What Sam says about_____?: September 2015

Saturday, 26 September 2015

Eggjactly - Delhi's first Food Trucking company - 3.5/5

Food trucking is the latest craze amongst us foodies across town. With a number of food trucks swarming the city including a very well known five star hotel chain venturing into this space, the credit still goes to Eggjactly for pioneering the concept into the Indian food space. Eggjactly is India’s first GPS enabled food truck. Started by 3 food enthusiasts who were tired of the corporate rat race and decided to follow their passion and make food trucking a good food business. Even though today there are other trucks hovering around the sector 29 Gurgaon lanes Eggjactly is still selling their stuff like hot cakes and why not because the food is not only top notch in taste and quality but also very reasonable.

You can locate them through their GPS tracker also showing on their website and simply walk up and choose from a range of food stuffs ranging from eggs to order to waffles and pancakes and wraps and sandwiches and burgers and also some well known Indian favorites. I had heard a couple of close friends who were visiting sec 29 on the weekend and planning to raid a number of food trucks so I couldn’t hold back and managed to land up myself at eggjactly Food truck. We parked and walked up and placed the order at the counter for a portion of Chicken sausages, soya wrap, grilled chicken sandwich and a Big chick Burger. Later I also decided to op it up with a Belgian waffle but unfortunately they had run out of waffles and I settled for a stuffed Nutella Pancake.

Service was a little slow, only because we were told the food will arrive in 15 minutes and it arrived post 25. Understandable because limited hands catering to a large clientele. I ordered a plain soya wrap and were delivered a Paneer wrap by mistake and I had to tell them that this is not we ordered and our order was replaced with a saucy soya wrap which was fairly decent. My Grilled Chicken sandwich was a little dry, it was healthy though because the stuffing did not have any dressing but I realized that the lack of dressing made it dry and difficult to swallow. It tasted fairly nice though but would have been better off with a little lite mayo or mint or mustard or may be salsa inside. Also what disappointed me that brown bread variant of the sandwich wasn’t available. The sausages were superb and absolutely fresh and l loved the portion size. The saucy soya wrap was nice too.

The Big chick burger with cheese and Mushroom was juicy and superb. I was happy to end my meal with the stuffed Nutella pancake which was simply delightful. And what’s even better that the damage for so much food for three people was 750/- bucks. Good food, nice portions and attractive pricing, this truck is a clear winner.

Guys, I strongly recommend you catch the eggjactly food truck in action and get ready to be floored.

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Thursday, 24 September 2015

Pind Balluchi - Dwarka - 1.5/5

My last visit I gave them a rating of 3.5. but last week's Dinner brought it down to 1.5. Hand's down the worst dinner ever. I was catching up with an old friend over dinner in Dwarka so we decided to meet here for food. Now that's where we went completely wrong. If anyone wants to enjoy a get together in a nice restaurant, please avoid Pind Balluchi.

Even though they try to recreate the Pind rustic ambience, they fail to deliver on the quality and quantity of food. Food is still reasonable. But since their prices haven't shot up, their quantities have gone down. Its a mockery of what you end up getting on a plate. It seems as though they are giving miser alms to the poor. Only difference being that the poor people eating the food are actually paying customers who are paying for the food.

Hands down my worst dinning out experience ever. The food served was pathetic and even the complaints to the manager made no difference. They were so stiff and shameless. The restaurant was not that busy to give them any benefit of doubt. It just seemed that they actually have no intentions of running a true restaurant that delivers on quality food and service.

Even though we had ordered for full portions, what we ended up getting seemed like half portions. It is so disheartening when you don't get value for the rupee spent.

This is what we ate (half heartedly).

Cosmopolitan - My worst Cosmopolitan ever. I am so sure they had put red food color in it, it didn't taste a bit like cranberry juice. It tasted like desi tharra. Guys if I had to drink hard liquor, I wouldn't have ordered a cocktail. please register this message seriously.

Chicken Achari Tikka - Meagre 5-6 small coin sized pieces of tikka's. I give my pet at home bigger chunks of chicken guys. And he doesn't pay a penny for it. Chicken costs nearly 185 rupees a Kg and for Rs 190/- you guys probably didn't even give us 150gms of Chicken achari tikka. What were you thinking?

Veg platter - Pathetic Dahi ke kebab's, they seemed like bread rolls, please guys stop calling them dahi ke kebab and call them bread rolls instead. really bad mushroom tikka, and even bad makki ke tikka's so hard, so dry that it hurt my throat as I tried to swallow the thing. Paneer tikkas were the only saving grace in the platter.

