Dipping pot

 Opp. Raj park hotel, TTK Road, Alwarpet, Chennai  - 600018

The logo looked more of a dripping dot than a dipping pot, but I leave the interpretation to the individuals

We were invited to review and let them know how their original preparations tasted and what could be bettered to suit the customers taste. So it is a huge responsibility on our shoulders as our suggestions taken/implemented would be an yardstick of our abilities in gauging the Chennai palates. Hope we did justice!

Ambiance: Purple and white is the color theme. The wallpaper is of a white painted brick wall and the flooring is wooden textured (you will think its actual wood). A very cute book shelf catches your eye the moment you climb up. The actual action is on the first floor and the ground floor is with a few tables and chairs but inevitably you would prefer to be up there.

There is casual seating on one side and on the other you will find the big group seating which you might find cramped for leg space.

The coffee counter has many varieties of freshly ground and aromatic coffees. I am a no-coffee/tea person. So no comments on it

Yousuff started explaining to us the whys and hows of the concept. Fondue is basically "something that is melted" and this is the national dish of the Swiss, traditional of the French and  Italian. Would Chennai be welcoming to continental type of cuisine? The answer might be yes, if modified to taste more desi in parts. If you already have experienced this anywhere before, this could be a trip down nostalgia

Drinks: Fruit punch was a refreshing concoction of spirte, mirinda, icecream and fruit bits. Have it quick or it will fizzle out and the cream would come up settling the flat sweet drink and fruit bits below.
Lemonade was good, the typical mid-summer cooler

These are not the actual portions, most of them you see might be for two but served in one

  

Buffalo wings  with BBQ sauce: This was the stand-out dish for me, they sauce was a tad sweet but the peri-peri fries compensated for the spice quotient. The sweet, sour/tangy spicy with the fried skin crust and sauce was yummy finger-licking good

Fish Fillet:  Basa fish fillet sauteed with oil and some aromatic herbs and spices served with lemon butter. It is more of a continental style and you can go either way based on your preference. The garlic breads served along are crispy, buttery and garlicy just the way I like.

Beef steak and Chicken steak: Both meats are seared and mushroom pepper sauce added on top was  okay. There was mashed potatoes, blanched sauteed veggies (baby potatoes, baby corn, broccoli, and carrots) to accompany. The sauce lacked depth in terms of texture, sheen, the spice or flavor. Make sure you mention your spice levels and get it done right to your taste

 

Cheese fondue: Their signature dishes with the choice of your cheese explained below. If you find your melted cheese bland, you can get a spiced-up version with peri-peri powder. You get an assortment of sauted veggies, peri-peri fries, chicken nuggets, inhouse fish fingers and bread cubes. Use the long-stemmed fork to pick one at a time, dunk it in and eat. 

Cheeses: Emmental (visualize the cheese pic with big holes in them, mostly found on kids books) and Gruyere come from two regions of the same name in Switzerland. Emmental is more sharper in taste and Gruyere is slightly sweeter and earthen. You can pick the cheese of your choice

DeWine:  These are traditionally served with the wine of your choice, either red or white (non-alcoholic). So choose what you like.

Some fun/tradition while at this: If a man drops his picked up ingredient into the cheese while dipping, he has to buy a drink to the ones on his table. Whereas, the woman dropping would have to kiss the person next to her. Well, try your luck and see what you get

Medical info: The fear of  fish and cheese combination being poison is a myth.  There are hundreds of seafood dishes made with this combination. Unless you have allergies to both (histamine), indulge guilt free and have fun

Chocolate fondue:  Choose your chocoloate (dark or white). Dark chocolate fondue is served with diced cubes of apple, strawberry, banana, kiwi, wafer rolls, and eggless brownie blocks. If it is a white chocolate, they serve it with some fruit crushes like strawberry, mango etc plus the regular assortments above.

(Be it cheese or chocolate, the real good quality of both should be of that of candle wax. Liquid consistency, on dipping anything, it should cover it up entirely, and not run down, then solidify as it cools down. Leaving it to cool for a tad bit longer must become crisp/flaky)

Chocolate fountain: These two things are what kids and the kid in you will instantly like for the following reasons

• It is exclusive only to you, so no intrusions (ask for kiddie meals, they have them too)
• Not worry of it being contaminated by others as the left over chocolate is dumped and again freshly made for the next customer 

There was always this confusion of the coffee shop/resto being fully opened or not was solved when I saw this on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqFFCk_JtlU . They have officially opened on April 20, 2015 and are planning to set things right with feedback and announce it big on the food circuit shortly

Price: A lunch/dinner for 2 might cost anything between 750/- to 1000/-.
PS: In a few other restaurants, they serve the same fondue at a lill lesser price and bigger portions

Verdict: Innovated/tweaked existing concept to serve more personalized to the customer. There was Swiss, kiss and few things that were amiss . Enjoy the favorite, very own, exclusive, personalized chocolate fondue and chocolate fountain table service.

