Gloria Jean's/PalmGrove/Dewberry's: A weekend to remember.

It's been quite a while since I reviewed any restaurants. And when I finally decide to, it's on a Tuesday. This could be because I'm:

a)A sadistic jackass, of the variety that salivates and dreams about the food she'll be imbibing in the weekend, and wants to inflict a similar mode of visual torture on her readers.

b)A lazy cook who has run out of delicious recipes to post.

Would you be believe me if I say I'm neither?

And instead of doing restaurants, I'm going to review dishes that didn't have me thinking what I'd do change it or wishing I hadn't ordered it. Basically, dishes I loved.

1)The BBQ chicken wrap at Dewberry's, on R.K.Salai. Costs 160 rupees. The only qualm I have about it is that the portion wasn't enough. Not oh-my-GOD-it-was-so-freaking-good-I-can't-have-enough enough. More like "give-me-a-real-piece!" enough. Not all of us have a 26" waist to maintain. Not all of us use food as an accesory/prop.

The chicken is spicy, succulent, creamy from the mayo and the wrap is nicely toasted. The fries are above OK, and the coleslaw is borderline OK.

Pretty decent. Give it a go.

However, it's one of the places that are key on ambiance I'm guessing. For a cheapo foodie, it might be a letdown. For a date: double thumbs up! It's completely an Open-Air restaurant which, I know, sounds disastrous in Madras. But. There were plenty of charming fans whizzing around, strategic lighting and no mosquitoes. If your company is good enough, you won't even notice how bland the pesto pasta is.

NOT GOOD. AT ALL.

Don't order it. Pesto should be bursting with the flavour of basil and the creaminess of the pine nuts, even if it's not meant to be spicy. Not a congealed mass of flavourless, gummy, overpriced gluten.

2)The Onion Rava Masala Dosai at Hotel Palmgrove, off Nungambakkam High Road.

Bad photo. Yum-yum-yummy dosai.

Oh my good God. I didn't even know this place existed. And I've lived here all my life.

The potato masala comes on the side. It has chunky bits of carrots, peas and cashewnuts in it. It is so simple, so fabulous. It has a homey-ness to it, a flavour I know I've tasted but can't quite put my finger on. It really is an experience. Go try it.

And if you're in the mood for retro-style drinks, order the grape juice/pineapple juice. Only if you like Kalimark Bovonto or Saravana's Grape Kuchi Ice (Popsicle) though. The old grape juice of lore, mildly cough syrup-ish, but still with chunky grape skin it. And I thought these things were dinosaurs, all extinct. Costs 50 bucks a dosai/drink.

3)The doughnut at Gloria Jean's, Express Avenue.

Gloria Jean's is expensive. Any of their ice-blended coffee drinks will set you back by more than a 100 bucks, assuming you order a Grande instead of Regular (um. Duh).

However, they have the nicest sprinkles. I'm a sucker for those suckers.

And coffee cups holders.

And their doughnuts. Oh, man. I tend to pooh-pooh at the banana bread (Rs 60/slice) and the mini-muffins (50 bucks a piece), because I can whip those up at home. Not doughnuts, though.

And these are killer. At 45 bucks, they're a bloody steal (coming from a penny pincher/careful eater like me, you better believe it). It's huge enough to fill your stomach, adverse effect of which is that you'll feel like a pig after you're done with it. A happy pig though. They heat the doughnut for you, so it's all warm and the chocolate frosting (not glaze, frosting, mind you) melts and makes a delicious mess. Mmm. No. Mmmmm.

 And you can totally sit at Gloria Jean's and eyeball the shoppers/vetti people loitering about EA. Paradoxically making you one of the vetti lot, but how fun it is to run people down when you're with your girls from school.

You'll notice how the last four senteces started with an "And." So grammatically incorrect, so emphatically true.

Tamil Pride, y'all!/Hotel Sangeetha (NOT the chain).

OK. First thing that comes to your mind when I say... Tamilian food.

Home-y, comforting, satisfying? If you're a hostelite.

Bland, boring, blah? Especially if you've had idli for breakfast, rasam sadam for lunch and kal dosai for dinner. Three days in a row.

Naturally, when we go out, I vehemently protest against any Tamilian restaurant. Except those times when on duty, I'd be so hungry, and W would pick up just what I crave by looking at my Hungryface:  A bowl of piping hot Sambar saadham with chips and pickle from Hot Chips (sometimes he charms them into giving extra kootu/poriyal with his Tamil).

Something that'd fill my stomach, and the hole in my being (Which wanted to vegetate in front of the TV or gossip over the phone with school-friends instead of doing rounds at 10:30 PM). So except for those testing times, I'd turn down tamil food, because I find the ones turned out by restaurants somewhat insipid, soul-less and lacking.

Of course, there are places like Raintree at Taj Connemera which makes delicious kuzhi paniyarams and pazharasam. Hot Chips, that offered sustenance during my internship days, in the form of mini-meals and the 12-rupee filter coffee. The piping hot sakkara pongal/Jil-Jil-Jigarthanda at Murugan Idli Kadai, that somehow makes the road to Obesity a happy, satisfying one.

