Restaurant Review: Global Fusion

If you’re in Mumbai and want to try sushi, Global Fusion is the place to rush to. For a fixed price, you can stuff yourself as much you want, and if you don’t like raw fish, you’ll find many other things to eat. The restaurant is huge, and you can walk around and look at all the food on display. The starters and select soups (which need to be prepared) will be brought to your table (you can try all the soups and all the starters, and they’re enough to fill your stomach), and the food that’s ready (some soups and the main courses), you’ll have to bring back to your table. The starters and soups are kick-ass, and there’s a lot of variety even for vegetarians and vegans. The Chinese main course is strictly okay, and the sushi… well, you’ll have a blast if you like it. I didn’t like the sushi or the sashimi or the tataki – actually, I fucking hated it, and tasted a little of everything because I knew at first bite that I wasn’t going to go near sushi again. Doesn’t Japanese cuisine have beef or pork? Again, there are vegetarian/vegan options if you don’t eat meat, but I bet even they suck. There’s California Roll Maki and Avocado Maki and many other makis and all of them should be called Teri Maa Ki. There’s unlimited packaged water and soft drinks and you’ll need lots of it to wash down the sashimi, because it’ll look really bad if you spit it out. It was great to sit by the fountain pond looking at the frog statues spout water at real fish, and eat those amazing starters, drink those great soups and have all that sweet shit for dessert, but I won’t be scurrying back to Global Fusion for sushi/sashimi/tataki anytime soon. And I wouldn’t offer wasabi even to my enemies. Let me say it in Gujarati… Su? Sheee!

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Make A Perfect Bowl Of Dahi

Our dinners are incomplete without dahi – an easy-to-make dairy product which can be had as a dessert, an accompaniment to meals, or by itself at any time of the day.

Heat a bowlful of milk.

Add a teaspoon of live culture.

Stir it well.

Cover the bowl.

Leave it aside for 4-5 hours.

The yogurt will be set.

Refrigerate.

Mango Drink Recipe: Baflo

Baflo

Baflo is a summer drink made from raw green mangoes. Known for its cooling properties, Baflo is easy to make and has a sweet and tart taste.  Also known as Aam Panna, this green summer mango drink is loaded with calories but will keep everyone happy till they can drown themselves in Aamras.

USE

1 large green mango, unpeeled

1 or more cups sugar (to taste)

1 teaspoon roasted cumin powder

1 teaspoon black salt

12 cups water

Salt to taste

METHOD

Boil the mango in a cooker till soft.

Let the mango cool for a few minutes, then remove the peel.

Put the pulp in a blender along with a cup or two of water.

Strain in a large vessel.

Add the sugar and the remaining cups of water and bring to a boil.

Add salt, cumin and black salt.

Check taste and water consistency.

Cool and refrigerate.

At the time of serving, pour in a tall glass and garnish with a sprig of mint.

This drink can be safely stored in the fridge for a couple of days.

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Did You Hear About The Organs?

It’s enough to put a man off meat, I swear. After the Z Machine gig two weeks back, a friend and I were ravenous and took a detour on the way back home and stopped at a roadside stall near Bandra Station at 2 a.m. We were delighted to find only organ meats being served and ordered a plate of every thing. It’s not a big deal; I’ve enjoyed eating liver (mutton better than chicken), have had ribs, skin, gizzard, udders, and even brains. This time though, I don’t know what went wrong. Neither my friend nor I could take more than a bite of the liver. We made faces while tasting the kidney and spat out the tongue. My pal refused to pay and staged a walkout when I jokingly asked if he wanted to taste goat testicles. I have no beef with organ-eaters, but there’s no way I can stomach the damn stuff anymore. Karela and baingan, please.

(No pics have been published here out of consideration for my vegetarian readers)

Rehab & Detox

Off to Ahmedabad for three days to attend a cousin’s engagement. No way can I get a chance to drink alcohol or smoke pot in A’bad. It’s perfect, because in Bombay I can’t keep my hands off intoxicants. Three days of being in an environment in which no one ever mentions or even thinks of the booze. All one needs to do is be around family and gorge on pure vegetarian food. Meet and eat. Sweet. Let’s see how long I can stay off the harmful stuff. Amdavaad, here I come.

The Worst Italian Food In Mumbai

There are some places you should never go to even if you’re starving, and I’m going to put Penne right on top of that list. It’s not like I haven’t had bad dining experiences before but Penne in Juhu wins the first prize for the worst dining experience a bunch of humans have ever had together. Sorry, maybe I’m exaggerating, but there’s no denying that Penne in Juhu serves the worst Italian food in Mumbai.

