Sometimes, more than the food the ambiance and the environment matters more and provides an experience worth remembering. Of course if it is combined with good food then the experience reaches a whole new level. 
We have been to places like Soho ST, The Black Pearl and Jhaal Farezi which have a splendid ambiance indeed. But this time we were looking for a different kind of environment, related to music.

 

Nowadays we visit restaurants, cafes and hotels in which the food is always prepared by professional chefs. The food served is obviously good, as they are prepared by professionals but it is highly doubtful that it will give the same feeling as that of a home cooked meal.

The difference is that the professional chefs do not prepare food with as much care as it is prepared at home. This is the reason why everyone loves the food prepared by their loved ones at home.

If someone asks me to chose between chain cafes’ and  quaint , local cafes , I would always and I mean always pick the local cafes because I personally, am not a very big fan of the same taste of coffee plus I like to see what each of these places have to offer!

One such special cafes of Kolkata are the Mrs. Magpie café! And they specialize in beautiful cupcakes.

They have “bite size” cupcakes and normal sized cupcakes, but the bite size cupcakes are too cute to resist and they have so many flavors that everyone would have something of their choice.

Who does not like chocolate?

God help them, but we definitely love chocolate (in all its varieties!)

It is not every day that we get an opportunity to dine out with a bunch of great food loving people. But we sure got a chance and it was because of the Food Bloggers Association of Bangalore (FBAB). We were invited to the 8^th FBAB bloggers meet at Absolute Barbeque. This branch of AB’s is at BTM layout, Bangalore and it opened very recently. 

There is a different kind of charm being in a cafe in your home town with old friends and loved ones, especially when the cafe serves grilled meaty delights.

These experiences can be relived again and again. The cafe under consideration is a cosy place with a musical ambiance and an outdoor seating arrangement. The name of the joint is Rubi’s Grill, located in Dover Lane in Gariahat, Kolkata.

It is very easy to go with the herd and do what everyone does, but how often do people break their bounds and do something different—rarely!

The above statement applies to everything, including food habits. So here it goes, this time we tried Tibetan food for a change because a change is always refreshing (and very necessary once in a while!)

Before the advent of cutting edge technology, people did not require a social network to call themselves social. We used to live as a family, not of three or four but of thirty or forty. Larger numbers did induce quarrels and bickering but the entire family behaved as a single unit guided by the elders.

As mentioned in the holy bible: “Love thy neighbour as thyself”, earlier people interacted with neighbours much more even if they did not live next door. In today’s scenario, especially the housing complexes even if people live as next door neighbours they rarely interact and even look and smile at each other.

Human beings are social animals and we are all meant to act as a unit because whatever we achieve alone, together we can always achieve more! But nowadays, with daily advancement in technology—headphones, laptops, smart phones and applications attract most of us and we forget about the basics of living in a society.

People have forgotten that indulging and enjoying music is not just plugging in a headphone throughout the day, interacting with people is not just texting them via whatsapp and updating status and posting photos on facebook is not at all being social.

Although these are the current trends from which big companies are becoming even bigger, robbing people of their social quotient (SQ), Kissan India has come up with an ingenious plan to bring us together as a unit, showing us that compassion and real togetherness is much more important than just being technologically savvy!

This initiative called Kissanpur, is driven so that we as individuals meet and connect in person rather than via digital media and of course express and feel real emotions. This is a motherly initiative as Mother Nature is one of its main players. As a part of the initiative, we have to order tomato seeds online and plant them. The whole objective is to free us from our current digital barriers and come together—family, friends and neighbours to discover how the tiny tomato seeds grow into juicy red tomatoes.

There is a video capturing the theme explained above, as to how we as human beings have materialistic desires and we let them take control of our lives, neglecting our surroundings and of course Mother Nature. But there is one thing this video proves: That there is goodness in all of us, all that needs to be done is to draw it out! 

So, it is time to put those music players, headsets and laptops aside and test your gardening skills, not only to grow tomatoes but also to rekindle the connection with Mother Nature and of course rejoicing with the people you love, face to face.

