Lovely Food Tasting session - at CookMyWish.com

Let me introduce you to Cook My Wish! This is not just another regular restaurant or a café, this is an inimitable culinary meet-up concept and frankly speaking I am in love with this concept! Few weeks back I was contacted by the owner of this place and I was introduced to this NEWLY OPENED food-ordering portal through a food tasting session. CookMyWish is actually an initiative with loads of positive social implications and it is basically a website named “cookmywish.com”. This is a women-only home-chef portal focused on Kolkata (as of now), dedicated to serving the needs of home-makers and enabling them to benefit form the power of internet. Using a Technology-plus-Services model, they are running an ‘Assisted Marketplace’ - where women, including those who are not very familiar with the web technologies, can get a store up and running with CookMyWish’s help. This is really an innovative concept and many homemakers can make good use of their free time and can earn in this process, which will in turn improve their emotional, social and financial health. CookMyWish was started couple of months back with 3 chefs but now they have 15+ chefs and bakers enrolled with them - serving a variety of cuisines – starting from North Indian, Bengali, Chinese, South Indian to Thai, Japanese and Continental. Their USP is HOME-COOKED; HOME DELIVERED which is really crucial these days with not-too-healthy street-food invading our meals every now and then! Also it is a boon for those who are staying away from home. You need to just log on to their portal and let them know your ‘wish’, they will ‘cook’ as per your wish and deliver the food right at your door-steps – that is Cook My Wish for you :)

USER INTERFACE OF THE PORTAL - - - - - I would like to start with my experience of their portal which is the basic platform here. The portal tells you that you get free home delivery and you can also opt for Cash on Delivery which is really encouraging. Let’s discuss about the UI or the User Interface. When you are at the home page of the website you can start your navigation either by going to the dropdown named ‘Browse Chef’s kitchen’ or by going to the dropdown ‘Menu’. It is best to browse by their Chefs, like I did. After a couple of orders you can be certain of the kind of food you wanna order from here. The UI is quite user friendly, though I believe there can be more options added here like ‘chef chat’ or ‘saving preferences’, etc. They also have a ‘Featured Dishes’ section which displays the popular dishes across all the kitchens with their pictures. Similarly they have a section called ‘featured chefs’ where you can go to the kitchen of your favorite chef directly by clicking on the picture of the chef, here it will be good if the pictures of all the chefs are in sync, i.e. with some similar background that gives an uniform feel. While you are placing the order, i.e. when you are in your Cart, they give you an option to mention your preferences/instruction for the chef like ‘cook with less oil’ or ‘make it less spicy’, etc. I really like this part and it is quite necessary as well. You can also pick your desired delivery date and time slot for convenience. Overall the website has all the ingredients to keeps the lights ON, but it can further be improved by more brain storming sessions and more user testings, also an Introduction (depicting the concept of CookMyWish) built with flash is required in the homepage which the user can choose to skip and proceed to the food ordering section.

FOOD DELIVERY and PACKAGING - - - - - The food delivery part is really impressive. Though my food reached a bit late than the promised time but the delivery person never called me up for directions, he was right at my door-steps with the food. The person was very courteous and soft-spoken. The packaging was good and quite usual, though there were no spillovers. The list of the item names was clearly written on a container in a piece of paper which was very helpful. CookMyWish offers complete logistics service covering the entire Kolkata city; the delivery boys pick up food from the chefs and deliver it to the customers.

FOOD TASTING - - - - - For this food tasting session I opted for Continental food from a particular Chef’s Kitchen. The below food items were delivered to me and I must say I have never tasted such amazing fusion-continental food in last couple of years. Here are the items:

a) Carrot Tomato Soup with toast – This soup gave the perfect start to the meal. It was as expected reddish orange in color and thick in overall density. It tasted and looked great garnished with some minced leaves; the taste was soothing and tad garlicky. The toast was perfect, brown, crispy and crunchy. Overall the soup with the toast was quite filling.

b) Shrimp stuffed pumpkin flower fritters – This dish was very innovative according to me and I was amazed by the overall taste it had to offer. The pumpkin flower had a moderately thin skin and was generously stuffed with shrimps and minced coriander leaves mixture. It was then deep fried but it was not too oily which was really nice. The overall aroma and flavor was overwhelming. An awesome starter. Must try!

