Gryffindor-y Plum-and-Mango Parfait/Potterhead grows up.

A day without dessert is not a day worth living. A day without running on the treadmill? Yay. A day without taking a bath? Allowed if you don't step out of your room. A day without meals? Totally doable. A day without dessert? Not worth living.

It's OK if it's just yogurt with granulated white sugar (dahi-cheeni/thayir-chakkarai) sprinkled on top. Or a tiny square of Lindt's Dark Chocolate with Almonds and Oranges. There has to be something sweet, preferably with chocolate or peanut butter in it.

And it's more than OK if it's mint chocolate-chip ice-cream with extra dark chocolate chips and hot fudge sauce. Actually, it's the ultimate.

But, sometimes, you have to restrict yourself. You're in charge of making dessert for people who are diabetic, on a diet, and the like. Simple dessert, with healthy fruit, can be a delight... just make sure you use the freshest of ingredients and local produce.

As much as I wanted to make Butterbeer cupcakes in celebration of Harry Potter 7, Part II, I didn't have the ingredients for or the inspiration to, after a hard day at work. So I decided to make something with Gryffindor-y colours, something that is breakfast, dessert and healthy, all at the same time. Damn. I am growing up.

Here's my take on a Plum and Mango parfait.

I've tried to keep it as light and healthy as possible, but feel free to jazz it with greek yogurt or whipped cream and the aforementioned dark chocolate chips. It's all good.

Gryffindor-y Parfait/Plum-and-mango parfait:

1 ripe mango, chopped into bite-size pieces

For the plum sauce:
6-7 ripe plums, stoned and halved
juice of half a lemon, lemon peel
a cinnamon stick
2 star anise
some nutmeg, grated
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup water

Yogurt or Greek Yogurt or Whipped cream

Granola, 1 batch =>preferably with plenty of figs, almonds, walnuts and the like.

Method:

For the plum sauce:

In a medium-sized saucepan, bring together the ingredients for the plum reduction and place on medium heat. Cook all of it together until the plums gets completely softened.

Add more water to keep from burning, if necessary. Add more sugar if your plums are tart.

Take it off the heat. Remove the cinnamon stick, lemon peel and star anise.

For the parfaits:

In a couple of glass bowls (so you can see the layering), place the chopped mangoes in the bottom. Add some of yogurt.

Add the plum sauce.

Add some more yogurt.

Sprinkle with a handful of granola.

You can change the order, add more layers, whatever makes you happy. Just remember to serve it immediately.

This made for an unusually yummy breakfast. I don't know if it was the healthy fruit-and-nut-and-oats-and-honey thing or the tabloid supplement of Deccan Chronicle or the Harry Potter connection (and I must add I was going to watch the movie that day, as well). I was happy.

Cinnamon Rolls, creme de la creme style.

I seem to be on a bit of an old-school kick lately. It started with the Apple Crumble. I couldn't get over how the whole house smelt like when those apples were baking in the cinnamon-butter. Less than a couple of days later, I had one of those baking urges... it may or may not have been triggered by the fresh yeast I found at Nilgris.

Bread. Nothing like bread to help get over a stressful day at work. It feels like an accomplishment, when it's golden and soft and beautiful. When it flops, you'll feel like a failure, but that's just an occupational hazard.

How does one max the whole bread-baking experience to the extreme? Bring out the lovelies, of course-whole sticks of cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg; dark brown sugar that'll melt into the honey-butter to give out sizzling caramel and a bevy of nuts and dried fruit.

They all go and make the delicious wonder that are Cinnamon Rolls.

Cinnamon rolls are hard to come across in Madras. And when you do, they're an insult to cinnamon rolls. It makes you angry, almost, that these bakeries/shops can underestimate "uncultured Madrasis" and give us a sad, stale bun and call it a cinnamon roll. Eejits.

You can fight for your right for authentic cinnamon rolls. Or just make them yourself, already. Bet you knew that was coming!

So when it comes to searching for the recipe, I have two off-the-top of my head options. The Pioneer Woman has a kickass recipe for old-fashioned cinnamon rolls. Joy ups your regular cinnamon roll by dabbing on cream cheese. I took the goodness out of both the recipes, threw in my secret Spiced-sugar mix and used gorgeous, gorgeous fresh yeast in the place of Active Dry and oooh, baby. Bakery-style cinnamon rolls.

