British food in London
Great Queen Street Pub, an easy walk from the British Museum
British food, for the rest of us outside Britain, brings to mind fish and chips or bangers and mash. But if like me, you have grown up with Tuppy Glossop’s midnight adventures with steak and kidney pie, you wish a cook as good as Anatole who can make you just such a pie. Now with the revival of British cuisine and gastro pubs, someone just may serve you one.
Desi food in London
 Dishoom, dishoom ... |
 Dishoom with its seventies look |
 Fried calamari with a set of spicy sauces |
 Shish Kababs and roomali roti, what else ... |
 Chicken tikka |
 Naan with Keema |
A few blocks from Seven Dials, is an Indian restaurant named Dishoom. The sound of a punch landing on your opponent in Bollywood movies has the sound “Dishoom“. Kids when mimicking fights do it with the sound effect “dishoom”, “dishoom”, … So there is indeed something endearing and playful in the name. The restaurant exudes hipness, although like any other Indian restaurant the service is a bit languid. Walls are decorated with an old world charm of mirrors and pictures of Bollywood movies and stars. You can watch the tandoor in action while waiting for food. We ate here a couple times and really enjoyed the “roomali” roti with the shish kababs. Roomal is Hindi word for handkerchief. Yes, sir, these breads are indeed as thin as the handkerchief. The dough is similar to naan/pizza and they are hand rolled like pizza, swirled in air to get the thinness and briefly cooked in the tandoor. I haven’t seen roomali rotis served in Indian restaurants in US. I found the food to be competent but the menu is limited to typical North Indian dishes that westerners associate with Indian food.
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Fast food in London
Pret a Manger sandwich and crisps
It is now a little over two months since our London trip. I hadn’t meant to slip so far behind in my writing but it has happened. I can only hope that the memories have aged like cheese! We had stayed in a tiny but super-cute apartment in London, which was practically on top of the Neal’s Yard at Seven Dials. I am pretty sure that on a summer afternoon, an open window in the apartment will bring in the mingled aroma of aged cheeses from Neal’s Yard Diary. We didn’t open the windows on account of the cold but we did breakfast on their cheeses and their imported Poilâne’s bread.
Red Fort and a food walk in Old Delhi neighborhood
My fondest childhood memory of visiting Delhi includes the Sound and Light show at Red Fort. Visiting Red Fort as an adult is a bit of emotional roller coaster ride for me. Looking at the damage caused by years of artillery practice during British Army’s residence here can be depressing. On the other hand, it is an exhilarating place to watch visitors from small towns of India, their excitement very palpable and uplifting. Away from the congestion of Old Delhi, vast spaces such as Red Fort make your imagination soar. While it is practically impossible to imagine Yamuna flowing next to the fort, it is relatively easy, thanks to Bollywood, to imagine the beautiful Moghul women in their flimsy silk sarees walking by Yamuna fed Nahr-i-Behisht in Rang Mahal. In any case, Red Fort is still a place that awes, particularly if you live in Delhi. For this photo series from summer of 2009, click here.
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While navigating Old Delhi is never easy, some of the food shops here have been serving generations of loyal customers. For a walk with a group of foodies this summer that includes Jalebi, Kheer, Stuffed naans and parathas click here.
One more reason to go to Ferry Building
 Mini cakes at Miette |
 Chocolate ganache cake |
Ferry Building at San Francisco is perhaps my favorite spot in the city when I am feeling lazy or when the weather is not at its best. They have everything to cheer you up – good coffee (Blue Bottle), good food (Slanted Door), good chocolates (Recchiuti), good bread (Acme), good cheese (Cowgirl creamery), the Farmer’s market and excellent views. This time, I found another reason, Miette Cakes. We picked up a chocolate ganache cake and it was delicious. The chocolate was intense (Scharffen Berger). The size was big enough to share with significant other and small enough to disallow fat/sugar overdose.
Coffee and Chocolate at Four Barrel
Four Barrel Espresso Station
Four Barrel on Valencia is a well reviewed coffee mecca in Mission District of San Francisco. The queues are long but is a good opportunity to watch city fashions. The space has a modern warehouse look with a coffee bar at the entrance, the main coffee station in the middle and stock at the back. Seating is somewhat minimal but if you hang out long enough, you are bound to find a table. The coffee bar is akin to a wine bar where you pay to sample their brews. My husband was very excited about the coffee after having sampled 4 varietals! The music is played in an old fashioned way where a real person selects a record out of the collection and plays it on a record player. Unless you want a caffeine kick that makes you want to dance a jitterbug, I recommend picking their brew of the day, grabbing a seat and watching the extensive and non-hurried ritual the baristas follow.
