Curry Leaf ice cream to the top left, ragi molten cake to the top right,  coconut ice cream in the lower row. Did the headline baffle you? It was meant to.  Let me give some context to it in case you are living under a rock. Or belong to the majority who do not follow happenings in the Indian fine dining space. Hosa is a restaurant in Goa which is operated by EHV International. The much-feted Indian Accent is the flagship brand of this hospitality group. Chef Manish Mehrotra is the genius behind this.  People referred to Hosa as the 'South Indian Indian Accent' when ..read more

With chef Amit Chowdhury at Masala Kraft  There are a couple of things which are common between Chef Amit Chowdhury, the executive chef of the Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai, and me. We are both Bengalis who are married to Parsis. One more thing, we both love food. But that would apply to everyone I know! It is no surprise that we bonded over the Parsi thali at their Masala Kraft restaurant yesterday. Technically there’s no such thing as a Parsi ‘thali.’ A Parsi festive meal is served course by course unlike in a thali where everything is served at one go. A thali works well as a hote ..read more

‘How are you?’ I asked her. ‘I am fine. I have no complaints. I have no problems,’ she replied. Ever the one to downplay herself and not inconvenience anyone. ‘Having no problems is never a problem,’ I replied with a smile. She smiled back once I could make her hear what I said. My 95 year old granny asked me about our 94 year old aunt the other day. She knew of her as the sister of our uncle who has passed away. Technically not an ‘uncle,’ but like one for K…and subsequently me.  I’d gone to Colaba for lunch yesterday. I fixed it partly so that I could drop in to see her after lunch ..read more

 "What is the point of shooting this?" I turned and looked at the young lady who looked sternly at me and said this. I had noticed her staring at me earlier. Perhaps she recognised me? It turned out to be misplaced hubris. "It's all there on YouTube," she added with a note of exasperation at my naivete.  This happened at Bohri Mohalla last Thursday.  Srishti Kedia was recording the making of malpuas at Shabbir's Tawakkal. This was for my Instagram reels series on Ramzan in Bohri Mohalla. Srishti is a videographer whom I often work with. I stood beside her in the crowd and shot s ..read more

Mummy, mama and masi This first appeared on my Instagram page. It was Navroz. K was travelling on work. Mummy, masi and mama made sure that I was not alone and called me over for a sumptuous Navroze lunch. The choice of menu and caterer involved several days of research and debate amongst them. Finally, it was Gaurav from Gilbert hall for non-veg. Special mention should be made of the juicy and fresh fish and meat and lovely, balanced flavours of the food from there. Gaurav The veg was from Jimmy Boy (plus saas ni macchi). The food was nice but pulao is their weak point as I ..read more

It’s #pakhaladiwas today. A day dedicated to celebrate the Odia summer favourite dish, #pakhala. The dish is a great example of fermentation that features in cuisines across India. My friends, Rohit Srivastava and Akash Mohanty, took me to the Odisha Hotel in Bhubaneswar after I had landed and checked into my hotel. They gave me a ‘pakhala for dummies’ introduction to the dish. Key takeouts: 1. Use your fingers to eat. 2. Add salt and lime juice to the mix. 3. Take a bite of the rice and then of the accompaniments. 4. At its most basic, sides are not a must with PB. The number of sides adde ..read more

A classmate of mine from college shared a story on Facebook yesterday. It was about the celebration of the 175th year of our college, Presidency College (now University), Kolkata, in 1992. He recalled the visit made by the then President, late Shankar Dayal Sharma,  to inaugurate the week-long festivities. Several famous folks visited the college on the occasion.  One was a certain Pranab Mukherjee, an alumnus of our college. He later became the President of India. So we got to see two presidents for the price of one that week! I was awake late into the night last night, remembering ..read more

Proud Mummy and Daddy Loaf Baby Loaf turned 5 last Friday. Or so we like to think.  Baby Loaf is our eldest and first cat. We arrived at the date of 8th March as his birthday using several assumptions. We do not know his actual birthday, birth month or year. The vets had guessed that he was anything between a year to 10 months old when we took him to be checked. We had found Loaf in our building. He was no longer a kitten by then.  The day we chose happens to be Women's Day too. Coincidentally the other person in the family whose birthday we do not know is Didu, my grandmoth ..read more

Patti samosa, jalebi fafda. Durga Sweets & Farsa Why Vadodara?  "I am sure people will say 'Who goes to Baroda for a holiday'," I jokingly told K. We were on our way to the airport to catch our flight to Vadodara, the city formerly known as Baroda. K wanted to take her mom, mama and masi on a holiday. We could not decide on a destination. I suggested Ahmedabad. K's folks were born in Surat. I thought that they might like to visit another city in Gujarat. I wanted to explore the food scene in the capital city of Gujarat. This influenced my suggestion. Statue of Unity ..read more

Started the week by having the Maharashtrian dish of missal the ‘Pune way.’ That is, with sliced bread and not pav. The customary farsan on top would have added crunch and fun, but I adulted and stayed away from that.  I used the bowl and plate from didu’s set which she’d given to me. She moved to Allahabad and then Delhi from a village outside Dhaka after she got married at a young age. Despite being thrown into a completely new world, she kept an open mind and connected with those from parts of the country that she had probably not even heard of before. In the process, she learnt to ..read more