Sunday Breakfast – आलू टिक्की (Aaloo Tikki)
Had been waiting for this Sunday to prepare Aaloo Tikki. Had planned to get up early but then realized that I had gone to bed only by around 4-4:30am… so, there was absolutely no chance that I would get up by 7!
Finally, got up by around 9-9:30. Got some Curd and Coriander leaves (धनिया). Boiled some potatoes. Tamarind Chuttney (इमली चटनी) was already there.
All my Indian friends would definitely know how to prepare it. And I’m not planning to write the complete recipe or the process.
Here are some of the photos of the dish, ready to eat. The plain tikkis (without chips-toppings) are mine while the one with the chips-toppings are the ones garnished by Renu.
Quick Dinner at Dominos & Ice-creams at Flavours
It was saturday evening. I had already missed my Pizzas yesterday yielding to pathetic experience at La Casa.
Friday evening, I was eager to go to Dominos, Hosur Road but today, the situation was different. Renu, my wife, wanted to have ice cream at flavours also. So we planned to go out to Pizza Hut in Koramangala only to see the long queue, waiting time being in excess of 30 minutes.
I said, “God gives you whatever you want… just that time and how is not known. I wished Dominos Pizza yesterday, and I am going to get it today”. 🙂
And the best part about switching from Pizza Hut to Dominos is that the latter is just cross the street.
I wanted Pizza… and I got it. Renu was looking at something light and save space for ice cream. The pasta would be a perfect choice. And I realized that most of the Pizza outlets are now also serving Pastas and Indian curries… be it Pizza Hut, Pizza Corner, Dominos et al.
Finally, we got our combo – Pizza, Pasta, Garlic Bread with Jalapeno dip. And here are a few photos.
Places not to eat – La Casa
As the weekend appraoches, plans start to trickle down, the list of places to eat start poppin up, the menu card of items to eat starts to be created.
And this time, we zeroed on La Casa in Jayanagar. The place, though at a prime location, surprisingly always missed my eye noting that I travelled that road several times a year. The place was recommended by one of our neighbours.
We were five of us who planned to go to La Casa yesterday for the dinner. I was a little taken back by their quality of service, quality of food and relatively higher prices for nothing.
Starting off, we ordered for two-by-four chicken soup and one vegetable soup. To our surprise, we got two-by-three chicken soup and one-by-two vegetable soup. We thought there may have been some confusion and called up the waiter to fix up the issue. Imagine a surprising response – “Let me mix the three bowls of soups and split them into four”. Those who know how two-by-four works, would know that this is the first thing that puts a customer off here. From the way responses were given, we, all five not just me, had only one conclusion to make — “A big attitude problem”.
We also had “Gobhi Manchurian” and Chicken lollipops for the starter. The taste was relatively OK.
For the main course, we had sizzlers. Ah! That’s a taste I would prefer to forget but cannot forget.
At least, personally, I was in a shock that I did not even bother about taking photos during the food. But the two photos of the 2-year old child can be some indicator of the mood before the dinner and after it. 🙂
And then some more photos… after the mood a little spoilt!
Places to Eat – Home
Home is, probably, unarguably the best place to cook, experiment with dish and eat, provided the experiment results are positive 😉
After a happy and heavy Friday dinner at Veekes and Thomas and a never-happened-dosa in the morning, and the “Saawan” (pronounce: Saa-one) starting, all of us – including my neighbours – were in a rush to finish off the eggs because once the Saawan starts, non-vegeterian dishes are not permitted.
Punit, Neerja, Sateesh… everybody came together to prepare – simplest of all – egg curry. It was almost 8:30 in the evening when we started cooking. And also planned to watch “Tere Bin Laden”.
Here’s how we prepared egg curry at home!
Batter Bomb
Yes. That’s what we had in our refrigerator and we did not know about it till it blasted. 🙂
It was Friday evening and we thought about having Dosa/Puddu the next day. We bought “ID Special – Ready to use Idly/Dosa Batter”. As ever, we kept the batter in the fridge to preserve until next day.
On Saturday morning, when we opened the fridge, little did we know that we had a surprise in waiting. The batter packet had swollen. Perplexed, we thought of taking help from our neighbour – Satish – to check if everything was fine with the packet and it’s not unnatural for the packet to get swollen.
Knocking on this open door to seek advice, we noticed that he’s busy with some personal work. We thought, “Let’s leave the packet here itself so that as and when he gets free, he will have a look at it”. But something prompted us to not leave it at his home but bring back. So we did. And we got busy in the regular weekend-house-cleanup activities.
And then suddenly, the big bang happened. The packet blew up. The batter was all over the place… from kitchen to living room to master bedroom… wherever it could find its way, wherever the speed and trajectory could take it – on the sofas, on the bed, on the walls, on the floor, on refrigerator, on cupboards… the list just goes on and on and on.
Luckily, something worked in our favour – the packet did not lie on the kitchen board directly. My wife had kept the packet in a vessel. What more – she kept the packet vertically. That saved a lot of our hardwork. Most of the batter spilled within the vessel and only minimal shots flew over the places.
Because the batter was white and so are the walls, it looked like white cement :O. Even for sofas and the floor… there were numerous spots… and the entire flat looked like a battlefield won by the batter.
Here are some photos (of the packet). Forgot to take photos of the battefield after the war.
Food and Travel 