And there are places that try to make Tamil food posh. You know, deja vu-inducing yellow rooms, dirty ketchup squirter-bottles on the table, A/C hall upstairs kind of places. Where they expect you to pay Rs. 150 for an oily dosai. *Cough*Saravana Bhavan*Cough*. Just because they have branches at Kuwait or New Jersey or wherever.

Indha paruppu en kita vegaadhu (doesn't go down well with me, approximately).

Nitpicking aside, the moral of my long-winded story is that I avoid Tamilian restaurants. It almost never stands up to its home-cooked counterparts. Like this kick-ass Thayir Semiya C's mom makes; one of the dishes that I eat by the bowlful, one of the reasons I visit their house often (amongst a host of others) and one of the recipes I've never tried because I know it'll never taste half as good and that'll kill the magic.

But because something is better than nothing (Mathematics, don't you know?), I tag along when the family dines out on Sunday nights. The real moral of the story: Completely unexpectedly, I discovered a simple restaurant that I LOVE, and it has undoubtedly been one of the best places I've been to, in the last couple of years.

I've gone there five times after the discovery last year. The number may double in the next few months. Hotel Sangeeta (NOT OF THE Apoorva Sangeetha chain or any other chain) is a stand-alone restaurant that is bang opposite the Egmore Railway station. They're basically a business hotel with lodging or whatever, but don't let that fool you into thinking this is some wannabe 2-star basement restaurant. The place is spotless, the cutlery simple and the menu refreshing and basic.



The Specials keep changing each day!



Straight onto what we ate:

I had the Rava Onion Dosai, priced at Rs. 40. I asked the staff if it could be made with no oil. They told me, in honest Tamil, that at least a little is used on the griddle for greasing, but they'd try. And they delivered on the promise. A non-oily, crispy, delicious rava dosa, stuffed with onions and studded with whole peppercorns.

That's the chozha poori. I'm not fond of chozha poori. Or poori channa.

I liked the chana gravy though, and I'm sure poori lovers would have a hay day. Between 35 and 45 bucks per plate.

Masala Dosai. It's that simple. Yummy turmeric-infused mashed potatoes in a delicious dosa. SOLD.

Some healthy venthaya dosai (fenugreek dosa), with vada curry. If you haven't ever tried vada curry in your life, you're missing out on something big. It tastes like masala vada, unfried, cooked in a robust gravy. Our version of the malai kofta maybe? Only a hundred times better, obviously. The vada curry here is pretty good, but definitely doesn't hold a candle to the one my maid makes. Nevertheless, it was completely devoured.

Ooh, the onion oothapam that we always order! The mark of a good tamilian restaurant, I tell you. Do you even need me to tell you how it was here? The sambar, podi and chutneys are a revelation: they're all-natural, have no flavour additives and still taste amazing.

And couldn't resist the temptation of sharing a Madras filter coffee, even though it was ten in the night, and I was probably wrecking my circadian rhythm.
Sorry to be all bundle-of-contradictions on you, but filter coffee is the true mark of a tamilian
restaurant. Along with idlis. And the chutney/sambhar. Mmmm. Filter coffee. Mmm. Stealing an extra portion for myself.

One of the most honest, cheapest meals I've had in such a long time. You know when you should truly, really go, though? Sunday mornings. Between 7 and 10. They do a fantastic Tamilian brunch. A buffet of idli, vada, idiyappam, sambar vada, pongal, uppuma, dosai, payasam, pineapple/chikkoo kesari, filter coffee. Unlimited. Rs. 75 for an adult, and Rs. 40 for children under the age of 5. I'm NOT lying.

I even wish it were a little more expensive that, so the crowd would be lesser. But something tells me any person with half a brain would pay a whole lot more for this. I would, and I like to think I have both cerebral hemispheres intact.

The only Telugu word I know (Apart from the bad ones): Bhojanam.

There used to be this misconception about continental food. For instance, if your date says continental cuisine is his favourite, you were dealing with either a poser or rich-dude-with-a-cultured palate. Source: Cosmopolitan India, early 2000s.

Right.

What is so cultured about eating a piece of cheese is beyond me. I'll stop with the puns.

I'm a big fan of Middle-Eastern/Mediterranean food myself and I don't know how that comes off; asking me to choose my favourite cuisine is synonymous with asking what my favourite body organ is. Would you rather make do without your spleen or kidney?! Hmm. Debatable.

 It keeps changing from year to year, season to season (the favourite cuisine bit). Before the hummus/baba ghanoush/pita bug bit me, it was Thai. Phad thai, Tom Yum soup, Thai Green Curry with steamed rice. Mmm. OK, I can't make up my mind.

And whilst I love Tamilian food (soul food, childhood memories, similar weepy metaphors), other parts of South India, not so much. Can't stand coconut oil (it reminds me of shiny heads, the smell of which gets compounded by the humidity, in the Ladies Compartment of the local train). Gah. Mangalorean, yum, but most of it I consider Tamilian.