Aaloo Naan - Dripping in oil. yes oil. I could neither taste butter nor Ghee. you know these are inflationary times, and restaurants are trying to cut costs to maximize revernues. So I am not surprised they use oil instead.

Paneer Butter Masala - Paneer, yes small cubes the size of dice (may be slightly bigger if you insist), masala yes. But where was the butter in the paneer butter masala guys?? Oh Sorry, butter we forgot is exepensive and a dish that costs nearly 200 bucks for a katori size portion butter will be too much to ask for the paneer butter masala.

The only option left after the dinner to get full value for money would have been probably to take the water home from the finger bowls and may be water your plants. Worst meal experience ever.

I am sure you might feel that I am usually not so curt while reviewing a restaurant, but sorry, this is how I feel. I feel extremely angry and cheated, because I paid nearly 2500/- bucks for such a trashy dinner and to top it all the guy wanted a tip too. Really? Are you kidding me?

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Ahdoos - The Legendary Restuarant lives in Kashmir - 4.5/5

Address: Residency Road, Regal Chowk, Rajbagh, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir 190001

Phone:0194 247 2593

Who doesnt know of Ahdoos Restaurant - The living Legend in Kashmir.Sam says this is the only authentic Kashmiri Waazvaan in Kashmir. A must visit in your itinerary to Kashmir. The place where you can grab your bite of Rista, Gushtaba, Yakhni, Kalya, Dhaniwal Korma, Haak and what not. I loved every morsel of food I had and my husband and friends visiting Kashmir with me, also enjoyed every bite of food they had.

Located by the Chenab River on one side and the posh residency Road market on the other, Ahdoos is a foodies delight. If you are a non vegetarian, this is your destination for great food in kashmir. Ahdoos is very easy to locate on the main road and is a hot favourite not only amongst the locals but also the tourists. Its fantastic that over the years they have been able to maintain their standards and quality in terms of food, taste and service making them the number one restaurant in Kashmir.

From the juicy seekh Kebabs to the soft authentic Kashmiri Roganjosh and Yakhni, they have it all. Sam says this place should be on your must visit places to eat while in Kashmir.

So I was in Kashmir and could not resist the temptation of trying some great food from my motherland, so I headed straight to Ahdoos. The food is so top notch in terms of taste and quality of ingredients that the entire meal was droolworthy and this is what I tried -

Rishta - Mutton balls in ref gravy. The meat is very finely minced and the gravy is minus onion and garlic and sometimes even tomato. The Rishta@ Ahdoos was fab. Great balanced gravy, soft meat balls. Bingo!

Dhaniya Korma - Ah the amazing yoghurt gravy with juicy pieces of mutton and Coriander really makes this dish very unique.

Awesome Kashmiri Naan decorated with dry fruits, cream and coconut. A very unique Naan, and I loved it.

Juicy Mutton Seekh Kebabs and two superb Chutneys with the Kebabs made them even more delectable.

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Inner Chef your Perfect ready to cook and ready to eat Partner - 4/5

Who doesn’t know the award winning cafe DiGhent in Gurgaon and InnerChef just happens to be another brainchild from the house of DiGhent. InnerChef is a food portal started in 2015 and focuses on delivering ready to cook and ready to eat meal boxes. The team at InnerChef is dedicated towards providing an ultimate food experience to you in the convenience of your own home. So the days the inner Chef within you is all enthusiastic dress up put on your aprons and Chef Caps and order yourself a ready to cook meal box and cook your heart out and if you are not in a mood to cook order a ready to eat meal.

I am a little bit of a romantic so I love to surprise my husband with a perfectly cooked Gourmet restaurant quality meal and clubbing this with a glass of some fine wine and enjoying the scrumptious meal in candle light. So you would get an idea that I usually do my food experiments and attempt to cook up a home-made Gourmet meal. But that does not mean my experiments are always successful. This is where inner Chef comes to my rescue. With the touch of a button on to innerchef.com and an hour later your recipe box full of exotic ingredients arrives at your home.

They give you some amazing recipe boxes that you can choose from every week and the Chef’s at InnerChef Pick the exact proportions as per the recipe of the dish and build recipe boxes of some delicious and wholesome food and get this delivered to your doorstep in one hour delivery slots. With the Menu having mainly European, Mediterranean and modern Indian dish influences on its menu, they majorly specialize in exotic salads with superb dressings. You can also order some wholesome Panini’s and salad combos, pastas, and a number of well prepared snacks and decadent some mouth watering desserts that are bound to give you a high.

What’s even better is the pricing. All veg and non veg recipe boxes and menu items are priced very very attractively.

