Sizzling Sizzler Festival 2016 - at XII Zodiac, Fern Residencies

XII Zodiac at Fern Residency has brought amazing Sizzler Festival when it is drizzling outside. Maybe the Sizzling platter will be good enough to wake your senses up in this gloomy weather outside. This festival starts from 21 August and ends on 28 August 2016. The menu has got awesome vegetarian and non-vegetarian sizzler options along with couple of options for desserts as well. On top of this you can order some really refreshing mocktails here at XII Zodiac, the first sun sign based restaurant in the town (located just beside the Tamara Pipal Tree, close to the City Centre 2 mall in Rajarhat). As you must have read in my previous blog posts about XII Zodiac, this place has got an excellent calm ambiance with suave furniture and lovely spherical glass lamp shades. The color combination of blue, white, brown is really soothing with bamboo shoots placed on every table. The place has got wall art depicting the food preferences for every sun sign, which is really interesting and fascinating.

Coming to the special Sizzler Festival Menu – It has actually got loads of options to choose from which is actually good. Below is the exact restaurant Sizzler menu with prices:

Veg menu:

The green lite sizzler – INR 236
Cottage cheese shashlik with cheese black pepper – INR 226
Thread baby corn – INR 256
Sizzling star anise cottage cheese – INR 266
Bhatti ka khazana – INR 256
Kapi cho potatoes – INR 256

Non-veg menu:

Mountain jerk chicken – INR 326
Blackened chicken burnt garlic sauce – INR 326
Sizzling schezwan chicken stick – INR 326
Zodiac special sizzling chello kabab – INR 376
Jumping prawns black pepper – INR 496
Sizzling basa with cheddar cheese and sauce – INR 336

Desserts:

Sizzling brownie with ice cream – INR 196
Texas apple crumble pie – INR 196

The spread is really appetizing to say the least. The Non-Veg menu has surely got enough options and the Jumping prawns black pepper seemed to be just so irresistible! Out of these I tasted the Bhatti ka khazana which had some crispy naan in it which is so desi to its core. The kababs and potato in there were nice and the north Indian (or rather the Punjabi) flavors were quite impressive. Tried their Cottage cheese shashlik with cheese black pepper which had fried potatoes and some smoked rice in them, the cottage cheese was soft and tender, overall it was a nice sizzler for the vegetarians. Also tasted their Thread baby Corn, which was so unique since I never tasted this preparation with babycorns, had tried the chicken versions though. Next I tasted their Sizzling schezwan chicken stick; it was fried and well tossed crispy chicken with a tangy touch to it. The subtly flavored noodles that came along with it was complementing well with the tangy chicken. The Sizzling Basa with cheddar cheese and sauce came next and here the fish was quite fresh and tender. The veggies and the rice were perfectly accompanying and complimenting it at the same time. Then came the dessert which was also presented as a sizzler, and it was amazing to see a sizzler dessert! It had thick smoke coming out of it when it was brought to our table. The dessert was called Texas apple crumble pie. It was nice, though it was bit less crunchy, the ice cream was anyway an element which we are bound to love. It had a layer of sliced banana and apple, and was topped with a dollop of ice cream which was placed on a crunchy chocolate roll.

Service at this place has always been great and prompt, but some more training is required for the servers since they need to ask customers before clearing their plates, and they need to be bit more informed about the menu and the items! But yes, this Festival is sure to get you closer to some awesome food that is waiting for you, don’t let the gloomy weather outside overpower you, shove it aside and enjoy your meal at XII Zodiac with your loved ones over some sizzling sizzlers!

Cheers!

 

Food tasting at NH2 on Plate Food festival at Novotel

'The Square' at Novotel always surprises me with its amazing out of the box food ideas, dishes and delicacies, this time it is all set to tickle the (somewhat not-so-celebrated) “desi taste buds” of all its patrons. The ‘NH2 on Plate’ Food Festival at The Square has brought back all the Highway dhaba style delicacies available across a huge stretch of National Highway 2 (NH2) starting from Delhi to Faridabad to Kanpur to Aurangabad to Jharkhand to Kolkata! So, it promises to present a huge spectrum of cuisines of all these places and the ultimate tadka of roadside dhabas and the local sweet shops! I attend loads of Food Festivals to be honest, but I have rarely come across such an innovatively planned food-themed journey, which they call ‘NH2 on Plate’! I must admit I was more than happy to be invited to this festival and cover this ultimate gastronomical extravaganza which can’t really be missed!