Andhra food. Have you ever felt that your Telugu friends are laughing at you at the table? A friend of my brother's would make this joke every Eid: "Aunty, unga biryani sweet romba nalla iruku." Lunch at their house would consist of their family laughing while we cough-choked-sputtered over the spiciness of the food. If the spice had been toned down, I'd have enjoyed it very, very much, presumably. Never got to find out.

We took an old employee of ours out for lunch the other day; she's getting married in a month, and she decided that after seven years of "dead food" ("seththa sapaadu") at our house, she would love it if we went to a Chettinad restaurant. I left the room before I let my face slump. I could grow up enough to face furiously red gravy hiding beneath three inches of oil. I could, and I would.

That's how I found myself at Amaravathi, at Cathedral Road, on Sunday afternoon. I ate a lot of yummy food, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I ate my pompous spiel on Andhra food as well.

The ambience is flamboyantly Andhra Pradesh, staking out on a little bit of Madras. You can spot things made of brass, a wide-screen TV playing Gemini TV and the smell the aroma and hear the sounds of chillies being fried in oil.

We got there at around one and thereby unintentionally-but-fortunately avoided the mad rush for tables.

 The tables already had banana leaves on them, and I helped myself to the gongura pickle even before our menus reached the table. The menu is such a relief, I tell you. It's hardly two pages long. There isn't any clutter with "Chinese" or "Tandoor". And there are no scary things like rabbit or pheasant. Here's where I ask vegetarians and vegans to skip this post.

Mango pickle, gongura, gun powder and salt.

Between the seven of us, we each had the Vindhu Bhojanam (except my sister, who had an Andhra style paratha), two orders of the Mutton Chukka, a plate of fried fish and a plate of brains masala.

Vindhu Bhojanam is the Andhra version of our humble Ela Sappadu. The head-waiter appeared two minutes after we placed the order, with little eversilver buckets that had our pappu keerai (some spinach-like keera cooked with lentils), a chutney and potato-poriyal. Next, he brought around a hotbox of huge proportions and shovelled rice onto our leaves; I had to hurriedly put out an arm so he couldn't build a mountain of steaming rice on my banana leaf, like he had done with the others. Little containers of sambar, rasam and thick curd were doled out next. A bucket of fish and chicken curry (minus the meat) were left at the table.

The waiter is like an old uncle at his daughter's wedding; a gracious host admonishing us to eat more, and appearing magically each time any one of us ran low on any of the individual components. On Dad's request, he gave a short instruction on how to approach the food.

First, a portion of rice had to be mixed with the gunpowder (a crazy-delicious mix of powdered dal and chillies) and ghee. Yes, I know how many calories are in half a teaspoon of ghee. Worth it, easily. I could have just had the rice-gunpowder-ghee combo and walked out a happy, satiated camper.

I separated my rice into eight little portions. One I mixed with the gongura. One, with the sambar. One with the chutney, one with the chicken curry, one with the fish curry, and so on. The spice is in the food complements it wonderfully. Enough to open up your eyes and hit every taste bud, but not so much that you start coughing and rush for the water (rookie mistake, by the way. Water worsens the burn, always reach for plain rice).

The chicken curry was fantastic; the spice in it toned down by the coconut milk. Fish curry, spicy and oily, but not too much of either. The pappu keerai, I loved, because I can be a weirdo who loves healthy, light food that do wonderful things for my body. Even the sambar had a little bit of a kick to it!

My concentration was wholly occupied only by smelling and eating the bhojanam, only to be broken when the "side-dishes" were brought. I have got to stop saying things like kick and side dish, but memories of the gongura and ETv muddle my brain even as I'm typing.

The mutton sukka. I'm not a fan, but that's because mutton as such is not something I enjoy. Yes, you can be muslim and not like mutton. It's allowed. I checked. The gravy in which it was chukka'd (baked/roasted/broiled) was tasty, though!

The murrel fish was batter-fried and delicious. Fish I love in most of its avatars, and this one was gorgeously cooked and had practically no spice, but good flavour. If I'm going to be a grouch, I'd say the portion was too little.

I don't have a picture of the Andhra paratha or the brains masala. My sister says the paratha was "yummy-licious!" in a tone she tries copying from Nigella (we're all big fans). You can take her word for it. She's six-and-three-quarters.

Brains masala was finished by the time I could click a photo. Order it if you're daring (not Fear Factor-daring, don't be a dramatic wuss. Planet Food-daring, may be).

The meal I finally ended with rice mixed with curd, scooped up by vadams and appalams. I only accepted more rice because I didn't want to offend the hospitable staff, but, damn, that was a good decision. Finished all of it!

Dessert consists of a sweet/banana/paan plate, but I gave it a miss and helped myself to a handful of the candied fennel instead. The family didn't though. It ended on a sweet note any way, as Mum didn't crib/cringe when the bill arrived (as swiftly as the food and the clearing up) and that almost trumps dessert.