On being seated at our table, we were asked if we wanted regular water or preferred packaged stuff, and then a waiter announced they don’t serve “regular water” and got us a bottle of Himalayan mineral water. The rest of my family is vegetarian, so we called for some ghaas-poos and what followed was the poorest eating experience we could’ve asked for.

Penne serves grossly overpriced tasteless food which will neither fill your stomach nor thrill your tastebuds, and with the way they’ve priced things everything can rightfully be called poor.

The Balsamic Mushrooms (290/-) were okay, the Minestrone (250/-) was not happening, the Mediterranean Cottage Cheese (550/-) was lifeless. My brother looked heartbroken when his Penne Vodka (490/-) arrived, and we were as disappointed by the tasteless food as by the tiny portions.

Now I understand some food is meant to be bland, but we’ve all eaten Italian food before and have enjoyed it. My brother tried to drown his Penne Vodka in Tabasco, and my cousin too expressed her disgust on finding every single thing we called for lacking in character. Meanwhile, the staff was just being snooty and were plying us with Himalayan mineral water (85/-) and I nearly tossed a spoonful of Moussaka (550/-) at a bored looking waiter. The only edible food item was the curry that came with the vegetarian Couscous, and Penne should serve that as soup, considering they fool patrons anyway.

Penne in Juhu is the first restaurant in Mumbai that refused to serve me regular drinking water, and I think anyone who makes noises about putting a glass of water in front of you and is thinking of making some ridiculous profit right there isn’t fit to serve anyone food. And it does reflect in the extremely low quality of food Penne serves. When the prices are steep, the food should be okay at least, but it wasn’t even that. Penne has absolutely nothing going for it because even the music they play is shit.

I was eager to try Couscous (550/-), and am not sure whether it’s still the restaurant that’s got it wrong or if it’s meant to taste that bad. I am now eager to piss all over a plate of Couscous and show the staff and management of Penne some real mineral water.

If you’re wondering why shitholes like Penne get rave reviews, it’s because when people spend a few thousand bucks on something shitty, they might not like to admit it was a total waste.

If there’s someone you don’t like and need to get back at, please recommend Penne to them as the ultimate place for Italian cuisine. I am never going to forgive my parents for taking me to Penne in Juhu.

Fast Food

It’s amusing how religion and faith determine and control your eating habits. Christianity is considered by many to be the weakest religion. While it is weak, at least it does not stop people from eating what they want. Everyone enslaved by the ordinary mortal who was nailed to a cross is at least free when it comes to diet.

All Christians I have met are well fed and it shows on their face how much they enjoy their pork and wine. Other religions are as weak, if not weaker.

Muslims are taught from the beginning of their lives that pork is unhygienic. They slaughter and eat goats and claim it is a sacrifice for Allah but what the devout musalman will never know is how good sausages taste on pizza (especially at Alfredo’s in Juhu), and that minced mutton should be left for nachos.

And then they observe daytime fasts for a whole month. Okay, but does making up for it by overeating at night make sense? And whats this rubbish about not even swallowing your own saliva? Obviously, growing a coolass beard and bending over for a god that never was doesn’t give you any idea what it’s like to have a salami sandwich or ham, bacon & cheese with a pot of tea on any morning.

Hindus are probably the greatest hypocrites of all. They eat chicken, mutton and pork but refuse to eat beef because their religion tells them that the cow is a sacred animal. So kill pigs, hens, goats and fish but hold yourself back from sinking your teeth into a cooked cow because someone told you that the cow is your mother and a holy animal. If you really believe that shit, I’d like to make a garlic pepper steak out of your mom. What is really stupid is that people will eat meat only on certain days. Does it taste better on Tuesdays? Eating meat on Thursdays makes you a sinner? Depriving yourself of non-vegetarian meals on Saturdays makes you holy?

And now, Jainism. The religion I was born into, the one I laugh at the most. I’ve had people tell me that no matter what I believe in or follow, I will always be a Jain because it is my father’s religion. It makes me wonder how much studying in good schools and colleges and being literate and open minded really educates them. It makes me wonder where all their male-female equality bullshit has been shoved because not one of the people who try to convince me that I am a Jain because my dad is one has bothered to find out which religion my mom was born into and what she follows. Not that it really matters because you are what you believe in and believe yourself to be, not what you are born into and brought up to believe or what your parents are or what the world wants you to be. I am proud to say that though my parents have their beliefs, they dont do mindless shit like going to temples, fasting and conducting shitass poojas.