c) Mutton Keema Sugarcane stick – I guess this dish again redefined innovation in the food domain. I have never tasted anything close to this before! The idea is really out of the box that sets you apart and creates a positive impression in an instance. This dish comprised of fresh mutton keema dough wrapped around a thin sliced sugarcane stick. The mutton keema was very flavorful and you can bite into the sugarcane stick to get the sweet juice with every bite of the keema jacket. The keema jacket had minced onion and coriander leaves in it and was very tasty and aromatic. The chemistry between mutton keema and sugarcane juice has been well explored! Kudos for that. The keema jacket was so fresh and soft that it was falling apart with every bite. An awesome dish. Must try! 

e) Bekti in Orange Sauce – Though this shouldn’t have been packed but still the final product which I received was very tasty, aromatic and fresh. The dish had lovely fried and semi-fried chopped onions all over it. The orange sauce was sweet and flavorful. The Bekti fish was well-prepared and fresh, but it was a tad too fried causing slight chewiness. Though I liked that texture as well, it can be made like melt-in-your-mouth texture but this variant was also well accepted. Also I was provided with sautéed veggies like broccoli and beans which were well prepared like they should be.

f) Drunken Bundi –  It was again a nice sweet dish, with bundi (which is a water droplet sized deep fried crispy snack prepared from gram flour and few spices) dipped in a milky liquid soaking it all up.

g) Daaber Payesh –  This was again one hell of an innovative sweet dish! I was thoroughly impressed with this one. It was filled with coconut crumbs in sweet thickened milk. It had the unadulterated aroma of tender coconut and tasted just like tender coconut, it’s one flavor I absolutely love in sweet dishes. Awesome sweet dish! Must try!   

SUMMARY - - - - - Here are my granular ratings:

Food quantity: 4/5

Food quality: 4.5/5

Food Innovation: 5/5

Business Concept: 4.8/5

Value for money: 4/5

Website rating: 3.7/5

Delivery: 4/5

My OVERALL RATING comes to 4.3 out of 5 which is just awesome according to my evaluation standards and history!  

CONCLUSION - - - - - Since all the chefs at CookMyWish are primarily housewives or rather homemakers with families they do need a day's advance order. Food is never pre-cooked here; only after the order is received through their website, the chef buys the ingredients and starts cooking, that assures you the best quality and freshness in the ingredients used.

They not only provide a platform for homemakers but also conduct regular checks of the kitchens and they know all their chefs personally which assures you that nothing can go wrong and there is end-to-end support available, if needed. CookMyWish also has regular tiffin service which is surely a good news for students and professionals staying away from home.

I guess we should all step forward to support this humble women-centric venture that has immense potential and can give any renowned restaurant a run for their money in terms of taste, aroma and innovation of dishes in this food domain. So I urge you to go ahead and place an order with them, I am sure you will end up with a pleasant experience! :)

Cheers!


 

Blogger's meet at Woodstock 1969, Kolkata

Woodstock 1969 came into being inspired by Hard Rock Café, but then it should never be compared with Hard Rock Café. This place is now very young and it will take it loads of distance to traverse to reach somewhere close to HRC. That is one accepted fact and this is the vision and story of inspiration which Soumya (co-owner of WS1969) was narrating to us on our last visit to this place. We were a group of four food bloggers visiting this highly rated (in Zomato) eatery for some evening snacks and coolers.

This place surely stresses on peace, good music and great food. The name of this little music themed café is of course based on the 3-day long Woodstock festival which was arranged during August 1969 at a dairy farm in New York. The rock festival was attended by almost 4 lac audiences and was studded with performances by Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Santana, Pandit Ravishankar, etc. The festival had total 32 acts performed. This Woodstock festival is considered as a crucial moment in the history of music and one of the most remarkable events defining the history of Rock and Roll.

LOCATION - - - - - This place is located in an alley just beside the Greek Orthodox church near Kalighat Tram Depot. The eatery is an old garage converted to café, so it is not so prominent and one can easily miss the entrance. But you can trust your GPS since that’s how we located this place.

AMBIANCE - - - - - As already said, this place used to be an old garage and dated back to some 1921. So it was tough to convert that uninhabited place to a cool café. There is no doubt it is now a small piece of heaven for any Western music lover, be it classic rock or country songs. The walls are adorned with neatly framed posters of Western rock bands and solo artists like Pink Floyd, Bee Gees, Doors, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eagles, Bob Marley, Queen, Johnny cash, Dire Straits, Elvis, The Who, and many more. The best part is – all these framed exclusive posters are for sale and they are priced very reasonably. Even you can buy the copy of the ticket of Woodstock festival of 1969 which is also on display! The walls also have got several hand painted portraits and symbols, like the peace sign, or the Dark side of moon logo from Pink Floyd, etc. The framed posters and these hand drawn structures and motifs pretty much occupies the wall space. And the space overall exudes an uncanny homely warmth which is very dear to someone born and brought up in South Kolkata, maybe because of the old structure of the building where this café has been built, or the high ceiling, or the hand paintings on the walls, or the old black chests kept inside the café, or maybe something else!