Normally, we head out into the sun and attack random establishments but this time it was a different scenario.  We were back home after quite some time and we wanted to try out a very well known restaurant which we didn’t try before. 

This review is one of the “Durga Puja Specials” and the name of the restaurant is Jhaal Farezi located in Circus Avenue, Beckbagan in the Park Circus area. We were really looking forward to this experience due to the well known punch the food here packs.

The restaurant looks like a big old house, which is gorgeously renovated and it has several sections for different dining experiences. The place of entry has a courtyard with wooden dining tables with umbrellas for dining out and a bar which is made out of stone! The place of entry is similar to that of a royal mansion and we were escorted to the first floor to start proceedings ;)

The decor was quite fun, elegant and vintage! There were 3 rooms on the first floor and in each room there were portraits: each of different story line ups and they were rather interesting. The seating arrangements were very comfortable but the table space was a bit cramped. Old candles in the corners, high ceilings and beautiful chandeliers added the extra spice!

Now coming down to the lip smacking 4 course meal:

We were invited for an event quite some time ago but it was recently that we came to know about the venue and of course the brand associated with the event. We were quite thrilled as we got to know about the venue and it was quite an experience indeed.

The venue was ITC Gardenia, Bangalore situated in Residency road and of course the brand associated was none other than ITC itself. The name of the event was “You ask we answer” by ITC Foods. 

Cheese and spinach Stuffed chicken from Dice N Dine

Hoolla foodie land tourists! How are you doing??

First weekend of august was quite eventful for us, because after tasting the new menu of Air Asia, we went to a food festival we were invited to the next day! There was an entry fee of 150 for everyone who wanted to join in!

Papri chaat,Chaat Box Review | Whitefield

Different people have different opinions and similarly every person has likes and dislikes regarding food. Some love desserts, some love kebabs, breakfast items, etc and there are some who are chaat lovers. So before reading on ask yourself this question: Do YOU like chaat items like samosa chaat, papri chaat, panipuri etc? If the answer is yes, then definitely read on. (Even if it is no, do read on because you might like it once you try!)

The past weekend, we were near Marathalli, Bangalore and something struck us. We came across a new but unique establishment called “chaat box” a while ago, but their service area is near Whitefield and ITPL. Since we were near that area we decided to try what they had to offer. Although they are new to this realm, they have great customer focus because in spite of being outside their service area, they still gave us assurance that they would deliver.

They delivered at the time we requested and they delivered the items reasonably hot. At the current point of time they are only doing home delivery which is fast and free!

Conventionally, it was known to most of us that there are coffee parlours, ice cream parlours and of course kebab joints and what not! But it is quite recent that tea joints/parlours came into the picture (except for the roadside ones of course :P).

 Tea is one of the oldest and the most traditional household beverage which was forgotten until the advent of establishments solely dedicated to varieties of tea.

We found a place which is dedicated to serving tea quite a while back, but it was recently that we finally crashed in to try some great variety of tea. The name of the establishment is Meeteaing, and it is located in Neeladri nagar, Electronic city Phase 1.

Rocky and Mayur have ventured out to explore food from all parts of India and curate videos on Askme.com.  I'm contributing my part by relishing my favorite dishes at Moriz restaurant and sharing my views with you all!

You can also upload your video review on AskMe   and stand a chance to meet Rocky and Mayur.

Normally, while going out to dine we have some sort of an idea in our mind especially the type of cuisine we are in the mood for. Yesterday was Friday night, so we decided to go out and eat somewhere just to celebrate the upcoming weekend. We were searching for a restaurant, where we did not eat before.

For young, working professionals every quarter end is an exciting time as there are project parties/team outings and a lot of fun without spending much from your own pocket.

Similarly, I had a gala time this week. A great team outing with a great team at a great place! What more could one ask for! The restaurant is part of a hotel, the De Oriell Boutique hotel situated in 100ft road, Koramangala in Bangalore nearby the famous Sony World signal crossing. 