I made one batch healthy (relatively, at least), by cutting down the sugar and butter, replacing half the all-purpose flour with whole wheat and Nutralite instead of butter, the whole nine yards. The result was relatively delicious-a hot, fluffy bun you could enjoy with your morning cuppa that won't make you feel like your morning run went for a toss with two bites.

And the other batch, I went all out. Pecans, walnuts, raisins. REAL "cake" butter. Coorg honey by the spoonful. And white, white flour. Sticky, sweet cinnamon buns with caramelized nuts embedded between flaky bits of the roll. They need no frosting or glaze, but if you like Cinnabon and Krispy Kreme doughnuts, you could try coating it with glaze... And let me know once you crash from the sugar-high. I'm not judging; I'm a believer in the occasional sugar high.

I'll post the recipe for the uber-yummy batch. Mail me if you want the healthy one, don't be shy... told you I won't judge.

And the process might sound a bit complicated, so a full read-through could save you from potentially expensive disasters.

Cinnamon Rolls.

Ingredients:

4 cups whole milk.
1 cup vegetable oil.
1 cup granulated white sugar.
9 cups All-purpose flour (maida)
2 packed tablespoons Fresh yeast (or 4.5 tsps Instant Dry Yeast)
1 tsp baking powder.
1 tsp baking soda.
1 tsp salt.

For the filling:

3/4 cup butter.
2 tablespoons honey.

1/2 cup brown sugar.
1-1/4 cups white sugar, powdered
1 whole cinnamon bark-roll (or loads of powdered cinnamon)
5 cloves.
1/4 tsp nutmeg, grated.
1/2 cup pecans, chopped.
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped.
1/2 cup raisins.

Method:

In a bowl, combine the milk, vegetable oil and sugar. Mix well and place over a medium flame. Just before it comes to a boil, take it off the heat. Cool it for 45 minutes to one hour.

Dissolve the yeast in a ladleful of the warm (NOT HOT) mix. Add it back into the pan. After a minute, add 8 cups of All-purpose flour and fold it into the milk. Cover the bowl, keep aside in the warmest area of your kitchen for an hour.

After an hour, it will look like this. Add one more cup of flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir the mix together. At this point, the dough can be wrapped with cling film and kept in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

Making the spice mix:

Blitz the brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg together. To this powdered mix, add the chopped nuts and raisins. Keep aside.

Making the rolls.

Place half the dough on a well-floured clean work surface/marble-ish counter top.

Roll it out into a rough rectangle.

Roll the rectangle out some more until it's just a tiny bit thicker than you would roll for parathas.

Pour half the melted butter over it. Pour a tablespoonful of honey over the butter. Sprinkle half your sugar-spice mix.

Massage it all into the dough.

Start rolling the dough from left to right.

Cut it into slices.

Place the rolls in a well-greased and foil-ed baking tray. Leave enough space between the rolls. Let them rise for 30 minutes.

In the meanwhile, preheat your oven to 180 C or 350 F.

The rolls would have puffed up some more. Bake for 20-25 minutes until they are golden and puffy.

You can sprinkle extra sugar-spice mix over the hot rolls or dab some cream cheese on them or making a simple glaze with a little buttermilk and icing sugar.

The only downside is that these have to be eaten in a day. I refrigerated the plastic-wrapped, unbaked rolls for a couple of days (remember to let them thaw out for 30 minutes before putting them into the oven) and they came out just as good great.

I know I've been posting errantly, thanks to the unholy hours of my new job. But if leaking out my cinnamon roll recipe isn't saying Sorry enough, I don't know what is.

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.

Omm-lay du Frrromage!/Brunch, Part 2!

I'm pretty sure all of you know how to make an omelette and churn out smoothies.

Still, omelettes are something I manage to routinely screw up. I always use lesser oil than I'm supposed to, or my pan isn't non-sticky enough or the high heat makes fried-rice eggs out of them. Sometimes they brown up too much, sometimes they aren't cooked enough for me to flip/fold over.

Mum says I'm just picky.

However, as I'm sure all of you have been taught by experience and know how to fry a couple of eggs, so I'll post my modified Tortilla de Patatas recipe. You need atleast 6 eggs to make that fluffy, potato-Spanish omelette.Since nobody at the household are big fans of the egg/potato combination, I use just 2 eggs and make a thin crepe-like omelette. What's not to like? Eggs, good. Potatoes, good. Bread, gooood. Yes, I grew up watching Friends.