The place has a seating capacity of 14 persons at max and they have got low height stools which might be uncomfortable for some. Overall the seating arrangement could have been made more comfortable but then the space constraint is there. Apart from this the place has got a narrow iron stair case going up to the mezzanine floor where there is a small room with one pool table. You can pay INR 150 and enjoy a game of pool at this place which is definitely a part of this café. But going up and down that narrow stairs is really the daring part standing in between your desire to play pool and the physical location of that pool table :) There is no dining arrangement in that mezzanine floor room and all the 14 seating arrangements are there at the ground floor.

Also I loved the Glass top tables with LED lining embedded inside. That surely increases the cool-quotient, helps you see the food even in the dimly lit ambiance and surely helps your face to glow in all the snaps :)

Now coming to the music which is being played, that’s the best part! I felt absolutely at home with all my favorite numbers playing on in the background. More or less the spectrum of music matches with those posters of the rock bands which are there on the walls staring at you. I felt more at home when the original version of ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ started playing :) Insanely heavenly!

FOOD - - - - - Food is definitely one of the strong points of this joint apart from the cool, laid back ambiance. Co-owner Soumya prepares several items and all the items served are monitored closely by the owners, so that reduces the chance of anything going wrong. Now coming to our order, we mainly ordered few drinks and an evening snacks to go with, here they are –

a) Strawberry Coke – An awesome cooler to start with which was recommended by Soumya. It has an awesome blend of coke and Hershey’s syrup, I haven’t tasted anything like this before; it was refreshing and had a nice flavorful kick to it! Really liked this one!

b) Butterbeer – This was the STAR item and like I had already said Soumya, I will be back definitely for this Butterbeer :) I haven’t tasted this anywhere else in India, so I was excited when Soumya recommended me this drink. Though I am not a Harry Potter fan but I have definitely heard of Butterbeer and here I surely did love my foaming mug of this popular wizarding beverage. Like we know, Butterbeer is described as tasting a little bit like less-sickly butterscotch with very slight alcoholic content. I absolutely loved the flavors of the butterscotch topping, condensed milk, whipped butter, and maybe vanilla ice cream soda in there with very little beer for the taste. This is gem of a beverage at such reasonable rate. It will be a crime if you don’t try this out! Highly RECOMMENDED!

c) Vanilla Shake – The taste of butterbeer totally eclipsed the taste of this drink which my friend had ordered. Well you can’t expect wonders from a glass of vanilla shake, but at INR 69 this is again a nice drink if you love the simple soothing vanilla flavor.

d) Kentucky Chicken Wings with BBQ sauce – This was again recommended by the owners and we chose our Chicken wings with the BBQ dip. The dish had six pieces of chicken wings with crunchy covering. Though I personally do not prefer fried chicken with a crunchy cover but I liked this dish since the chicken inside was pretty succulent and fresh. And the BBQ dip was awesome. Lovely evening snacks for sure.

SERVICE - - - - - No doubt, this place has got a homely feel with extremely warm and quick service to go with. The owners are friendly and they took out their time to share their experiences with this venture and they even clicked some pictures with us. Service is surely a key part of this industry and since here the owners are only interacting with the customers, so that part can never go wrong.

SUMMARY - - - - - Here are my granular ratings:

Food quantity: 3.8/5

Food quality: 4.1/5

Food presentation: 3.8/5

Value for money: 4.3/5

Ambiance: 4/5

Service: 4/5

The overall rating comes to 4 out of 5, which is very good according to me. I will be paying few more visits to this place since I want to taste some more food items from that menu and definitely the Butterbeer. Also few of my friends are already eager to visit this place when they heard about it from me, so I might just accompany them next time. Though I would have loved this place to be a little more spacious but I can understand and I am sure the owners will work towards expansion in near future, otherwise this is one gem of a café that gives give you one gem of an experience. Must visit for every rock music lover, it will be a landmark destination for you like the Woodstock festival of 1969 was a landmark event in the history of rock and roll music. Do visit them if you already haven’t.

Cheers to Peace & Music!

 

Amazing Spanish Cuisine - at Sudder Street - Raj Spanish Cafe

Located at Sudder street this place has got its inimitable charm and an extremely relaxed ambiance with amazing food at extremely reasonable price and mostly foreign tourists around. This place has the charm of old Calcutta embedded somewhere deep inside it. It teleports you back couple of decades and leaves you there with some great food and people around.