Like we know, Novotel with its headquarters in France (and with more than 400 hotels and resorts worldwide) has started its operations in Kolkata couple of years back and has already made its mark in the city of joy! With its grandiose interiors and larger than life structure it surely presents a best-in-class ambiance where you can relax, converse, loosen up and stay… to create memories! The suave interiors and spaced out super-comfortable seating arrangements will surely mesmerize your senses and let you enjoy your food with your loved ones. 

So here we again come back to the food, the NH2 food festival which we were discussing about! The thing which impressed me was the innovative presentation of the handis and dhaba style containers placed at the Dinner Buffet counter, the large food containers were placed on the either side of the temporarily constructed huge model of a highway with toy car models on it. The pitch black smooth highway looks amazing and quite fitting for this occasion. It has also got typical yellow and white milestones made out of thermocol bearing names of various cities and towns which are there along this stretch of NH2. Though I would have loved if this concept was further improved a bit, thus placing the related dishes of a particular region beside the milestone of that place. But anyway the sight was splendid, and that raw appeal of those lips smacking dishes in the handis was irresistible enough to get started!

Coming straight to the food, there were fares from all regions like Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. The fare was huge and you can not probably savor all the items in good quantity. Here are the items which were present there in the buffet spread – Lassi, various Indian breads, Fried Egg with Potato Salad, Paneer aur kala Chana Bhurji, Gobhi Adraki, Bhindi Masala, Aloo Bhujia, lasooni Palaak, Dal Butter Fry, Subz Tehri, Kolkata Style Mutton Biriyani, Butter Chicken, Durbari Jhinga, Anda Dal Tadka, Fish Tikka Masala, Keema Gurda Kaleji, Chicken Bharta, papad along with a quirky well-lit section called ‘daru ki dukaan’ having loads of beer bottles and colorful breezers! 

And there were numerous awesome desserts like Black Forest gateaux, Citrus Chocolate Crema, Fresh Fruit Pastries, Bread Butter Pudding, 2 in 1 Sandesh, Rasogolla, ladoos, Plum Frangipane Flan, Cream Cheese Almond Crumble, Orange Mousse, ice creams and many more. In short this is a humongous irresistible dinner buffet spread which if you miss, will really be a crime :) 

There were more to these amazing spread which I couldn’t try in the end because I was too full to even move :) Anyway, out of these I must mention the must haves – don’t miss the veg dishes, they were awesome; like the Gobhi Adraki, Bhindi Masala and Aloo Bhujia. It will definitely remind you of a dhaba! The proportion of all the spices was just so perfect and the vegetables were cooked to perfection, they were not too boiled and had that mild crunch to it which is required so that it can be relished! Also I loved the Anda Dal Tadka, Keema Gurda Kaleji, Chicken Bharta, and Kolkata style Mutton Biriyani. The Biriyani had super soft mutton pieces which were melting in the mouth and was a joy to savor, the potato was bit too fried though, but overall the flavor was perfect. The chicken bharta was awesome, to be precise. And I had loads of it :) It had the perfect balance of taste and the generous mix of boiled egg whites to it. Anda tal tadka was also generously filled in with fried egg which was again a joy to devour with some Indian breads.   

Also there were those traditional litti-chokhas available and there was a well-decorated Maggi counter with shelves filled in with our childhood favorites like orange candies, Parle-G biscuits, Mango Bite candies, Milk Bikis biscuits, and packets of Maggi! And last but not the least, there was a treat for the eyes with the display of Harley Davidson bikes which was very apt here for this NH2 Festival, since these huge machines really do rule these highways and of course they look so majestic on these open unending roads :)

 

Overall, this is one hell of a food festival that the city hardly gets to see. The unique experience of tasting so many Indian cuisines and dishes at one go is soul satisfying and is truly a lovely experience in itself. I would sincerely urge my readers to drop in and try the fare, but please remember the festival is on till Monday 22-August. So yes, there is no time for a second thought, just get your friends and family to visit Novotel for this amazing NH2 on Plate food festival; dishes from all these places are eagerly waiting for your tummy, please don’t disappoint them! :)

The group photo with the entire team of organizers, bloggers and chefs - P.C. Rajdeep Bhattacharya

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Cheers! 