How to take on the summer heat in Kolkata
 The smaller "bubblegum" variety |
 Immature seeds of palm fruit |
Summer in Kolkata is typically not hotter than 100F but your skin feels like a dripping faucet, each pore that is. After a while, you don’t even want to wipe off the sweat. It is cooler to not have to make that effort. At times like this, the only remedy is to take a cool shower. As the cooling begins, feel free to sing aloud in bliss. After the shower, move as quickly as possible to the nearest air-conditioned room. Switch on the ceiling fan at full speed and sprawl on a bed – maximum surface area for the skin-air contact. When you need to be out in the heat again, do so and repeat the cooling regime.
Eating fish in Calcutta
Fresh caught fish
Bengalis are enthusiastic fish eaters. We eat fried fish in rich curries. We steam fillets papillote style. We fry fish heads with rice or slow cook them with lentils. The fatty fish entrails are fried and eaten with rice. In dhabas, bones from large fish are added as flavoring to vegetables. Small bait are fried whole and eaten as snacks with tea. Fish eggs are made into fritters.
I am sure I eat a pound of fish a day when I am visiting Calcutta. So when father offered to take me fishing, I decided to follow the fish trail from source to plate. Unlike the last fishing trip, this was a visit to the a nearby village where father has friendly access to a pond. From the comfort of my metropolitan and cosmopolitan city lifestyle, I sport a very romantic view of villages in Bengal with their dirt roads and banana trees, and little kids playfully swimming in ponds lined with lotus and lilies, a vision born out of watching Satyajit Ray movies. Our air conditioned car landed us within a couple of blocks of the village pond in question. A recent windstorm had shredded the leaves of the banana plants lining the dirt path. Otherwise it was picture perfect village.
 Picture perfect village |
 Dragging the pond |
London in 4 Hours
When: 1 pm on a weekday
Where: Paddington, London
Why: An 8 hour layover in Heathrow
How: Heathrow-Paddington Express
 Looking towards Italian garden from Queen Anne's alcove in Hyde Park. Traffic included a few joggers, a handful of tourists, a couple of hobos and an office goer. |
 5 minutes later ... The office goer had a great sense of timing. He managed to duck in and out of rain rather effectively. |
The best thing about a short layover in Heathrow may be the Paddington express which takes you to the heart of the city in a mere 15 minutes. We had planned to explore the area around Paddington – Hyde park, and Oxford street neighborhoods – by foot. Our general strategy as we stepped out of the station was to find our way to Hyde Park, walk along the Serpentine to work up an appetite for fish and chips, for which we had narrowed down a couple of gastropubs. The sky looked partly cloudy and the ground looked fairly wet. On account of Mr. Weatherman’s promise of a cheery and bright 72 degree day, we were ill equipped for any potential rain. Hand in hand, my better half and I stepped out on the streets towards Hyde.
Cochon Butcher, Pigs and other good eats
Butcher, the sandwich shop
Cochon Butcher at New Orleans, is a two part restaurant near the well trodden conference center. Butcher is the sandwich counter and Cochon is the restaurant. Both are hip and popular and both serve excellent meats. On our last trip to New Orleans, finding a good eatery near the conference center became imperative. We decided to go to Butcher on day one and we kept going there for lunch until well after the conference had ended. Normally, we would have sampled several of their sandwiches but we decided to do for the Cuban sandwich on day one and that became a repeat order. The pig in this case is a suckling one (cochon du lait). Between their high quality breads, fresh pickles and excellent meat, it is hard to find faults even for a nitpicky eater like myself. Their boudin and salads are equally excellent. What was hard was eating all that and then paying attention to the conference content. Still harder would have been to not eat such excellent sandwiches to the last crumb.
Dinner was a more elaborate story. The highlight was popcorn fried alligator with a sauce worth licking the plate clean. Since the trip, the chef owner Stephen Stryjewski has won James Beard Award. Here are some assorted photos from the two …
Beignets of New Orleans
Cafe Du Monde @ Night
If you come to Cafe Du Monde in the morning, the place is like a zoo. You have to watch seated customers to catch for signs of a table about to be vacated – people taking their last beignet bite, wiping their mouths of the traces of the powdery white sugar. Then you rush to the still warm chairs and wait for your turn for the table to be cleared. The mostly Vietamese staff won’t pay any attention to your energetic gestures. Their coming and going will make little sense. Your turn will come when they are ready for you.
In the meantime, you can watch other customers. A mom taking a break from her hectic day with a plate of beignets, reading a magazine with one eye and watching her child sleep in the pram with other. A group of old friends or perhaps sisters, getting together for a chat, with what seems like several servings of beignet for each. And hoards of tourists.
Fritzel’s Jazz in New Orleans
Fritzel's @ NOLA
I am watching David Simon’s Tremé now, so I am planning my next trip to New Orleans around Tremé. However, during my last trip, like other first time tourists in New Orleans, I was bound to Bourbon Street. Fritzel’s, the European Style Jazz Bar on Bourbon street, proved to be a nightly attractor. It was packed almost every night, jam packed on the weekends.