I went in there a week back with couple of Maharashtrian friends of mine. They were absolutely impressed with everything out there, starting from the setting, ambiance, people, menu card, food, pricing, service... everything! To start with, here you will find Mexican, Italian and Spanish food. In the menu card the Spanish dishes have got their actual Spanish names, so it is better you know beforehand what do they actually mean or how are they supposed to taste. We went in for mostly Spanish dishes leaving out a few. You need to write your order on paper slips and hand it over to the waiter, finally you will get back that slip with prices written alongside each of the dishes and summed up showing your total payable amount. So the initial order slip itself transforms into your final bill. The prices written on menu card are tax inclusive, so it's really easy to calculate your final bill amount. Let's discuss about the food, we had ordered for:

a) Huevo Rellenos - It is one great starter, it is Tuna and tomato sauce mixed with egg yolks and topped with mayo. Served in half egg cups, really a great no-frill starter which will vanish in just no time. Must try.

b) Cafe Bombon - The description explains the drink quite well, it is Espresso and condensed milk topped with whipped cream. Worth a try.

c) Arroz A la Cubana - It is one of the mains having rice in it. It has got fine quality rice in tangy tomato sauce gravy, topped with double yolk fried egg. Really one refreshing dish. The runny egg yolks with tangy tomato and rice has got a great chemistry together. Worth a try.

d) Burrito - The only Mexican dish we tried at this joint. It is tortilla wrapped into a roll having fillings of chicken and beans inside, served with tomato slices and guacamole. Worth a try.

e) Spaghetti al frutti di mare - Only Italian dish that we had tried. It is basically a seafood spaghetti having veggies, squid, octopus, shrimp in it. It looks amazing and tastes great. Though I found it a bit bland which can be adjusted/fine-tuned by adding some sauce, pepper and salt to it. Though the dish is quite filling, so it is worth a try.

f) Tortilla de Patatas - This was one hell of an amazing dish! (picture below) It is very much Spanish by nature. It is a cake kinda slice prepared with egg having fried potatos inside (you need to refer the picture I have attached to understabd this!) It tastes great (add some tomato sauce and pepper to it if required) and gives some great cooking ideas. It is served with two pieces of bread and the whole dish costs just INR 40. Incredible! Must try.

g) Albondigas en salsa espanola - Another insanely delicious dish. It has got four medium sized chicken meat balls in an amazing spanish gravy (having finely diced veggies in it) served with french fries and bread. Must try.

Only one great dish, the Gambas al Ajillo was not available, maybe because we had reached the place very late, at around 4pm. Overall, the service is very quick, waiters are polite and billing process is pretty simple. Only I guess the hygiene can be marginally improved, but definitely the place is delivering much more than it is expected to do at this ultra reasonable rates! The dishes are prepared to perfection and in almost no time. Frankly speaking it just left us dumbfounded. I would recommend this place to each and everyone. Go try it out! It's a gastronomical wonderland! :)

Cheers!

 

Terreti Bazar's old-school Chinese - Tung Nam!

If you love the spirit of old Kolkata and the old-school Chinese cuisine, you will surely love Tung Nam! You will love the place the way it is today. The place wears a wrinkled look but you need to see through her eyes and read her mind, in terms of serving best-in-class old-school Chinese food she is still the best in town. If you are here at this place you will feel as if you are in a time warp!



Many people of my age or younger are unaware of the existance of this place but once you try them out you will surely spread the word, and this word-of-mouth advertising is very much required for this age old eatery. Now let's get down to the review:


Location ---- Couple of weeks back I was here at this place with one of my foodie friends, both of us had little clue about the location. Actually it is a bit tricky for the ones who are not regular at this place near Terreti Bazar. You need to get down at Central Metro Station and take the lane alongside the dark Shivaji statue. You have to walk for a minute or two and then you will find the place on your left. It's best if you turn on your GPS when you are coming out of the Central Metro station. Parking your car in front of the eatery can again be a bit tricky. You might need to park it somewhere near Poddar Court, which is very close though.

Ambiance ---- As I said earlier the place literally is worn out, it is bit dilapidated with decaying walls and not-so-cool sitting arrangements, simple wooden tables and plastic chairs, and ofcourse no AC. But hey, who cares! Atleast for a foodie like me this is a piece of heaven, one hidden gem! You will find some ancient chandeliers and lamps which are screaming out the tales of bygone era and making things even more enigmatic. On the tables you will find small and cute Coke and Thumpsup bottles as Salt and pepper shakers. Apart from that the cutleries are not that impressive, chopsticks are provided on request. The place is frequented by local Chinese people and Bengali foodies who are surely the loyalists, to say the least.