 

Savour some awesome varieties of Biriyanis, at India Restaurant

If you are a Bengali, you must have heard the term ‘gobor-e padmaful’, I won’t take the pain to elaborate the meaning which is pretty clear to every Bengali, but if you are not a Bengali then let’s put it pretty bluntly for you – this place called ‘India Restaurant’ somewhat stands in debris, in a pretty unruly environment filled in with chaos and in a not-so-clean locality of Fancy Market, Khidirpore. In the last few months it has undergone some civil ‘plastic surgery’ work which has made it look like the ‘Shilpa Shetty’ of Biriyani Houses in the town :) So, you can’t really ignore her!

Jokes apart, the interiors of India Restaurant are now simply stunning. It feels as if you are at some mansion in Dubai and you are at some party or dawat maybe, hosted by some super wealthy Sheikh! From the moment you enter this place you notice super clean marble flooring with embedded motifs and walls with lining of glowing signature tiles. The strategically lighted circular false ceiling designs have become quite a trademark of this place by now. If you climb up the stairs and reach second floor, you get to see more of the building and you’ll discover it being immensely well-maintained, clean, brightly lit with an ultimate glittery finish that leaves you overwhelmed. From Interior decoration point of view the place gets full marks for all that royal finish, no doubt about that. Seating arrangements are well spaced out and the chairs and couches are very comfortable as well.

But this multi-storied glittery pot of gastronomical gems is quite hard to commute, and it is really tricky to find a proper place to park your car at this place. So the only saving grace is the abundant availability of Uber or Ola, but then I am not sure if I will take that pain to take a cab and come down all the way, traveling the entire breadth of the city just to have a plate of biriyani! 

Well, I used to think like this unless I learnt about the range of biriyanis they serve and their characteristic flavors. And after I saw some latest pics of this place, I decided to pay them a visit sometime very soon. But still it got delayed, due to the odd location of this place and the poor parking facility. Finally, the day came when I had to make it to India Restaurant since some of the food bloggers from Panchphoron (including me) were invited to this place by their management. So as pre-decided, I took a cab and reached the place on a super-gloomy day for lunch. I was quite astonished to discover the volume of the crowd dining at this place on that weekday late afternoon in such an unpleasant weather outside. The footfall surely indicates the quality of food being served at this place, so I became more hopeful about the food and expectations kept on building!

Now without wasting any further precious words of mine, let’s delve deep into the food talk where the crux of the matter lies! So, here are the items which I had tried at this place -

MOCKTAIL

a) Virgin Mojito – I had heard the mocktails served at this place are amazing, but sadly the mocktails were not available that day. So apart from the North Indian or Mughlai fare they also put equal amount of importance on mocktails and infact on every dish which the serve. In fact the simple Virgin Mojito was too refreshing to be true! The sweet balance was perfect, just a bit lemony with a dash of mint, packed with crushed ice and heavily refreshing! And yes, the presentation was simple yet appetizing with slices of lemon and cherry on top. Surely you can try this out here.

STARTERS

a) Chicken Cheese Kababs – These are deep brown colored kebabs with a smooth outer texture and were quite fragrant to elevate your appetite. The chicken pieces in there were very soft and it clearly shows how well they were marinated. As the name goes, it was quite cheesy and had a mild spiciness to it; also it was cooked in tandoor to perfection thus locking all the juices inside.

b) Mutton Galawati kababs – Well, if you have already tasted Oudh’s Galawati kebabs then you might be tad disappointed here, but still I must say these are close competitors to Oudh’s Galawati. Here at India the texture of the meat paste (which is really creamy and having a dash of zafran in it) was perfect. It looked nice with those flattened meat ball structures. It tasted nice with those thin layered paranthas which were served along with it. But the stuff was tad overdone with the outer skin showing evidences of it, having few hardened or rather burnt spots.

c) Pineapple Tandoori – The stuff tasted awesome, to start with. The large slices of pineapple were very well cooked in tandoor after it was marinated with lemon juice and spices for hours. The final product had all the juices of the pineapple locked inside it, that was fresh and succulent as it should be and tasted awesome with that sweetness of pineapple, tanginess of the spices and that smokiness coming after it got tandoor-ed. Awesomeness redefined!