And for as for the smoothie, it isn't weekend brunch, more like a weekday breakfast because it takes approximately two minutes to make and ten minutes to consume. If you want to take it easy on your day off, make this, drink it up and go out and get overpriced coffee and buttery croissants later.

Easy Fruit Smoothie:

Recipe Source: ME. As in Rabia.

Ingredients:

4 plump strawberries, hulled and halved.
1 banana, frozen overnight, cut into chunks.
1/3 cup yogurt (low-fat is fine)
1/3 cup cold milk (low fat is fine)
1/3 cup granola/muesli
Ice cubes, for serving.

Method:

Pulse/Blitz all of the ingredients in the food processor/mixie.

The granola had berries and nuts in it! Yum.

I freeze the banana, so I can use it in lieu of ice cubes that will water down my smoothie in an unpleasant manner. Baggry's Fruit N Fibre muesli is what I used (for the extra strawberry flavour), but any granola with a teensy bit of brown/raw sugar should do.

You can play with the combinations. Mango in place of strawberries, with a little elaichi, in the summer, maybe. Blueberries if you have access to fresh berries. Dates and bananas. Mmm. Flavoured yogurt, if added sugar is kosher to you. Too many choices, not enough Weight Watchers points.

I sincerely hope you know I'm kidding.

The mint-failed attempt at Chef-ing it. Never you mind.

Take advantage of seasonal produce, and since we've got strawberries flooding the market at Madras, I used them. You can pick up a box at Rs. 55 at Mint (sowcarpet) and similar neighbourhoods or at the more high-end greengrocers' for Rs. 100.

Spanish omelette a la Rabia:

Recipe Source: If it turns out good, it's mine. Lol. Mine, either way.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
5 thin slices of uncooked potato.
1/2 cup chopped bell-pepper (green, orange, red, yellow)
1/4 cup chopped onion
Salt & Pepper, to taste.
1 tbsp olive oil.
A matchbox-sized cube of feta/2 tbsps of grated Parmesan.

Method:

In a bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, salt and pepper until nice and frothy.

Heat a small, non-stick saucepan on medium-high. Add the oil.

When hot, drop in the potato. Let it sizzle around for a while on low heat until it becomes fork-tender. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper. Try one of the slices. If you feel it's done, it's done.

Take the slices out and saute the onion. When pinkish, throw in the peppers, and saute until just heated through. Sprinkle some more salt and pepper. Soggy peppers do not a good omelette make.

Strategically place the potato slices around the pan, onion, peppers and all. Douse it all with the egg mix. Add a few drops of olive oil if you deem it necessary.

When the omelette holds it shape, sprinkle the cheese. Fold over, if you like runny eggs or flip and cook the other side if you like your eggs fully cooked.

Serve garnished with fresh/dried herbs. I use dried parsley, extra pepper and freshly chopped coriander/cilantro.

And pick up some good bread to go with it, won't you? I bought this fabulous multi-seeded bread at Nilgris; a whole-wheat bread with grains of rye, sprinkled generously with pumpkin seeds. I toast it for a tiny bit, and serve it hot with the omelette.

Another good way to ruin the posh-ness of it all would be squirt a little ketchup when nobody is watching. Oh, come on. It's Sunday. Rules are for wusses and weekdays.

Pancakes/ Brunch, Part 1.

I used to love My Disney Kitchen as a child. The computer game, where you potter around the kitchen, baking cakes and popping corn? No clue? Thought so much. Normal childhood, huh?

But, seriously. Nothing evoked the psychic phase of my childhood digestion (read: salivation), like that cartoon picture of a stack of pancakes, with the maple syrup dripping off it, and a white square of butter occupying the place of pride.

I practically nagged everyone going to the USA to bring back those cheerfully-yellow packs of Bisquick (back then, Madras didn't stock them. Trust me, I tried hunting them down). Ninth-standard cookery classes paid off though: I finally learnt how to make pancakes from scratch. Do I hear the green-carders heaving a sigh of relief?

It's easy to screw up pancakes (Read: rubbery, heavy, holey pancakes). Just as easy to churn out the perfect stack of fluffy, steaming pancakes, though.
It's also easy to buy yourself a pack of Bisquick or Betty Crocker's pancake mix. It's even easier to go down the DIY route. Easier, and more fulfilling.