Food ---- Both in terms of quality and quantity I will rate this place 5 out of 5, no doubt about that. Most of their dishes can be shared by two. We had ordered for:


a) CHICKEN WANTON SOUP: It was heaven for me. On my next visit to this place I have promised only to have this soup for my meal, nothing else. One bowl of soup is sufficient for two. The clear broth is extremely flavourful, aromatic, soothing and healthy. It has got nearly ten steamed chicken wantons in it, clear soup with lovely meat chunks, mustard green and silky wanton skins...bliss! Add a bit of chilli vinegar, soya sauce, red pasted chillies and you are sure to fall into a state of euphoric evarlasting joy! It'll be a crime if you don't try this item out.

b) PORK HAMEI SAUCES: A dream dish for pork lovers. Tug Nam has been always a heaven for them. Pork in Hamei Sauce is good and goes well with Yaam Mein. It has got one typical smell from the oil of that Hamei sauce which might not suit everyone. The pork pieces were soft and well cooked with right proportion of fat in it. Quantity was good as well. Will try out their chilli pork next time.

c) VEG YAAM MEIN: I absolutely loved this preparation and maybe I'm going to try them out everytime I am at this place. It is one better tasty tossed noodles that I have tried in past few years, definitely at this pocket friendly price. It had the right amount of finely chopped tossed veggies and mustard greens in it, add some green chillies in vinegar, red chilli paste and there you go. Must try.


d) CHICKEN GRAVY NOODLES: And here is the dish most bengalis would feel safe to try out :) As usual one awesome preparation. The chunky chicken pieces and diced veggies, the aromatic gravy everything was just perfect, goes very well with some spicy porky sides.


Service & Billing ---- The orders are collected pretty promptly after you grab some seat. And the food is served at brisk pace, comes to you definitely by 10 minutes. Polite staffs and helpful suggestions, what else can you ask for. No one can match their quality at these cheap rates. Coming to the billing - Printed bill is not provided at this place, you need to pay by cash and yes, there is no additional taxes charged. Our total bill for above dishes came to just INR 430/-. One thing - Try to reach this place before 3PM (for lunch), the doors are closed sharp at 3PM and no new customers are entertained then.


Overall ---- This is the place with dark, old and odd looks serving awesome value-for-money old-school chinese in town. If you haven't yet tried them out please go and have one meal. Try to overlook the shabby interiors and just get lost in the delicacies served right in front of you. Hog as much as you like without thinking about the pocket pinch. Or you may go for take-away as well. After you taste them I bet you will certainly spread the word!

Cheers!
 

Chilling at historic lawn - Fairlawns!

Located at Sudder Street this place is absolutely cut out from all the din and bustle of the infuriating crowd of the urban city, the madness that you'll find a few steps away at New Market is non-existent at this piece of lush green heaven! I was here with one of my fellow foodies to have some laid back conversation sitting amidst the trademark greenery and openness of Fairlawns. The place has a feel of colonial Calcutta in its veins and is still standing strong embracing the new generations and the old loyalists all at the same time. 

When we were here a couple of days back, the present owner was in town back from London for a month-long holiday. She has been kind enough to keep this open-air beer bar running for public for ages now that sits right on the lawn of this heritage building cum hotel. 

The place has got heaps of history behind it, I just came to know a few of them – it was built by some William Ford in the year 1783 (so it is now nearly 232 years old!) and then the possession kept on passing from one person to another. At present it lies with Mrs. Jennifer Ann Fowler and few years back in 1994 the place was converted to a private limited company, so now Mrs. Jennifer is the MD of this place. Many famous personalities have stayed at this place in the recent years like, Sting, Eric Newby, Sir Tom Stoppard, Patrick Swayze, Julie Christie, Ian Hislop, etc. Famous Bollywood star actor Shashi Kapoor married Junnifer Kendal (one of the longest staying guests at Fairlawns) and they had their honeymoon here at this hotel. So the place has got a lot of stories to tell, and when you are here you might get teleported some 200 years back!

There is one private non-smoking dining area indoors at the ground floor where we just stepped in to click some pictures, otherwise we were seated at the outdoor section that is of course non-AC and close to the nature. 