The entire day the entire team was very excited as we had an excuse for not working much and we preserved our hunger as we were going for a dinner buffet. This was one of the few times Priyanjana did not accompany me to some place I was going to eat.

Hey Everyone!

My weekends are normally quite exciting and fun, but I felt like sitting this one out for a change. Time was flowing rather slowly when I came across an article about something which all of us know, but very few of us actually make it a habit to follow!

The article seemed favourable to the eye and I actually read it entirely because it was not only well written, but also the content was worth following! The article is about “5 Monsoon Accessories You Absolutely Cannot Do Without” under the section of Family Life. Sometime later I came across an opportunity on BlogAdda to write a blog post on the article which I had gone through a while back. So, I am participating in the ‘Ready For Rewards’ activity for Rewardme in association with BlogAdda.

The best thing about the mentioned article is that it sugar coats the necessary details, thereby implying that we should enjoy the monsoons, but we should do so responsibly! 

(I apologize for sounding like an alcohol brand promotion, I hope you get the idea :D). 

Chinese and Thai cuisines that are available in India are somewhat different and Indian-ised versions of the original dishes. And that somehow seems to works very well for us, because from what I have noticed I can say that Chinese “Fast Food” is the second most popular fast food or meal, obviously after our respective regional favourites ! (It might be different in your case :P)

Last week, we went to the nearest Beijing Bites from where we stay, in Electronic city. This outlet is a fully fledged restaurant, not the usual tiny outlet in a food court of a mall.

But I have to say this beforehand that I did not like the ambiance much, it was okay.

Décor was basic and something I would not be very happy to see , but I can say it was okay.

We went for dinner, around 9 at night and the place was full so we had to wait for around 10 minutes and then we got a place. We had ordered while waiting so we were expecting a quick service. But, the people ordering after us were getting their food before us. Maybe it was our choice of unconventional dishes, but the service time was around 40 minutes.

We ordered Dragon rolls with Garlic sauce for starters. This was served quickly. On the menu you will see that this is spicy, but I did not find it to be spicy at all. The taste was good of the rolls.

The rolls were basically fried dumplings filled with minced chicken. The garlic sauce was very lightly flavoured , almost bland.

Next, came in our main course order –

Khao phad Kapde  , Mixed Nonveg Koithio, Honey hunan Chicken and Fish in oyster sauce. The quantity was sufficient for three people and two of us are large eaters anyway.

I really liked khao phad kapde, this is a Thai rice and is full of flavours. You will like this if you like strongly flavoured rice. Love the fact that this was really moist and full of seafood.

I didn’t know what Koithio was before I ordered and I was very happy to get what I didn’t expect.

I love flat noodles and Koithio is Flat noodles. This tastes okay and has an odd combination of sauces.

Lightly flavoured with lots of vegetable, this is something I would like to eat when I am looking for something light to eat. My only disappointment with this was that this was served to us cold.

I DO NOT like cold food.

Honey Hunan Chicken, sweet and savoury. Loved it! The chicken tasted really good as they were fried strips which soaked the gravy nicely. This is all sauce, no distinct flavour. But it is something you would like if you like light Chinese flavours. As, far as honey is considered , I didn’t get any distinct flavour of honey.

Fish in Oyster Sauce – Light and savoury, not spicy at all. I loved the soft cubes of fish. I have to say they were cooked to perfection.

So, to sum up I can say that apart from the service and ambiance, I like the food and pricing very much. Because, all these summed up to less that 1000 INR , which is pretty reasonable given the quantity. But, that is it.

I would go back there because they had some more interesting things on the menu which I would like to taste and will definitely update you about it.

Till then let’s see how I liked Beijing Bites-

Food- 3.25/5

Ambiance – 2.5/5 (They played only Himesh Reshamiya’s Songs!)

Service – 2.5/5

Cleanliness – 4/5

Value for money – 3.75/5

 **Please excuse the picture quality.