 A dipping pot with a heart, if you connect all the dot(s), you will be sought, for whats melting hot. 

Wishing you all the very best! 

Double Roti

Double roti - 4/27, Cenotaph, 1st Street, Teynampet, Chennai.

This is on the lane after SIET college, if you have ever been to MKC from mountroad side, this is 100 meters further down on the right. This is has been built up in the parking space of "illam" service apartments. A franchise of the Delhi brand and already raking up a good 4.2 on zomato.

Another attempt by the food bloggers to bring the house down was here. We planned to gather around 1:30 pm to get the max seats available. "Dabal" roti with korma is considered poor man's food but this "Double Roti" is the richer version of some angrezi-food with a desi-twist

 

Ambiance: Nicely done up ~400 sft of parking space converted into a resto. Interesting interiors with pipes hanging above, vegetable graters used as lamp shades outside, wooden chairs and tables, paint buckets on the walls, interesting reading boards, serving containers varied from a dosa pan for all your burgers, a deep-based wok for your nachos, small steel bucket for our fries with salsa or meats. flower pots for oreo shake, glass jars big/small for your juices, coffee mugs as tissue holders, little flowerpots etc

Menu: It was a school writing pad clipped with A4 menu sheets.  The menu was elaborate and exhaustive but these might tear off easily, time to change to laminated ones or keep replacing them as often as they can. Prices of menu items range between 100 - 500 plus

Veg nachos/bacon nachos: served with salsa and olives was okay but the fries with bacon strips was delish. I love the combination and it vanished in a giffy. The best thing would be to mix up, toss up all the contents first so that you can balance it all.

Milkshakes: Strawberry cucumber milk shake and the apple beet based ABC milkshake were both normal nothing much to write about. More for the diet conscious people who walk in

 Oreo milkshake: in a flower pot is slush and really thick, you would love every sip of it till the last drop

Big boy veg burger: served with feta cheese, fries with salsa and cream. Not a big fan of veggies except that the feta cheese was really good

Porker face: An amazingly soft and tender burger served with lettuce, apple slices left me wanting for more.

The best thing about hunting in packs is that you can try all those burgers and choose what suits you best, I found the illegal beef burger, Areas 69  to be yumm, a hotdog with sausage, minced beef, caramelized onions was really good. There is no dry feeling or the ground beef being either chewy or rough to eat (which is the indicator for good quality of  meat)

Amazing burgers, hotdogs, sandwiches - The juiciness, the flavor, the size, the price point were mostly spot on. So folks dabal-up or be left waiting outside without a seat!

Note to the Japtej (Resto owner): 

• Please provide some seats for the people waiting outside, it was really disturbing to see people standing for more than 20 mins
• Consider the quality of paper as it soaks up moisture, it shreds and peels off (DIY burgers suffer from this) 
• Wallet parking would be a good idea at least on weekends and busy days

The Manhattan Fish Market

TMFM - 94, RK Salai, Mylapore, Chennai  

When this was discussed on a food-bloggers forum, I honestly thought this was another upscale seafood supermarket opening in Chennai. Little did I know that this brand has major presence in the whole of SEA. Singaproe has about 26 outlets and even my mom has tried it (facepalm). I was then informed about a contest people had won themselves (a few known friends) a sea-cret pre-launch dinner. I tried my luck messaging in their FB page and got a call from Mr. Arjun and also got invited to the party. The place is opp to Marvel cards on RK Salai. 

Walked in around 7:30pm and am welcomed by the whole service crew in a loud embarrassing chorus "Welcome sir" and got promptly seated at a table.

Was slowly joined by the brat gang which brought the roof down. 

Riddle on the tissue paper: This sounded irrelevant in Chennai context as most of our fish from kasimedu travel all over Chennai on train. Try something else MFM

Ambiance: The wall hangings, the wooden framework, wooden tables and aluminum colored chairs. Mid-way through our meal, the master franchisor from Srilanka thanked the guests for coming, explained what the concept is all about and also mentioned how they took one whole year to do up this place. The hard work has paid-off in parts
 
Menu explained: If you can understand a north-eastern slang then go ahead, if not just grab it from him and read it yourself. By the time you soak in the ambiance, you pretty much have read what they do, from the walls. 
The concept is simple: They have five types of cooking - Fried, poached, flamed, grilled, and baked . So you decide how your food should be. My vote goes for fried and grilled

