Random Encounters of the Food Kind

Sometimes its worth viewing places, not for the general tourist interest, but for the food/cuisine they provide. Add to that the company and associated memories......calls for a blog.
Be it street-eats or Cordon Bleu, both have brought fun and adventure to me. Most often it is the associated company....school days. univ days, fun days. Nevertheless the search for food (street food more often than gourmet food) has been my pastime.....not my favourite past time, but a long lasting one.
CALCUTTA
My city. Abounds in street food. Best phuchkas in the world. Bombay (paani puris) and Delhi
(gol gappas) dont stand a chance. Phuchkas are best at the Southern Avenue Lakes......Bilash is no longer, but the VPark guys do a good job. Always remember Sajani on these trips.
Kathi Rolls. A Calcutta speciality. Nizam's is the best. However, Nizam does a on and off business because of labour trouble. Their beef rolls used to be the best. (Buria, remember the violent pet kharap?) Dont know now, because have'nt been there for a while. Golden Spoon and Kusum on Park Street are both very good. Crisp parathas, not too oily.
Early morning Chinese Breakfast near Poddar Court/Chattawalla Gali. Heavenly dimsums, piping hot clear soup. Almost ethereal in that early morning mist. All over by 7am.
Chinese food is my all time favourite. NOT the road side chow-chorchori. Tangra is good. The Park even better. My place is Josephine's Eu Chew. Damn Good !!!!! Authentic Chinese.
While on the topic, Liang's Shoe Shop (Annie) on Chowrasta, Darjeeling, used to do good Chinese food on order.......does anybody know what became of it?????
Dacres Lane and Bentinck Street does everything from dal-chawal to Nawabi food and chaat to jalebis. Not my favourite, except the haleem at Asif Mia's near Statesman House. That too, early morning.
Add to this Kwality's (for Indian cuisine) Mocambo and One Step Up and The Hub(for Continental), Peter Cat for a 100buck worth Chelo Kabab (specially with Anirban Roy!!!!). Comics, off Southern Avenue is also my haunt. I have been there with Adarsh a few times, and have always enjoyed the food. Shantam and I had a bi-annual tryst at Jimmy's Kitchen. Not great food(Chinese) but it was priority on the MUST DO list at the end sem breaks. Lemon Chicken always a must. On a similar note Sajani and I would have a meal at a small Jimmy's something on Lindsay Street. With Sajani it has always been WonTon soup. Great food. Great fun.
Paramount sherbet off College Street....Dab Sherbet......brain thanda, lungs thanda.......I would come down with a cough after a Paramount expedetion. Notwithstanding the cough, a must for me. Always. College Street trips with Sajani and Shantam in the Summer Holidays are deeply etched memories. And Paramount always featured.
Ice cream at Kwality's. (with Sanjoy, with two year old Sajani, with Anu......and others) Breakfast with the SXC boys at Flury's at 8am. One would have to keep an eye open for Fr. Joris or Sr. Stella. One of them would always be on the prowl. I think they took turns. Oh, yes,.....the SXC boys were tardy in picking up the tabs !!! Skyroom dinners. Prawn Cocktail and Chicken Tetrazzini. Followed by Burning Alaska !!!! Mostly with Mum and Dad. In our times, the guys who could treat us to a Skyroom dinner (loaded guys) were not the type with whom I would enjoy a Skyroom dinner, and unfortunately the 'our type' guys were perpetually broke. The last night at Firpo's before it closed. Daddy took me there. Introduced me to Asif, the bartender......who gave me a beer (on the house). I was barely 14. I took Shantam to Great Eastern on its last day.....but that's another story. Calcutta with so much to offer could be neverending. Time to move.
DELHI
I have always had fond memories of Delhi. Specially where food is concerened. Top of the list is Karim's. No match anywhere in the world. The food, the ambience et al. Then the Paranthewali Gali. I do not think such an idea exists anywhere else in the world. Later into the night, the better. 11pm to 1 am is a good time. Kanhaiyalal Paranthewale with his signature dish of papad paranthas. Yummy. Khurchan paranthas and gobi paranthas are high on my list. I wonder if the carrot pickle still exists??? I haunted this place with Prakash and Indy. After Prakash passed away, Biju(his wife) and I went 'a visiting' the Gali in 2002. Good fun. Still the same food. Same ambience. Also in North Campus......Mama's Momos. WOW !!! (Somehow the momos in Calcutta are rather wishy-washy). Well past midnight, my friend and I arguing over Aristocrats vs Plebians on the steps of the Library. Raghu kaka providing the tea and buttery alu-parathas. Nothing has ever matched those alu parathas ! Next in Delhi.... Adil's at CP for cold coffee. Neelum and I have visited and revisited AND revisited the place for the last forty years. Wimpy's (also at CP) makes good hash browns. Nirula's at V Vihar for pizzas. I used to travel half way across Delhi to IIT for anda-paratha at Yusuf Sarai. I have never had such parathas ever. And next THE CELLAR....dark, crowded, God knows what you are drinking......never mind what you actually ordered. But, I'd go back there again and again, and yet again. Pity it closed down. It brought up a whole generation. Mostly on rum and Coke. Cant leave out bantas. I wish some one would bring me a few.
Todays' Delhi with shopping malls and food courts and CCDs and what not is too plastic. Well, the money too is plastic, the clientele cosmetic, and associations (read relationships) transient.
BANGALORE
Ahhh!! My Lalbagh days. My beautiful lazy Lalbagh days. Of stolen flowers, stolen ciggies and stolen much more. Add to that Amma's juice (we could usually afford only lime.....grape juice was an extravagance). The best nimbu-paani for me has always been Amma's nimbu-paani. For the long hours we spent at Lalbagh, three glasses of nimbu-paani per head was a must.
Koshy's did a good breakfast. Along with the local journos and the young lawyers, 30 bucks went pretty far in those days. Re-visted Koshy's recently.......good, but not great.
Thindi Beedi, off Khoa-Pio Gali near Vishweshwara Puram is fascinating. Specially in the late evening. Even today a smallish dosa can be had for Rs 15. An entirely local fare found here is gunta ponganalu....small crisply fried idli batter. Very good. The same ponganalu is made by Malti Amma outside ISEC, but not as good as the gali stuff. Hyderabad House opposite the Forum back gate makes good biriyani. I enjoy their fare. Specially with Kartik. Their helplings are huge. I am a small eater. Kartik is a good eater. It makes sense to go with Kartik. @ Kartik, on my next trip to B'lore, biryani for sure !!!
Being a foodie, I enjoy Olive Beach and Palm Fronds. However, lately I have been taking my law school partners there for dinner, and the company being not-too-great (to say the least), much of the charm has been lost. Next time, I think, I'll take them to Nandini's or the Andhra chain shops......I dont much care for the food there anyway. The deadly bores cannot make it worse!!!
The Olive Beach (off Richmond Road) is a really swanky place. Great food, great ambience. My fault I took the law school trio there.
Other places in Bangalore I like enjoy are Casa Picolo (with Adarsh), Casa del Sol, 3QC on Church Street and Rice Bowl(Adarsh again). Also a must is Sunny's (on Vittal Mallya Road) Excellent Italian-Continental food. And their wine is truly divine. Rather exclusive place. Not crowded. I tumbled upon it on a rainy afternoon, and fell in love with the place.
For the very best experience it is always and always Pecos. I love the live music. Loved it then, just as much.Though the student clientele can be a bit rowdy. Love Mojo's too. And the home made (no brand) icecream outside ISEC. Another standout is the Juice Centre and their lemon ginger soda.
MUMBAI
Not really my city. Raju took me around. A pastry shop at Bandra. The most wonderful reshmi tikka at Khau Gali (Mhd Ali Road). I remember we had to wait a while, and it was quite late, but it was well worth the wait. Raju also treated me to a Bhel and Raspberry syrup gola. Cant remember where, but not Chowpatty. While in Mumbai cant miss the Iranian food at Stadium Restaurant(near Churchgate) and top it off with ice cream K. Rustom's. A standard pattern I follow with S and the gang.
OTHER PLACES
London.......Ice cream.....Haagen Dazs. Fish and chips at C Gardens. The soup shop outside LSE (Strand Campus). There is a small tea shop off Tottenham Court Road. Heavenly Earl Grey tea with a wafer thin water cress sandwich. Another sandwich place, an all time favourite of mine is the shop near the post office at Billingsgate. Juicy bully beef sandwiches at 70p. Cant get it better. Odd, but the best machher jhol-bhaat I have ever had (in a shop) has been in London. At a small Bangladeshi joint called Deshi near India House. London has Wagamama's and of course The Gun, Clos Maggiore, Terra and the Balti joints. All good. Some very classy, too. London, like Calcutta can be a neverending story.
Then there is that inn/pub at Exeter, which makes the best Cream Buns in the world.I think it's called The Three Crowns.
Interlaken too has good cream buns. So has Vevey. Austria and Switzerland has confectionary that makes my mouth water. My favourite......Anna's in Zurich. Homemade stuff.

