gave it a distinct flavour. It received rave reviews. 

After this, some time was spent on idle chatter while i prepared Coriander soup. I had prepared macaroni & the stock went into the soup giving it a certain flavour. However, I misjudged the salt & it turned out quite salty. After preparing my prawn dishes & my salad, I was ready to serve. One prawn dish was a curry (gravy based) & I’ll confess it didn’t turn out well. (I managed to salvage it by washing the prawns & frying them later at night). The other prawn dish was drier, fried in cheese & butter. The salad was simple macaroni & cheese sprinkled with pepper & it turned out to be one of the best dishes of the day. And also, since I had to finish off the White Rum, I managed to work some into every dish that day. The main course was vegetable fried rice & I had bought basmati rice for this. Unfortunately a little idle banter led to this getting slightly burnt, but there was enough carbon-free rice for everyone to dine on. The final dish consisted of spicy chicken curry.This wasn’t any special recipe,but the one that comes on the back of Eastern Curry Masala powder sachet. This also turned out to be very tasty. After a hearty lunch,helped down with Ice Cream Soda, left us all too heavy to move & my friends raised voices of protest when I announced dessert. I had prepared custard & raspberry jelly. But a power cut the previous day had prevented the jelly from setting properly and we had to content ourself with pouring the pink liquid onto our custards. There were lots of fresh fruits tossed in – apples, grapes, bananas & the final touch, raisins soaked overnight in rum (I had to finish the rum didn’t I?  Of course, I managed to help myself in this task by pouring a lot of it on the floor). We managed to down the custard with some difficulty & not because it wasn’t tasty, but because our stomachs were too full. When I asked if anyone was in the mood for strawberry ice cream, there were no takers. And we decided to have it after some time, by which time our stomachs would have recovered slightly. We spent a couple of hours chatting & snapping pictures. We also went out and bought ice cream soda for Susie to take home (to my consternation, I found it was sold quite near my house). We returned & I managed to feed Susie (Who was chief guest, by the way) a couple of spoons of ice cream before she had to take off to catch her train back to bangalore. 

The others also made their way home. There was plenty left over & it came in handy during dinner time. All said & done, it was a great experience, knowing that I could cook so much in such a short time. And ofcourse, the time spent with friends was priceless. This cook-off was followed by 2 more, infact, this very day was the 2nd one. But the first one was the best as it was a trial by fire which the Tastemaster passed with flying colours.

Cheers!

Konkani Flavours 2

I thought I’ll revert back to Konkani food. The idea was sparked off by another friend/colleague who also happens to be Konkani. She happened to be taking a trip home for Ganesh Chaturti ( For those who don’t know, Lord Ganesha (of the Hindus) also celebrates his birthday every year sometime in September, just like Jesus Christ. ) Well, she said she was taking a week off and I was like “why on earth?”. I thought maybe Ganesha was going on a binge this year, throwing a party for friends, & this girl knew about it while I didn’t. When I voiced similar concerns, she put my mind to rest (not exactly at rest) by saying that she was intending to spend some time at home helping her mom prepare sweets for the festival. (This explains the “not exactly at rest” as I was sure I’d see none of those sweets). However the inborn ‘Tastemastery’ instinct in me was fired at this response & naturally I wanted to know what kind of sweets. She proceeded to elaborate that the menu included not only sweets but also savouries (Sigh!). I’ll try to explain what she described & a few more of my own.

As mentioned above, I’m dealing with sweets & savouries here, food you’re more likely to see on a coffee table or served on a platter by a prospective bride. It won’t exactly fill your stomach (unless you’re in the mood to visit quite a few prospective brides), more like satisfy the palate. In short, they can be classified as snacks.

She started off her tale (of woe, for me) by mentioning chakuli. Now chakuli is a savoury that isn’t confined to Konkanis. It goes by the name of murukku in South India & this should be enough to jog a few memories. For those who still don’t know, the chakuli is made from dough made with rice flour, mixed with sufficient spice, made up into a coil with spikes (using an ingenious invention) & fried.