MAINS

a) Daryabaadi Biriyani – The main course had five variants of biriyani, and Daryabaadi Biriyani was the one we tasted first. This Daryabaadi biriyani has a very typical taste which you can’t judge or comment without tasting it, it is unlike all other variants. The aroma was so unique and pleasant. Daryabadi Biriyani is surely the signature dish of India Restaurant and it has got fragrant mildly spicy flaky rice, sweet potato and super soft juicy piece of meat! Together they taste awesome! Must try!

b) Kachhi Biriyani – Again a gem of a dish served with all its honesty and subtle flavors in one amazing plate. Here they put layer of raw marinated meat on a layer of raw basmati rice before they are cooked together. They also have the spices and the a yogurt based marinade layer at the bottom, and the sweet potatoes along with it, these layered structure is now left to cook in slow pace in its own steam. The kachhi biriyani overall has a yellowish color and a very subtle flavor, nothing too aromatic or flavorful, the subtle aroma which it has got is beautiful and majestic. The mutton pieces are extremely well cooked and literally melt in your mouth!    

c) Awadhi Biriyani – The Awadhi biriyani was served in the earthen handi in which it was cooked. It tasted just amazing to be honest. We were almost lost in that strong aroma of ghee and zafran. This method of slow cooking in the dum pukht style where you seal the handi with wheat dough always locks the awesome flavors and drives the biriyani enthusiasts and foodies crazy when the dough is removed and the lid is opened, the same thing happened with us as well! And somehow we ended overeating this gem of a dish for its rich yet subtle flavors and insanely good aroma! Must try!

d) Chicken and Mutton Biriyani – There were separate plates of Chicken Biriyani and Mutton biriyani which were so called cooked in ‘normal’ style and these are the ones that we have most of the times from all the biriyani shops or houses. These were nice as well, nice aroma, not too oily and the meat pieces were well cooked.

Overall, I will rate India Restaurant close to 8.5 out of 10 for its authentic, amazing flavorful biriyanis and the variants which are available under one roof; not to forget the awesome ambiance and friendly service. Only the location and the communication is bit of a headache which I guess can’t be cured so easily. So, to sum it up if you haven’t yet tried India and you are a Biriyani lover then you are surely doing something wrong, this is a place you should never ever miss if you are in Kolkata. If possible try their Daryabaadi, Awadhi and Kachhi Biriyanis which you won’t get at every Biriyani shop, they are really well prepared and are amazing. Hopefully you will enjoy your meal here, it has got loads of potential to satiate your taste buds, so make sure you reach the place before the wheat dough is removed and the lid gets opened :)

Cheers! 

 

Food tasting event at Brownie Bites!

Are you in love with chocolate? Are you one mad fan of brownies? Can’t you resist warm brownies with a dollop of ice cream? Also are you keen to have ‘eggless’ brownies? If answer to all these or some of these questions are yes, then you should surely make a point to try out the boss of brownies who is all set to rock the town. It’s not just any run of the mill brownie that you will get at the stores, it’s specially crafted eggless brownies which are prepared with best-in-class premium ingredients and personalized care. The place is called ‘Brownie Bites’ and they prefer to add another term ‘eggless’ with their name since it’s surely their USP to produce these lovely eggless brownies, which is quite a ground-breaking product as of today.