Country fried mushroom 150/, crispy fried calamari 240/-: Batter fried mushroom/calamari served with honey mustard cajun sauce/chipotle sauce. Was a good start to the whole meal

 Cream of  Mushroom soup 100/-: was warm, thick and flavorful. I finished the whole of this

Garlic herb Mussels 260/-: If you have the mussels in the creamy sauce immediately after soup, you might doubt if the soup continues in a thicker consistency on the plate. This happens in many restos and this is no exception. The mussels were not so tasty and your could feel fine sand grains when you chew on it. The broth was tasty served with baguette

Manhattan flaming seafood platter ~900/-: Flame torch being used to slightly burn/brown the prawns and melt the cheese. My photographer friends for the want to good photos made the guy over do it and charred a few batter fried pieces.It is served with mayo, a jalapeno dip and one more (the SS cups were an eyesore as they look like the oil-podi kinnams in saravana bhavan).

 Manhattan star platter 990/-: This was much better compared to the previous one, the squid was so amazingly grilled. The baked fish was very spicy (finally flared up the nostrils after the monotony of batter fried seafood was making you dull)

 Mudpie 140/-: was delish, a really good dessert to try after all the seafood. Very smooth inside, the grainy top garnished with the choco syrup and crushed nuts.Yummy

Tropical breeze, Gummy bear and Citrus Mint 120/-:  Tropical breeze was really fizzy and breezy in your mouth (loved it). Gummy bear was ok (another american flavor if you like), citrus mint was your regular lime mint cooler with crushed ice

 Second floor: Their specialty floor for sound-proof corporate lunches, meets etc. Also a few casual seating arrangements which looked more appealing.

In-a-nutshell: American concept, choose wisely what you want to eat as too many can spoil your appetite. Each one is good in its own style. Food can be a bit bland for an Indian palette, so order for those fiery sauces to help you.
Service needs a lot of improvement as it was slow, cutlery was not given even when asked twice and order mess-ups. Hope you get your act together soon or there will be chaos.

A meal for two would be ~1200/-

Wishing you all the very best in Chennai and hopefully see those 4 more outlets coming up soon 

Sea-you again soon MFM!

Maplai - Savour South India

MAPLAI  - SAVOUR SOUTH INDIA

Old.2 New No.14. Tank Bund Road, Sterling Avenue, Nungambakkam, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Phone: 096000 66649

Though I saw the invite to bloggers to join the food tasting, I was wary to send an email as I hadn't blogged for a while and it didn't seem fair but thanks to the invite from Mohamad Ali ji of CFG.
After a long hiatus, I am back to the blogging scene singing in my mind (Ennoda raasi nalla raasi ...)


Starring: Behind(LtoR) Pradeep, Kiran Kumar Maasi Mohamad Ali ji, Chef Kaushik (Mad chef)
Front(LtoR) Prathap Gandhi,Tasneem Ayub and Amryth Bunty

Script written by: Kiran Kumar Maasi
Cinematography: Amryth bunty and Aliji (I am using their pics as my ipone died in the rain)
Music:  played form the ipod at the resto
Screenplay, direction: The Mad Chef Kaushik
Plot: Simple, follow the menu eat, enjoy and give your feedback
Running time: 3 hours 1:30 - 4:30. It took so long to eat all those items
Release date: Oct 2, 2014
Show timing: Matinee (lunch), First show (dinner)
Rating: 4/5

This is more like a directors cut where you will see a lot of additional information in brackets

First half - veg
Lights, camera and action.... it is a typical opening shot of a drizzly mid afternoon in Chennai.. I was on my bike heading towards loyola college getting all wet and feeling cold completely drenched.. Chef and Tasneem aunty were seated across the tables and were discussing food seriously.
I seated myself like that late coming audience in a theatre and joined them in the discussion. Along came Muruganand, Prathap and Pradeep. We waited for about 15 mins as others were getting delayed due to traffic snarls and rain. And the show started...