We were here at 4:30 pm when it was not so hot outside, so we had a great experience, would have been much better if it was drizzling outside! You can smoke and have beer here at this place while having some great starters and mains. My friend ordered for Crispy baby corn with Sauce, and since I was more interested in that one-of-a-kind lovely outdoor ambiance (with that old world charm) I did not put forward any food preference of mine. And I am glad I didn't, since the Crispy baby corn was probably the best of its kind that I had in years. It was the full length babycorn sliced length-wise and tossed with bell peppers, onion rings and tangy sauces, it was awesome to taste along with some beer. Only one note - The beers served can be even more chilled, since they come to normal temperature pretty fast because of the outdoor seating. By the way, though the place is basically on the open lawn but it has got a roof on top, so sitting at this place during the rainy season is not an issue. 

The place is green everywhere, so soothing for the eyes and amazingly soul satisfying. Apart from natural plantations, the fences, the ceilings, chairs, other furnitures all are painted in green. Really sensed peace when I was at this place. Paradise on earth! 

Only the service can be improved a bit, it is bit slow and the waiters were less interactive. Though the prices are quite reasonable here, but please keep in mind to carry cash since they do not accept cards. And there is no extra taxes charged.

So here are my granular ratings for this legendary eatery -

Food Quality: 3.8/5

Food Quantity: 3.9/5

Food Presentation: 3.7/5

Ambiance: 5/5

Service: 3.1/5

Value for Money: 4.2/5

The old world charm will surely bring me back several more times at this place for the rest of my life and who knows if this place can give me some greater memories in future, since it has got all that potential!

Cheers!

 

Paramount Sherbats - College Street - Sharing the seat with Legends!

Very few people have actually heard of Nihar Ranjan Majumdar’s 'Paradise sherbet shop'. But when I start talking about Paramount Sherbets everyone will surely be able to recognize this legend. Name has changed but the place still remains the same, and definitely the quality remains as it is. This legendary sherbet and juice bar still retains the old world charm and teleports you several decades back when you step right in.

Location ---- Located at Kolkata's 'boi para', this place is next to the Mahabodhi Society (opposite College Square) and the place is infact quite close to the Putiram sweet shop.

Beverages ---- On my last visit (infact I was at Collge street with one of my foodie friends just to spend some time at Paramount!) I tried my favourite below two drinks:

a) Dub Sarbat: It is a refreshing concoction made of sweet soothing coconut-water, the pulp of the tender coconut, crushed ice and some secret syrup. It is a pure joy to try out this drink and I generally take less than one minute to finish off the first glass of Dub Sarbat on a hot summer day! As a matter of fact, this drink was famous even in 1918 when the shop just started operating. Back then the summer coolers (specially the Dub Sarbats) were served to the public and in the backgound something big was actually going on since this place was a hideout for freedom fighters and I have heard that there was one secret room for them at this place! Infact it is said that recipe for this dub sherbet was actually then prepared by the famous scientist Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray!

b) Green Mango: This is the best refreshing drink I have ever tried. It is made from mango extract, some essence, sugar, salt and crushed ice. If you are here at Paramount then surely do try one glass of Green Mango, it'll be a crime if you don't; infact that is true for the Dub Sarbat as well :)

Ambiance ---- The humble settings, old furnitures, high ceiling fans and old wall hangings give that warm feeling and makes you feel blessed and nostalgic at the same time. It is a small shop and the place is naturally quite cramped up, but when you are here you are actually in a time warp and the thrill is enough to ignore all these petty issues.

Hygiene ---- Though you may feel that it is not safe to have road-side sarbats, etc on hot summer days, but this is Paramount and things are quite different here. They don’t use synthetic materials in their beverages and the ingredients are primarily derived from fruit extracts, infact the ice used is being sourced from the same supplier all thoughout these 97 years! The table tops where the drinks are served are made of white marble and are generally kept clean.

Price and Service ---- Nothing much to say, the price at this place has always been very reasonable and it's truly worth every penny. There are no additional taxes charged. The service is very prompt and orders are readily taken and served almost in proper sequence.

Overall ---- The common meeting place for revolutionaries involved in the Swadeshi Movement like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Pulin Bihari Das, Satin Sen, etc is still standing tall today with all its rich heritage serving those signature beverages and summer coolers to all the die-hard fans, some of them are again legends like Satyajit Ray, Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Bikash Ray, Shibram Chakraborty, Balaichand Mukhopadhyay, S.D. Burman, and so on. As of today the place highly depends on word-of-mouth advertising and is still going strong even after nearly 100 years! We hope and pray that this Beverage Museum goes strong for the coming 100 years... and more. Long live the legend!