So today the inner Chef in me was resting so I went ahead ordering myself the below top notch world class meal

Sea Breeze – Thai Shrimp Mango Salad with Smoked Salmon Panini was as refreshing as Sea breeze, I felt I was transported in time to a beach Shack and I was sipping wine and enjoying my perfect salad and scrumptious Panini. The smoked salmon Panini was a rockstar

Fiery Chicken Roll – The Chicken Roll with Mint Chutney was made with grilled Chicken was wholesome with a great filling and definitely one of the best Chicken Rolls I have tried in a long time.

Egg free Chocolate Cup cakes – Superbly soft and fresh and mushy, nailed the dessert animal in me.

So Guys if you are tired of the fast food and the Pizzathon’s and Burgerthon’s I bet Inner Chef is definitely what you have been missing.

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Monday, 21 September 2015

Ek Bar - The Indian Cocktail Bar that is here to stay

Guess who owns the hot new address in Town – Ek bar. Under the flagship of the able leader Mr. A.D singh (Olive Group) and the maestro himself - Chef Sujan Sarkar this place is all set to be launched this week and is ready to set new benchmarks in the Indian Bar scene.

I have always loved Mr. Singh’s philosophy of venturing into the unknown and always offering something new and unexplored into the city’s food space and now he brings to us Ek Bar. It’s a one of its kind Niche Indian cocktail Bar showcasing to the world the Indian story of the cocktail culture. And like we began all fairy tales with the phrase “Once upon a time” referred to as in Hindi as “Ek Bar” hence the name “Ek Bar”. And that is because there is an enchanting story behind every single offering on the menu. And if food and wine could speak they would never narrate a better story as each story behind every item on the menu is beautifully unfolded on your tables by the F&B team at Ek Bar.

A unique concept where Indian Tapas, some superb Indian Bar food and mesmerizing cocktails are all available under one roof. Ek Bar is opening its doors to the public on 23rd September but will initially remain open only in the evenings 6.30pm onwards and will eventually start opening in the day on weekends, in some time. The ambiance is perfect to set you in the mood for some super food and some spicy cocktails right from the entrance. You will be guided upstairs by a beautiful staircase which has a projector projecting Indian food and culture images, which looks truly spectacular. I loved the colourful, quirky yet classy ambiance with beautiful lighting and a super wooden Bar counter. I absolutely adored the bright red comfortable seating and beautifully painted animated murals on the walls.

The evening starts with a beautiful note with the ace mixologist Nitin Tewari's welcome Drink - the Royal Indian Punch - an Indian drink introduced to the British in the 17th Century enjoyed by the Royals now served to you in the heart of the capital. I loved the flavour of the fermented Kahwa tea with pink grapefruit, whiskey, spices and ice, and the fact that it was served in a beautiful Victorian tea cup. Another drink that really stood out due to the story behind it was my gin based cocktail called City of Nizams. This turmeric infused Bombay sapphire Gin , orange syrup with tonic and katori ice with mace and Indian Tonic water re-emphasizing that Tonic was introduced from here to the British. I also loved the Platform at CST infused with Kokum Sharbet and Murabba Mule infused with aam ka Murabbaa and Ginger Beer.

With Chef Sujan’s touch, Food here is definitely worth something to talk about. I loved the fact that he has given his own twist to some superb Indian classics and produced such masterpieces that leave you spell bound. Whether it’s the tuna on top of the Papdi or the super succulent chicken Changezi or the fresh Local Burrata Cheese and also the Chicken 65 Burger or even the brilliant Mawa Carrot cake with some home made Indian Ice cream every dish is so well curated and so unusual and very unlike what one has tried in this city before. Popcorn Khichdi or Chowpatty Ragda were nothing short of soul food for me.The Indian Bar food in the form of Thali’s were brilliant. Loved the Veg, non Veg and Sea Food Thali. I also adored the brilliantly done tender pork belly served with rice dumplings in a Coorgy style gravy. The Banana Tarte Tartin - What a gala end to a grand evening. This majestic dessert - Banana Tartin with Jaggery caramel and Indian Vanilla Icecream is by far one of Chef Sarkar's best Creations and and it did sweep me off my feet. The twist in taste of a jaggery Caramel in this dessert is the real game changer.

Chef Sujan and Mr Singh Ek Bar I am sure Ek Bar has all the ingredients that take to make a winning recipe. Ek Bar surely will be just another Jewel in the Olive Group's crown.

Address : Ek Bar, D -17, First Floor, Defence Colony, New Delhi. Tel: 011 4168 8811

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