Paris. With Timmy. And good food....and empty pockets......equally empty stomachs!!!!! But really speaking, one can get good food at a very reasonable price anywhere in Paris. A late night dinner at a roadside bistro, followed by a walk in the rain, Gauloises on a bridge over the Seine, can transcend you to another world. Try it. Paris in summer (in the drizzle), in winter (in the chill), and some coffee.
Coffee, any type of bread, a soup at this little place called Frills on the Mon-Marte can be a little expensive, but this is my favourite joint in Paris. Dont ever try the Metro food stalls.
I also love Glennary's at Darjeeling for their cream rolls. Hotdogs and chocolate milk shake at Keventer's (also at Darjeeling). I love the Lopchu pedas of Darjeeling, and the Churpis.
I like Tenga Daal of Assam. Love it, in fact. Best if its home made. There is this rajma-chawal place on a roadside (near a jhora) on the Simla-Manali road. No other rajma-chawal ever tasted better. Though in all verity, I have to admit that the JNU rajma-chawal on Sundays is pretty decent. Cream buns and home made ice cream is yummy in a small shop on the Mall (near Balaji's) at Simla. Mint Street, in Chennai has The Novelty Tea House with mouthwatering pau-bhajis. Parkside's (Pune) too, has good vada-paus. The food in Chennai is altogether too fiery for me to experiment !!

I have omitted many flavours, many experiences. I could have written a whole chapter on Banaras and my foodie experience there. Calcutta has so much more to offer. So has Delhi. I have left Bangalore incomplete. Bangkok and Tokyo untouched.This blog has become far too long. Perhaps too boring to an outsider.


One thing though, in our family to Sajani, Shantam, Johan, Ananda, Adarsh, Anushree, Adi and to several others, my home made dal-bhaat-alu bhaaja has been the favourite coming-home comfort food. Through the last 7 years every sem end meant the house by the graveyard and the standard fare of dal-bhaat-alu bhaaja. No matter what time of the day or night.