Cheers!

 

Got 'desserted' at Delice, Novotel (Kolkata)

Novotel with its headquarters in France has got nearly 400 hotels and resorts in 60 countries. The grandiose structure and interiors generates immense awe which is hard to explain in words, so I won’t try to depict that here in this quick review. The overall experience was lovely and while we were leaving we promised to visit the place more often for reasons more than one.

LOCATION - - - - - The property is located just beside Axis Mall which is now quite a landmark in the Newtown Action Area – I region. It is very easy to locate the building by passers-by as it has got a prime location right beside the flyover and the main road (that is connecting Rajarhat and Saltlake Sector-5.

AMBIANCE - - - - - As I had said in the introductory paragraph, the interiors are world-class and you feel overwhelmed when you walk inside the property. Obviously the place has got valet parking which is smooth and seamless.  At this 5-star property you can choose to rejuvenate yourself in the way you like, and we chose to indulge in some sinful desserts at their bakery called, Delice so that we could end that weekend on a sweet note! It is a bakery cum an open Air Terrace outlet serving Mediterranean & Arabic cuisine through live counters. We chose to have their bakery products and were seated indoors which had high ceilings, awesome interiors and standards absolutely at par with the other 5-star properties I have been to. The soft background music which was being played at the restaurant area was very pleasing; mostly saxophone instrumentals were being played that evening. The place has got some remarkable cleanliness quotient and the staffs are working pretty hard to keep the place clean on a continuous basis. Overall, I would say 5 on 5 for ambiance.

FOOD - - - - - We ordered the below items from this bakery:

a) Macaroons – One of the best French Macaroons (or rather, Macarons) I have had so far in the city. We opted for Coffee flavored Macaroons and Vanilla Macaroons. Both of them were excellent though I liked the Coffee flavored ones a bit more. The macaroon cookies were neither flat nor cracked, so the mixture/batter must have been prepared perfectly. It had a lovely texture, nice ruffled circumference, mildly moist and was just melting in the mouth. Gives immense pleasure and satisfaction when you have this piece of gastronomical marvel on your plate!   

b) Danish – This multilayered pastry from Denmark next conquered our plates. It had nice sweet puff that you can get from fine rolling your yeast dough. We really loved the juicy sugary layered finish to it that was surely not overtly sweet, it optimally satisfies your taste buds and fills you up a bit.

c) Chocolate Mud Slice – This piece of mud cake looked so perfect, so royal when served. It was covered with ganache on top that made it more appealing and appetizing! It was extremely chocolaty and should satiate your wildest cravings for Chocolate in a moment. It has gooey chocolaty soft crust or rather mud filling up the whole slice end to end. A piece of heaven for chocolate lovers!

d) Chocolate Doughnut – It was a glazed toroidal ring doughnut with thin covering of chocolate. The dough must have been prepared well as it had a nice fluffy inside. Overall the item was above average and filling.

e) Opera Cake – Oh I just loved this. It was a chocolate pastry with loads of difference. It was covered with ganache on top that made it extremely enticing. The inside had an amazing finely grounded nutty texture to it that just blew me away! I don’t remember if I had ever tasted something like this in pastries before. Very pocket pleasing price and hence should be tired out for sure.

 

f) Fresh Fruit pastry – This white colored pastry had fresh canned fruits (Kiwis, etc) on top of it that made it look stunning and appetizing. It was extremely soft and tasted amazing, not very sweet but soul satisfying for sure.

  

PRICE - - - - - Now comes the best part, if you are at this bakery you need not worry about the pocket pinch. Yes, it is in a 5-Star property with top-notch quality product being served but at amazing pocket-friendly rates. The Macaroons will cost you INR 40 per piece and most of the pastries with cost you below INR 100. Taxes will be charged extra on the printed price, but overall the bill amount should not hurt your wallet!

SERVICE - - - - - We were extremely pleased with the service here; it was very professional yet warm. The person looking after our table was extremely well spoken and courteous, which was expected at this place. They were also helpful while selecting items / placing the order and had knowledge about the available items and ingredients of the items available.

SUMMARY - - - - - Here are my granular ratings:

Food quantity: 3.6/5

Food quality: 4/5

Food presentation: 4.2/5

Hygiene: 4.4/5

Value for money: 4.2/5

Ambiance: 5/5

Service: 4/5

Overall I will rate this place 4 out of 5. I will be back pretty soon to try out rest of the items they have to offer since this first experience of mine was absolutely brilliant. Moreover since this place is pretty close to my apartment it is absolutely very convenient for me to host small chit-chat sessions at this place with my friends while savoring these delicious desserts and sinful gastronomical wonders! Do visit them and I am sure you will be amazed with the entire experience!