 
Veg Thali  @ 149/-and the items on the thaali
Paruppu Vadai - regular masala vadai crisp on the outside and soft inside
Barota - Oru typical flaky chennai parotta/barota served with veg kurma and onion raitha
Vengaya chutney - Tasted good but didn't know what to eat with, just swiped it out and slurp
Gongura Pickle - the andhrite in me woke up, mixed it up in steamed rice with ghee and it was so good
Podi: with ghee/ gingely oil (nallennai) - both the combinations are good with appalam
(Warning: if you start eating with podi, you will never touch sambar or kozhambu, it is so addictive. The ghee and the gingely oil are sourced from nearby areas procured fresh)
Sundakkai vatha kozhambu - was thick and tasty. you should try this with hot steamed rice and appalam. (Add nethili to it and it becomes the non-veg thaali add on, there is also a mutton gravy (red), chicken gravy (yellowish green))
Kovakkai paruppu kootu, avarakkai Poriyal - The usual, nothing much to write about

Brinjal sambar,  Chow Chow More Kozhlumbu,  pumpkin payasam - didn't touch any of these to save space for the other starters and non-veg but good looks wise (may be the next time)









My anxiety for some action/masala was soon answered by: ala carte veg starters like the Chettinad Bashed Potato (veg version of the kola urundai with chat masala spices), Paneer Pepper Fry (veg version of chicken pepper fry), Kalaan 2015 (veg version of chicken 65) and Syrian Cheppankazhlangu Roast (the veg version of the syrian beef fry). All the 4 would do justice if you have spicy pallet or you can mellow it down with the mocktail drinks


Interval - these were served in-between each set of dishes that we tasted
Club cricket (first starter drink), Panagam, neer moru (comes with veg/non-veg thaali), chilly blue sea (how you wish it was chilly vodka), rose milk (everyones fav), Bovonto Ice cream Soda (if you love bovonto, you will love this), and finally jil jil Jigarthanda (this was my personal fav). suit yourself with the choice when you order food.
Panai thayir: mention your preference if you like it fresh (which is sweet) or sour. If you are lucky you will get both

Second half - non-veg
Kozhli ka Thakkali - boneless chicken pieces in a thickened tomato gravy. The pieces were stringy and sligthtly tough and less on spice. If they could improve on spice and tenderness, this dish will be delish
(heard that it was an accidental innovation when a tomato gravy was thickened due to overcooking and he came up with this idea)






Chettinad Scotch Eggs - Boiled eggs rolled up and shaped inside a minced chicken and gram flour base.  Was spicy and yumm but the gram flour tasted slightly raw. Probably roasted gram flour would have made it right
(initially the eggs were of yolk flowing consistency but changed after customer feedback - ask if you want it that way, they also did away the thick bread crumbing)







Kair kati Gola - This was an amazing dish, shredded meat of lamb minced and spices added. The crust is crisp and inside moist and hot, one can smell the cinnamon and clove and taste the garlic while eating. Definitely a recommended dish from us
(There is a lady all the way from madurai (see pics below) who does only this exclusive dish at the resto and she was sought after by our Nadigar Thilagam Sivaji Ganesan for the Kola urundai. One should appreciate the skill invovled in rolling the loose meat into a ball, tying the vazhai naaru around it and then to fry it - the size, shape and look all consistent)



Mutton Gaadi Chops - Any meat close to the bone is the tastiest and tenderest. If you have learnt this by now, you will definitely enjoy the taste of this starter. Mutton chops fried with slight spicy coating.
(The meat is sourced from erode and I am told that there are expert shepherds who can taste the meat and say where the goat/lamb/sheep has grazed, can you beat that!!!)




  Kerala fried Squid - coconut milk batter coated and fried tossed with curry leaves and sprinkled with some spices - Was bland and salt was inadequate and may be would have helped if we had it with some buttery sauce of a spicy kind)

Maplai Nandu - boneless crab meat cooked with coconut slivers, curry leaves and cashew bits, topped by some grated cheese. Scooped out and finished two of them inspite being stomach full (should i say more)





 

Climax 
Jigarthanda was at its innovative best, so rich and creamy with kulfi like flavor is made by reducing the milk to caramalized consistency and added with nannari sharbet to sweeten it
(the chef loved it so much that he tried the famous madurai JT,12 glasses of them to get a hang of the recipe and to perfect it)
Bovonto ice cream soda - for those who loved their cough syrups would love the flavor of this grape cola drink and vanilla ice cream mixed in it
(his personal tribute to the desi cola of South India)



The Ma(n)d Chef: Chef Kaushik with constant innovations is going to rock Chennai and thrill them with food. He has been part of  over 140 successful ventures starting from Quickys to now happening Peaches, Jonah's, Petawrap, etc...Those 3 hours of the tasting session, he was meticulously orchestrating all the aspects, of  presentation, re-filling, clearing the table at the right time, engaging the clients, answering questions, sharing tips etc. RESPECT 

The End

Mappillai - the film opened to positive response from the public and was a Mega hit Blockbuster movie ran 200 days at the Box-office history of Tamil cinema 890 shows were houseful

Maplai - the resto. A very good start and ofcourse with constant feedback and improvisation I wish it does well with Chennai foodies and becomes a super hit.

 Thankyou for visiting/reading