Boheme!!

I have spent more than 5 years in New Delhi and have never visited Hauz Khas Village...or as I call it 'HK' :~P and when i made the maiden trip recently, i regretted why i didnt go there all this while. HK Village is a world in itself...mix of old world charm (with the ruins), and some crazy kitschy art..some villagers in ghagras and designers in dhoti pants...





Under this board mercs and BMWs were parked!!!



Kaanta laaga...

Where else can one find a jogging track along side a lake in Delhi!!

Tucked away in this 'village' is a small place called Boheme which over looks the 'Hauz' (lake)...situated on the 4th floor the climb to the 4th floor is sufficient to build an appetite...

Limited menu and unlimited view of the lake



I love quaint, simple, white and blue places and Boheme just has that!! The menu is limited, largely continental. The service takes a long time...but i will not mind because this is a place to relax, chat/read a book and the food is not really the highlight...we had ordered the pizza florentine, pasta with white wine sauce and prawn and the cookie crunch cake...and food was OK... its a great place to book to host a party for 25-30 ppl...

All images captured by embarassing P with the camera.. ;) 

Some day if i ever open a restaurant, the ambience should in all likelihood will be like Boheme... :~D now i just need to hunt for a cook in my restaurant.. :~P

Bruised Ego Weekend...Bring in Some More Alcohol!

What do you do when the car servicing personnel drops your car registered in your name at home and asks u 'oh ma'am u can drive'?!?!!

Or

When the security personnel asks you whether u are also working as a security guard because u 'report for duty' on saturdays and sundays??!!??

OUCH!...yeah OUCH!!!

We poach another fruit with alcohol and wash it down with vanilla ice-cream....





Now we feel better!!!!....

Eat: Pears Poached in Red Wine

Prey: Pears and Red Wine

Love: Yup!!!...(rather Slurrrrp!!!)

Old Monk for the Mallu

Eat- Rum Poached Apples

Prey- Apples and Old Monk (thats for the mallu in me)

Love- Yes

What happens when you are at home on a Sunday and (a) have no work..(b) friends live atleast 1.5 hrs away and have their own family plans on sunday (c) your one and only company is working away on his laptop creating and recreating ppts and worksheets...

(a) woke up after 11= check

(b) watched re-runs of sitcoms= check

(c) ate previous night's takeout pizza/chinese food for brunch= check

(d) watching Salmam Khan's Wanted/Bodyguard/Ready for the 5th time on StarGold= check

and your are still bored....

ITS TIME FOR ALCOHOL!!!!!

so sugar went into the saucepan with some water for caramelisation, then in goes some rum along with water and cinnamon and vanilla and plopped some cored apples and they cooked cooked and cooked....voila Apples Poached in Rum...pairs lovely with butterscotch ice-cream... :)



FYI my garden balcony is showing some signs of life (luckily this time i havent mananged to kill the plants!!!)

Calcium for the Crossfit-er

Eat- Bathua Raita

Prey- Bathua leaves

Love- Totally

After the move to GGN, i was on a hunt for a gym which provides functional training...

Now i dont like sports..NO...but i love having an athletic figure and stamina..(who doesnt!)..so the hunt ended at Crossfit. So 3 days a week i am seen trying to lift a bar, throw some sand bags on a wall, attempt a rope climb (and fail miserably) while competing with burly men who have quadraceps the size of my waistline (FYI my waistline will soon resemble Lara Dutta's 7 month baby bump, just that i cant blame it on pregnancy)!!

Crossfit requires healthy real food eating and since pizza isnt healthy, i am on the hunt for some healthy food apart from my usual affair with corn in various forms. The markets here are flooded with all sorts of leaves and one particular bunch that caught my eye was Bathua..

Fat Hen, Lamb's-quarters, Pigweed, Goosefoot are the 'inglis' names of Chenopodium album commonly known here as Bathua....i approached an old lady who was choosing plum tomatoes (for her rich shahi paneer i guess!), seeking advise on what to do with leaves and she gave an animated description of the leaves and the recipes using it and 5 times in our 5 minute conversation said 'beta bathua bahut tasty hai' (i cudnt register anything apart from that line!). That was enough to sell me a big bunch of the leaves!! 

2 hours of cleaning the leaves, boiling then with some green chilly (for some heat),  blending the leaves into a paste, letting the water evaporate, adding chat masala and beaten yoghurt, i was ready with this...Bathua Raita

Had an entire bowl for lunch and felt good eating healthy.. :)

Bathua supposedly can defeat Spinach in terms of its calcium and other goodness...it is used in the treatment of various illness at home....guess Popeye the Sailorman wasnt aware of this!! Hence this recipe is submitted to Meeta's Monthly Mingle  hosted by Add to Taste as a Heart Healthy recipe...

But i am sure many of us 'city dwellers' wouldnt pick up this leaf because hey it hasnt been featured on TLC or Rocco doesnt make ravioli out of it!!

Now can we please have decent name for this wonderful, flavourful gourmet leaf!!

V-day Weapon

A lot has happened in my personal life recently....

Since Gurgaon is lot more 'happening' than Bombay (i hope u r getting the sarcasm and the fact that there has been a relocation to the 'up-north'!! UPDATE 1), my Ggn wish list includes- restaurants, cafes, hotels and road-side vendors!!! (i am too scared to venture out to other places late night..just not comfortable yet)

But the good part is...i've got company to fulfill the wish list... and the name is P. P is my guinea pig, food critic, restaurant reviewer, chauffer, body guard, friend and husband (yea..thats the UPDATE 2 ! and i still havent come to terms with it).

Yesterday was the first February14th after our marriage (damn! it still hasnt sunk in)...so like every good wife (&^%$^) , i finished my work for the day early, took permission from the senior to leave early and hit the gym! While i was being made to do 50 squats (the new gym is an all together different story), i thought i shud make something special today...voila..why not a chocolate cake!! (at that moment i lost balance and rod on my head was abt to hit my co-gymmie's head....!)

So i bought the ingredients, rushed home, checked how much time P will take to reach home and opened the recipe...

2 tablespoon flour...1 tablespoon cocoa...1 tablespoon baking powder...wait wait..1/8th teaspoon...egg...oil...why is this batter resembling atta kneaded for roti...may be it will make my cake so dense and moist...why cant i pour the batter....dense and moist...yumm...plop in the oven...ooh look the cake its rising above the cup....P will be sooo impressed...(i can ask him for that designer handbag...)...out of the oven looks like this...





This cake is dense for sure...moist??..let me insert a fork and see...fork is stuck!!!..lemme cut the cake..knife cannot cut through the cake...!!!! WHAT THE HELL*##%$%!!!

P them made his grand entrance!!! (the V-day surprise flopped and the designer handbag is now officially a distant dream!!!)

We then ate the store bought mother dairy vanilla ice-cream.... :-|

But this cake is not completely useless...the cake can be used as a weapon to protect yourself from those anti-V-Day protestors...its a Choco-Grenade... afterall its quite DENSE!!!!