You need two bowls, one griddle, and things that could be dug out of the average Indian pantry. Make it your own, putting in whatever you like-chocolate chips, fruit, nuts. Reserve some batter for the old-fashioned type pancakes-with-syrup and butter, though.

Pancakes!

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour (maida)
1/4 cup sugar, powdered
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup yoghurt (does not have to be thick)
1 cup milk
2 eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled

Method:

1) Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a large bowl. All your dry ingredients, basically. Mix well.

This is the only time I've advocated the use of homemade
 or lowfat yoghurt!

2)In another bowl, combine the milk, yoghurt, melted butter and eggs. Whisk it. I say, Whisk it. Whisk it good. Teh teh teh teh teh.


I'll stop singing.

3)Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Fold in the wet batter. DO NOT OVERMIX.

It's OK if there are little lumps or streaks of flour. To overmix would be the Dementor's kiss to the pancakes.

4)Heat the griddle (any normal non-stick dosa tawa would do). Mildly grease it with butter/cooking spray. You do not have to keep adding butter or oil for each pancake. Yay.

5)Ladle out some of the batter (around 1/4 cup) onto the warm griddle). Make mini-pancakes or a nice big one, but you need a thickness of atleast 1.5 cm.

Ideal time to flip it over!

Add in the chocolate chips/nuts/apple bits if you are planning to.


When you see bubbles burst on the surface, flip them over. They should be a nice, golden brown on the cooked side. A couple of minutes on each side would be my guesstimate.

You could also try shapes. When I do, though, people play "Let's guess what it is?!" over breakfast.



It's a heart, OK? Once I'm done cutting the bits off, at least.



A couple of teaspoons of Hershey's chocolate sauce finishes it off!

6)Best served straight off the griddle, but if you want to keep them all warm until later, stow them away in the oven set to "Keep Warm" option. If you don't have that option, just reflip them until warm on the griddle again. I would not recommend this though.

Recipe: Adapted from AJ's Cooking Secrets.

Serving options:
You can have them straight, but they won't satiate your sweet tooth, if you have one. So, here you go.

Honey+butter.
Chocolate chips in the batter+chocolate sauce
Chocolate chips batter+chocolate sauce+chocolate ice cream/whipped cream. (Just kidding. Mostly).
Pecans/walnuts/almonds in the batter+Maple syrup.
Sprinkling of powdered sugar (if you can't stand syrup early in the morning.)
Fruits+whipped cream.
Bananas+Nutella.
Strawberry Coulis.

Strawberry Coulis:

1 cup strawberries, hulled.
2 tbsp water (I used the liquid left over from a cherry tin for an extra twang)
2 tbsp white sugar

1)Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stir until the sugar has completely dissolved.

2)Cool, beat with a hand-blender or in a mixie. Sieve.

It tastes way better than it looks!

 I completely skipped this step (as you can see), because I'd crossed my threshold by then. Store in the refrigerator for up to a week, covered. Leaps better than any storebought cough-syrupy strawberry topping.
.
Ooh. One more very important step. Dig in.

Brunch my way, through the day! Yay!

Brunch is one of the two things I love so much, I'd marry it. It makes me say lame, happy things. Refer to the title.

Languid Sundays are best started over Brunch. Tapas-style, bits of this and that, are spread out on the table. People jostle around, trying to get the last masala-vadai or croque-monsieur. As I've mentioned before, brunch is something I missed terribly during my internship.

This Sunday, to make up for all those working Sundays, I decided to create a holiday. Brunch Day. Imaginative name, I know. All day long, I eat nothing but brunch. Brunch for breakfast, brunch for lunch, brunch for dinner.

It roughly follows this pattern. Mini-pancakes-three-ways for breakfast. The first batch I made with chocolate chips in it, drizzled with chocolate sauce.

The second one had toasted nuts and served with lashings of honey and a pat of butter.

The last one, I made a strawberry-coulis to serve on the side.

The pancakes are Delicious-ness personified. I could eat a whole stack of them (and I would have, if I didn't have the large-Indian-family eating each one just as soon as I flipped it). It's like you're caught in limbo when you have a steaming hot pancake, fresh off the griddle, sizzling around in honey-butter. You have to try it to believe it.