Before I move any further I hope everyone is aware of the term ‘brownie’ (as a dessert) and its characteristics. As we must be knowing, brownie is a square-shaped baked dessert which is somewhat an overlap of soft cookies and cakes. And if I am not mistaken, it dates back to the end of 19^th century when it was first produced. Today brownies are widely found in our dessert platter and our taste buds are quite used to taste various types of brownies. But the interesting fact is, till a week back I knew egg is one of the key components of brownies along with flour, butter, cocoa power, sugar, chocolate, etc. So when I heard of ‘eggless brownies’ I was actually a bit skeptical. But oh boy, my doubts were all washed away in a jiffy by those amazingly soft intensely favored cubes of joy, when I tried them! :) And I am really thankful to Vedika and Bownie Bites for giving me this chance to discover such an amazing product through this tasting session!

Before jumping into the items tasted, I would also like to mention that the packaging that Brownie Bites provide is absolutely impeccable. It’s not just a bland robust package like most of the bakeries have. Their packaging has a personal touch to it, which will surely touch your senses. The craftworks along with the white box of brownies are worth a mention. The branding needs to be improved though, which I can overlook since this place is pretty new. The name is written only on stickers which are pasted on the white box, a bit more professional branding will do the trick. Apart from the outer packaging the individual brownies were wrapped in plastic packets pretty tightly keeping it fresh for hours or couple of days.

Now without further delay, let’s check out the flavors which I had tried –

Dark Fudge – You will love these if you love a bite or two of dark chocolates! These are really rich, really chocolaty in true sense. And they might taste heavenly with some steaming cup of coffee or a dollop of coffee ice cream. It was surely not overtly sweet and had that perfect balance of flavors producing that perfectly baked gooey chocolate cube. Just one thing – I would have loved to get some sprinkle of powdered sugar on these brownies but anyway they were lovely!

Ferrero Rocher – As the name goes, this chocolate brownie had an actual Ferrero Rocher chocolate submerged in it half cut and placed upside down on top of the brownie. The sight itself was only very appetizing and I could not wait a moment to take a bite into it, as a result I missed clicking a picture of it without its plastic cover! Overall it was soft and chocolaty with a crunch to it. And it was a bit nutty for the Ferrero Rocher submerged into it. In short, it gifted me one moment of bliss!

Salted Caramel – Again as the name goes, here we use caramel along with other ingredients and we beat it in a mixer, and then we put a whisked mixture of cocoa, flour and salt on top of the chocolate mixture and beat it again. Anyway, without going any further into the method of baking, let me say that the proportion of the sea salt in there was perfect. Overall it looked very dark in color and tasted just great! I guess you should surely try this guy if you are placing an order with Brownie Bites.

Cream Cheese Fudge – Well, this was the odd man out in terms of appearance. It was creamy on top and had a chocolaty base. It tasted awesome when it was heated for a few seconds in microwave before consuming; in fact this is true for all the brownies. This type of brownie is pretty typical and is one of my favorite types of brownies. It has that unique combination of dense fudge like brownie and cream cheese filling on top. After you take one bite you can notice the tanginess of the cream cheese that complements the richness of the chocolate brownie. It’s an unique way to enjoy both brownie and cheesecake at the same time.

Walnut – As the name goes this chocolate fudge brownie was filled with bits and pieces of broken walnuts. The walnuts make all the difference here and it somewhat tasted a bit buttery to me which was anyway nice. This was the last brownie that I had in the box and I was quite depressed after it got over!

The brownies from ‘Brownie Bites’ are surely a joy to savor. It’s very much within the budget and the quantity dished out is quite on the higher side keeping in mind the price. As already said the quality is top notch and their home delivery service was also found to be good. Apart from these above flavors you can get other variants like Chocochip, Hazelnut, Oreo, Mint, and After 8. So they have got roughly ten flavors available which is not quite vast a spectrum to choose from, but the quality has eclipsed the lack of varieties available in their kitty. Hope they will bring in more flavors very soon and surely I’ll get to taste them since it will be hard to stay away from these amazing brownies for too long!

Overall I will rate these products quite high, nearly about 8.3 out of 10, since they seemed to me very honest besides being so flavorful. So, what are you waiting for? Try these amazing pieces of joy and feel the bliss. Hopefully you will get a chance to loosen up in between your tight work schedule just by tasting these cubes of glory! Happy eating!

Cheers!