Cheers! 

 

Old school Chinese dishes - at TAK HENG

I was longing to visit this place, the so-called south Kolkata branch of the legendary Tung Nam. For Tung Nam loyalists like us, this was indeed a great news. For people of South Kolkata this is indeed one much needed addition since they get really less or no option to try out the typical orthodox 'old school' Chinese cuisine in this part of the city, and it is not always convenient to visit Tung Nam. Also people would have loved to have a Tung Nam with a better ambiance, hygiene and A.C. and that's when they got Tak Heng!

LOCATION -----  Located on Southern Avenue, near the Thyagaraj Hall and the Blue Door Restaurant. You can park your car on the main road right in front of the restaurant or close to it.

AMBIANCE -----  The place has got humble white walled interiors with neat designs and relevant wall paintings, nothing flashy. The biggest plus point that Tak Heng has got over Tung Nam is this relatively better ambiance with A.C., there is surely no old-world charm, evidences of bygone era or enigma here like Tung Nam but the place is ideal for family dining and small meet-ups over some awesome Old School Chinese food that is soothing and honest. The tables, chairs, table mats, cutleries everything is just perfect and just what one expects. And yes, I loved the designer chopsticks! The place has got really good crowd, so yes it is perfectly okay to visit this place with your family, relatives and parents.

Couple of suggestions to the management - please add some pleasant background music to this place, some soft Chinese instrumental track can do wonders to the overall dining experience! Also later you may think about false ceilings and acoustic wall treatments to take this place to the next level, but then the prices printed on menu card are bound to change :) So this can be marked as a long-term plan as of now. Also the place is too brightly lit, you can work on the lighting part as well.

FOOD -----  Being a true fan of Tung Nam, I knew what to order. Though I could not order their pork items since my mom was reluctant to go for it and preferred chicken. Anyway, I started by ordering -

a) Chicken Wanton soup - One large Chicken Wanton soup that serves four, we were three so quantity-wise this was perfect for us, bit on the higher side. The Chicken wanton soup is just heavenly, the clear broth is extremely soothing, aromatic and flavorful. It has mustard greens and chunky steamed soft chicken wantons in it with a blissful silky skin. Add some chilli vinegar, soya sauce and definitely some red chilli paste to take the taste of the dish to a new level. This is one MUST TRY item here.

b) Chicken Gravy noodles - Then we went in for this dish that has got lightly fried crispy noodles, nicely diced veggies and loads of chicken pieces in it, taste and texture-wise it was just perfect. Just one ting - try this dish very hot, right when it is served else the gravy in there might not be that delicious. Goes perfect with some dry chilli pork side dish.

c) Chicken Yam Mein - It was one lovely tossed noodles dish with finely chopped veggies, mustard greens and sprinkled black pepper, got some typical old-school flavor of Tung Nam in there. Add some chilli vinegar and red chilli paste to this dish to elevate the taste and to excite your tastebuds. Goes well with spicy gravy sides.

d) Roast Chilli Chicken - I settled for this side dish according to the suggestion by the person taking my order. It has got nothing to do with Bengali-style chilli chicken, if you want to taste chilli chicken then please do NOT order this dish, this is one amazing dish but has no resemblance with Kolkata-style Chilli chicken. We already knew about that while ordering and we loved every nibble of this dish. I have never tasted this preparation before and I could well imagine how delicious the Roast Chilli Pork would be. Next time I'll surely try the Roast Chilli Pork and I was missing the dish badly as I was having the chicken counterpart. The chicken in there was perfectly grilled and then put into one soothing gravy with loads of garlic and fresh green chillies, simply loved the texture and smokiness in the chicken, one amazing side prepared with grilled chicken pieces.

 

SERVICE -----  Service is comparable to Tung Nam, very prompt. The person serving our food (named Bablu) was quite knowledgeable about the menu options and the preparation of the dishes, he also suggested us few dishes. Also he was very courteous and pleasant.

OVERALL -----  Billing, etc is quite prompt as well. Cash was accepted and no extra taxes were charged when we visited this place (last Sunday). It isn't a huge place so there are limited numbers of tables and hence there might be waiting time as well, though we didn't have to wait when we last visited. Authentic quality and quantity of food should be the reason why people should come here; it is one huge value-for-money dining destination. 

Also for all Tung Nam fanatics this is your holy spot. So please do plan to visit and try them out!

Cheers!