She then said she would be helping in the preparation of what she calls Tukdi , and what I shall call Ronti (as It is my blog after all). The difference in nomenclature arises from the fact that she hails from Mangalore & I hail from Kerala. So, though we’re both Konkani, we speak different dialects. Right, now on to the Ronti. Now this is quite versatile, as in it can be either sweet or spicy. Basically, it involves kneading dough made with maida. If you want it spicy, the chilli powder is mixed with the batter. The dough is flattened & cut into tiny diamonds using a knife. These diamonds are fried. If you want the sweet variety, you need to fry them & then dip the Rontis in sugar syrup. I prefer the spicy ones myself.

She mentioned something called Neori but I’m not familiar with it. Must be typical of the Mangaloreans. So I’ll let it pass. Now onto the besan laddu. This also isn’t confined to the Konkanis & as far as I know, is familiar to the Maharashtrians too.  Another favourite of mine, though she didn’t mention is called the Phova Ukari. This is a kind of simple, easy to make, savoury mixture. The basic ingredient happens to be the Phovu (or beaten rice). This is roasted along with turmeric powder, sesame seeds, red chillies & salt to give it the flavour. Roasted peanuts & fried sev are thrown in for good measure. The snack keeps well for a long time without spoiling (If you let it stay, that is)& its fairly easy to make.  Hence, its the mainstay of grandmothers who fuss over their already overfed grandchildren.

Another sweet preparation, commonly found in the complimentary packets you get to take away at Konkani weddings, is the Mando. It consists of an outer shell, made of maida. The stuffing can vary being beaten rice, jaggery, sugar, coconut, sand (Kidding) or whatever else is handy.  Its supposed to be a sweet dish, but it isn’t very sweet. The sugar is used in moderation.  Personally, everytime I take a bite, I feel my mouth has filled with sand. But that’s entirely my own opinion. I know people who swear by this.

Let me move on to another sweet, the Puranpoli. This is also made by Maharashtrians. Basically it consists of a chappati with a layer of sweetened flour sandwiched between what can be roughly called 2 chappatis. A spoonful of ghee over this completes the snack. My friend calls it Ubatti, but as I said, Its my blog isn’t it?

Another sweet dish is the Pathali a.k.a the Paan Pathali. This is called so, as it is cooked in a Paan (a banana leaf). It is a steamed cake, with an outer layer made with a base of wheat or rice flour. The stuffing varies maybe coconut or jackfruit (ponsa pathali) mixed with jaggery or sugar.

Well, I’m running out of time as I’ve a bus to catch. I’m sure there are many more, but I’m just not able to recollect any at the moment. I’ll do a bit of research & bring you more food from Konkaniland. Till then,

Cheers!

Torture for the tastebuds

Well, so far, the Tastemaster has been raving on about food that taste great. A true Tastemaster however needs to know both ends of the spectrum & hence I embarked upon this quest to go on a Diet. Now, do not mistake that I have a corpulent figure. The diet was just to prove the strength of will power & also to experience the other side of good food.

Well, I cannot live without food, so diets requiring starvation weren’t for me. A brief search on Google threw up what is called the General Motors Diet, henceforth to be called the GM Diet.

According to the site I visited, It was started by the General Motors Corporation for its employees & their dependants & it promised a weight loss of 6-8 kg in a week without going hungry! I especially liked the ‘without being hungry’ part & decided to make the GM diet part of  my modus operandi. I will chronicle my events in chronological order.