And then you meet your skinny *beep* of a cousin. She can wear tank tops. People offer her food out of pity. And suddenly, you wake up from your pancake-induced coma. Take one look at your oversized pajamas. Thank your brother for eating the last two pancakes (so he is useful. Who'd have thought?)

Lunch suddenly gets way less ambitious. Fruit-and-low-fat yoghurt get thrown into the mixie with a handful of granola. Blitz. Bliiiitttzz. Ice cubes on top. Smoothie! If you have no annoying Barbie-like relatives, sneak in a tablespoon of honey and some nuts.

Since you've been so virtuous (the pancakes were in the dream, remember?), you can afford to be a little indulgent at dinner. So I treated myself to my version of Tortilla de Patatas. A little throwback to the tapas I was referring to.

Incidentally, when will Time Travel actually become reality? Because I would totally do this day over again.

If you're the blah-ish, normal types, whose whole day doesn't revolve around what you're eating for lunch, you can still try any one of the recipes and impress people with it. I'll be posting them over the course of the next two days. I just had to gloat today. Please don't hate me.

Oh. And the other thing I love so much, I'd marry it? It could be chocolate. Keep guessing, though! 

Eat. Eat. Love.

"Weekdays la weekend-ukku wait pannu vome."

That's just a lame line from the comedy track of an equally lame movie. Tamil movies are rampant with guys-with-no-jobs or whatever. But seriously, who doesn't count the hours until it's Friday/Saturday? Mostly to catch up on The Simpsons. Or if you feel like losing money the good way (eating, duh/d'oh), here are the places I emptied my wallet at, recently.

I would like to warn you though. Vegetarians, all of it is... not vegetarian.

And my meat-eating friends, all of it is chicken.

1) Bombay Sheek House:

Saturday night. You've just watched a movie/play/concert. It's 8:30 PM. And you've landed up on Greams Road. The popcorn didn't fill you up enough to last through dinner. Maybe you're lucky enough to have an extended curfew, and even luckier to have a couple of hours to kill, driving down to the beach. Make a pitstop at Fruit Shop. Get yourself a drink (Lime Mint Cooler/Fruit Cocktail Regular/Jughead's Special are the ones I order, depending on how generous I feel that day).

My vegetarian friends could arm themselves with a frankie/vada pav from Tibbs. Highly doubt they've stuck around after the warning, though.

A metre or so away, inside the Fruit Shop parking lot, is an incredible little kebab joint which had been unnamed until recently. Now it's called Bombay Sheek House (or was it Corner?). Not a very creative name, I know. But this place is not about creating miniscule portions of fancy food. More about serving amazingly cooked, amazingly spiced, tender old-fashioned kebabs in a jiffy.

This wasn't even on the menu. We asked for chicken tikka, in a roomali roti. I almost couldn't finish it, it was that filling. And I did finish it, because it was that good! Cost hardly 70 bucks.

2)If you decide to drive down to the beach straight, I know you'll go to Pupil. Duh, again. We're talking about Besant Nagar beach, right? (Marina after seven is just plain dangerous). Next to Pupil, there's another multi-cuisine-ish shack now, where we ordered a plate of Haryali Chicken Tikka.

It was expensive. And good, but the expense of it is what I remember more. Around eight little pieces cost about 130 bucks. Which sounds reasonable, I guess. Not at a little shack, but in a non-descript, yellow-lit room with cutlery. Still. You have the beach as part of the bargain.

3)And the last two chicken dishes are from Sparkys. They won't be good, taken away or eaten in the car. This is the kind of thing that takes approximately two hours to finish. See for yourself. Sunday lunch, maybe?

The promised photo of the Breaded Chicken Wrap! With a side of wedges (I've raved enough about those!) and a honey-mustard and buffalo sauce. Comes up to Rs.160 or so, plus tax, which is justifiable on a Sunday (no?). However, if it's a celebratory lunch of some sort, go ahead and order the...

The Grilled Chicken American meal. Two chicken breasts, spiced with a cajun rub consisting of cayenne pepper, garlic powder and the like. Grilled to perfection. Served with sauteed veggies (squash, zucchini, local produce), potato wedges, gravy AND a salad. All amounting to Rs. 210. Proper paisa vasool, if you ask me.

I also dined and lunched recently at two of the very best places at Madras (one south-Indian and the other Greek/Cypriot-any guesses?), so look out for those reviews!

And on a less happy note, I've given up on those pants. Don't even ask. Sigh.