Chef at Large

Bhimnag’s sweet shop is 240 years old as of today. It became really famous when the courageous Ashutosh Mukherjee who was a fearless academician and educator in Bengal admitted Subhash Chandra Bose in Scottish Church College after Netaji was rusticated from his own college having hit his teacher on the head. Well, Netaji had little [...]

The Citrus Cafe is in a small (and very good I must add) hotel called ‘The Lemon Tree’. Rather hard to find due to no signage out front, it is however well worth the trouble, as we found out on Sunday.
Looking for a convenient spot to meet on Sunday, the Lemon Tree was suggested and [...]

We visited Blanco a few days back for a drink and some food.
Quite a nice place. Either I haven’t been getting around as much as I used to, or restaurants are becoming more and more daring and experimenting with bold themes for their decor. I did like the way Blancos was set up. The staff [...]

Ashwin and I decided to meet up midweek and yesterday seemed as good a day as any. Since I had had enough of western style food, the general consensus was either an Indian or a Chinese restaurant. Roaming around Khan market, we found SideWok.
If I were to choose a single redeeming feature at SideWok, it [...]

We awoke to a cool and damp day but as it is our holiday we don’t mind that much.  We did some basic shopping then had a drive out to the countryside.  There is a distinct lack of wild life in this area compared to some places we have stayed, the only things of interest have been [...]

On the MV Bretagne from Portsmouth we find our cabin and stow our luggage.  To the restaurant for dinner but there was a long queue and we had to put our names on a list to be called when a table became vacant.  To the rear deck, with drinks - Sancerre for me and a [...]

We had these crunchy, spicy pakodas for lunch yesterday.
While not usually lunch material, they provided a nice change as pakodas are normally snack food in India. One of the most common times they’re made is when it’s raining outside. Most houses will then deep fry this delicious snack and the whole family consumes copious quantities [...]

Hello and welcome to another Mothers Day. Its May 11 and time to put in place the things you’ve thought of for your mum, hand over the baubles you’ve purchased or post that card you picked up.
Some of the things I can remember most vividly is the food I’ve grown up with. An army officers [...]

Call it anything you want, but this is one tale that I just couldn’t resist telling.
My brother, Sameer, an Ex-Army officer is married to his long time girl friend, Navnita. Being rather straitlaced and methodical about things like keeping in touch, sending birthday cards and all of that, he has an address book that runs [...]

The pomfret is such a versatile fish - it goes well with most flavors you can throw at it and tastes wonderful even with the simplest of seasonings. I’m going to try different styles of cooking this great fish.
For this version, make a couple of slits in the fish on both sides, rub some sea [...]