Day 0

The day before the diet. It involved a trip to Viv’s (more on that later) and a hearty meal of Chicken sweet corn soup, chilli beef, murg malai kabab & prawn fried rice. This was obviously necessary to fortify my system for the next few days.This was followed by banana chips & fried jackfruit chips brought home by a benevolent roommate. It also involved stockpiling supplies for the next day

Day 1

According to the GM diet, Day 1 was “all the fruits you can eat, but no bananas”. It was an all fruit day accompanied by 10 glasses of water (mandatory on all days). I started it off with the contents of several Musambis ( Sweet lime) & an apple. This lasted till lunch, which was a whole lot of diced Papaya & another apple. Dinner was still more Papaya (It was a huge one!) & the remaining apple. Day 1 was done with no complications, and I was thinking, “Pooh, thats all to a diet”.

Day 2

This was supposed to be all vegetables day & breakfast was supposed to be One large boiled potato. Now I couldn’t find a large potato, so I boiled 4 small ones for breakfast. That was the first mistake. I boiled & mashed them & added salt & pepper for taste. But a few spoonfuls & I had enough. But i laboured through the bowl. Now for lunch, I had salad with cucumber,carrots & raw onions. But I wasn’t exactly sure if I would make it through dinner just on salad, so I had boiled 6 potatoes for lunch! By noontime, the close confines of my lunch box had mixed the smells of cucumber & onions & a whiff of this noxious gas assaulted my nostrils when I opened it.I managed to gulp down a few spoonfuls & hastily shut the lid. Unfortunately, I had to eat the same swill for dinner. By now I was sick of cucumber, raw onions & potatoes & all ready to throw the diet. At this point of time, I would’ve been happy if I would never have to see a potato again in my life

Day 3

This was a mixture of fruits & vegetables day, still no bananas & no potatoes. I managed to twist the GM diet’s intentions to my own needs & ended up having more fruit than vegetables. After the debacle the previous day, I didn’t want to do much with vegetables. I went through half a watermelon for breakfast.half for  lunch and  another half for dinner.( I bought two).

Day 4

Today was milk and bananas day. 3 cups of milk and upto 8 bananas. However, since the GM diet didn’t mention how big the cup should be, I used the largest one available at home. I also had 9 bananas. 3 for each meal. By the way, I had to endure the torture of watching a friend devour a samosa  and the last straw was when he asked me to hold one!

Day 5

Today was feast day (according to GM diet). I’d like to give a piece of mind to the fellow who thought up the word ‘feast’ for this day. The ‘feast’ conisted of 1 cup rice & 6 tomatoes with 12 glasses of water. Seeing that I usually eat 1 cup rice in a single sitting, I had difficulty coming to grips with the fact that 1 cup was for the entire day. Ofcourse, I chose a very large cup. The highlight of the day was watching Kungfu Panda (Hilarious!) and strolling over to Spencers Plaza on a warm afternoon. I had rice with boiled and salted tomatoes for breakfast & I wasn’t willing to eat that for lunch. So I worked up a tasty tomato dish with minimum oil, several tomatoes, curry leaves, coriander & sambar powder. It tasted like sambar & was the first palatable meal in 4 days. Dinner consisted of delicious coriander soup with lots of vegetables thrown in.

Day 6

Today was 1 cup rice and all the vegetables you can eat day. I had mentioned my allergy to vegetables since Day 2. So i prepared sambar again, with lots of beans, carrots & stuff and mixed rice with it to make sambar sadham. This proved to be palatable enough and I had it for breakfast, lunch & dinner.

Day 7

The final day. Today was 1 cup rice, all the vegetables you can eat & fruit juice day. I had the same old sambar sadham and was filled with it ad nauseum. I had delicious watermelon juice (remember the remaining half). GM Diet recommended white wine or Champagne, but I stuck to the watermelon juice.

Day 8

Today you will be 6-8kgs lighter, or so the GM Diet claimed. Tosh! I didn’t lose a single kilo for all my trouble. To think I could’ve had all the good food, and I lived the life of an asetic.

Well, that ends my GM diet, I’ll consider it again if I ever go obese. Till then, It can go to Timbuktu for all I care.

Cheers!