True Jains believe that fasting purifies the mind and body. This is ridiculous, depriving your body and brain of food prevents you from thinking clearly. The digestive system is like your heart and lungs, it doesn’t need rest.This is not to say that you should stuff yourself with food everytime it comes in front of you. The body secretes digestive juices, that creates hunger pangs and if you dont give yourself food when you are hungry, it messes up your stomach and health. So going without food and water for days will not purify their mind, body and spirit but it will make them unhealthy and sick and take them closer to their god, which is a good thing.

And then, there are the educated people who think that fasting on certain days or abstaining from meat for a period of time will make get them what they want. Abstaining from certain food groups makes your wishes, dreams and desires come true?

If a man who has lived all his life in a forest and eats what his body and tastebuds crave was brought to the city and made to observe all these stupid customs, imagine how confused and amused he would be. Our bodies are designed to digest vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, so if you don’t eat meat because you don’t enjoy the taste or just like animals too much it’s totally cool, but to deprive yourself of a seafood sizzler because you think not eating it will make you spiritual is plain dumb.

Humans are two-legged animals. Big animals eat smaller animals. We humans, with our intellect, were smart enough to break the food chain, which is why we can hunt down and eat bigger animals. To anyone who eats for pleasure or to satisfy their hunger, the idea of eating only certain animals only on certain days and then fasting to clean your system would sound silly. I think animals are better off than us, they eat to satisfy their hunger and maybe for taste, without looking at the calendar. They truly deserve good food, now if only they knew what cooked meat tastes like…

[I wrote this post a few years ago and it makes perfect sense to me even now. The veg/non-veg debate is still on in my head, though.]

Hypocrites Of The World, Unite!

This post is a reaction to a chain mail being forwarded to everyone.

While I don’t like the idea of animals being killed, we really shouldn’t be pointing fingers at any other country when our own allows animal slaughter. While our own traditions cause all kinds of pollution, other cultures have a different way of looking at things, and the last time I checked dolphin meat was edible, so it’s more than just fun and games. Whether it makes them feel manly or whatever their reason, so be it. Why the shock? Because they’re killed in large numbers and we can see blood everywhere? We’re in the land of Bakri Eid, for crying out loud.

We seem to not give a shit be unaffected when cows, goats, sealife and poultry are denied their right to live, but are quick to react when “cute animals” like dolphins, rabbits and dogs are slaughtered.

Life is life, death is death, murder is murder – for everything that breathes. One man’s pet is another man’s delicacy.

Let’s leave the shock tactics to PETA, and the next time we have any kind of non-vegetarian fare in front of us, let’s close our eyes and think of the last 10 minutes of that creature’s pathetic existence and ask ourselves if they deserved it any more than these unfortunate dolphins and whales, which are food for the Danes.

As a seafood lover I wonder what whale meat tastes like. The part of me that relishes vegetarian food may perhaps have some business denouncing any form of slaughter. But, the question is, if the meat eater inside me asks for all double standards to be dropped, would that be suggesting cannibalism?

Restaurant Review: Sugandha Refreshment

You can get to Sugandha from Andheri East (it’s off Old Nagardas Road) or Andheri West (walk till the middle of the flyover and take the steps down from the right) for a quick meal at anytime till 2 am.

The menu is on the wall and you have to see it to believe the prices – everything here is cheap, and you can brag about your appetite if you can run up a tab of 200 bucks at Sugandha.

You get very basic food – chicken, fish and mutton curry and biryani dishes, basic South-style vegetarian dishes. The dal fry at Sugandha is the cheapest one you’ll ever have and is tastier than the ones we shell out good money for at most fancy restaurants. Your stomach can be filled for less than the price of a beer with a vegetable gravy (karela/baingan/aloo/paneer/whatever) and the dal fry along with a ghee roti or two.

I guzzle at least 5-6 glasses of buttermilk whether I’m eating or not – the chhaas is always perfectly salted and they’ve often run out of it and have had to make more because of me. They use some strange kind of papad which tastes really bad. And anyone can share the table with you, but no one bothers you, everyone just wants to eat and go.

Go here if you want an inexpensive, satisfying meal before 2 am in Andheri. After 2 am you can pay more to eat not very tasty or healthy stuff outside Andheri Station (West).

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