You can end the night with a trip to Cafe du Monde. And if you ate all your beignets, an amateur side walk astronomer with his telescope will show you the moon spots or rings of Saturn.
Tucking in at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon
We may have gone a bit overboard while ordering. Our favorite – langoustine ravioli with truffle sauce.
 Roasted bone marrow on toast, sitting atop a bone |
 Quail with truffled mashed potatoes |
 Tower of eggplant, cheese and sundried tomatoes |
 Egg foam with mushrooms |
 Softshell crab tempura with avocado puree |
 Langoustine ravioli in truffle sauce |
 Mashed potatoes that didnt kill Omar Sharif - 1/2 lb butter to every lb of la ratte? |
 Strawberry and basil gelato. May I recommend dessert at Eric Keyser a block away? |
Les Fines Gueules
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Located near Place Victoires, on rue Croix des Petits Champs, Les Fines Gueules is beautiful both inside and out. I will remember it for two things:
- One of the best Loire reds that I have had so far.
- Eating la ratte potatoes with le boeuf tartare, the later being a specialty of this restaurant.
Space invader in Edith Piaf’s Paris
Edith Piaf is exciting. A guided tour in the neighborhood where Edith Piaf was born, not so. However, it was our only trip to the edges of Paris. An added bonus was Père Lachaise Cemetery. What stood out on the trip, besides graffiti on Oscar Wilde’s tomb, was this odd art work above a specialty food store overlooking one of the oldest churches in the city. Didn’t quite realize what we were looking at until we saw Banksy’s movie “Exit Through the Gift Shop”. If I am not mistaken, this is work of Space Invader. I forgot to take down the name of the church but it is one of the two churches in main Paris with an attached cemetery and only one with everyday public access to the cemetery.
 Distant view of the church |
 Church and the epicerie |
 Space invader art above Epicerie |
 Behind the church |
Le timbre, French tranditional cuisine by an English Chef
 Mackerel with beet puree |
 Blood sausage with mashed potatoes |
 Fatty pork on a bed of lentils |
 Outside Le Timbre |
Located near Jardin du Luxembourg, Le Timbre is another small and delightful bistro serving traditional cuisine. Yet another place where I had to restrain myself from eating a big block of foie gras with a bottle of wine and loaf of white bread.
A traditional Parisian lunch at Le Comptoir
 Le Comptoir Bar |
 Outside seating at Le Comptoir |
Californians eat lunch early, what with getting up early in the morning for the 5 mile jog or an hour of hot yoga or both. A Californian tourist in Paris arrives early at restaurants during the lunchtime and gets a seat. An hour later would typically mean an hour long wait. Except for one or two of the trendiest restaurants, a reservation thankfully is not needed. Most places in Paris, one gets by with a few words in English, a few in French and lots of energetic hand gestures and facial expressions. Try doing that on the phone. So yes, I am grateful for the no reservation needed situation.
Chocolatiers and pâtisseries of Paris
Macaroons from Pierre Hermé
Living a block away from Pierre Hermé and being restrained was perhaps the hardest thing I had to do in Paris. The first thing we tried was a small box of macaroons – jasmine, vanilla, cassis, rose, various chocolates, balsamic vinegar, pistachio, orange – if I had to recommend one, it would be cassis. Each was a bit sized piece but even in that single bite sized piece, there were three distinct textures and flavors, one that of the soft cookie on the outside, the second that of the tart jelly on the foot of the macaroon and third that of the rich, sweet and soft cream filling.
Mille-feuille (napoleon) was the one we just had to go back for the second time. It is a layered pastry with rich layers of soft chocolate and flaky layers of puff pastry – if you a need a reason to believe in Pierre Hermé’s genius, then this is it. They also had a bread advertised as chocolate bread but really was a chocolate croissant – a perfect take out lunch accompaniment.
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Lady in the Lake, hardboiled crime in Paris
 Hot chocolate slurry |
 Tea House at Passage Christine |
Of course in all great cities you walk and walk and walk. In Paris, you like me, perhaps choose to walk in good looking shoes. So, by the time evening rolls around, you are left sitting somewhere with very tired feet.
Le Reminet, a perfect Californian meal in Paris
 Le Reminet and neighboring wine bar |
 Le Reminet, Cozy interiors |
Food in Paris can be overwhelming. Particularly after a week of breakfasting on croissants, lunching on baguette and pâtés, and dining on delicious cuts of game birds, and pigs cooked in clarified butter and fortified with bacon jus. And crème fraiche topped pastries in between meals. How can you not eat well in Paris? But you can be also be overwhelmed by the craft – thousand layers in Pierre Hermes’ mille-feuille, minced pig’s feet stuffed in small potatoes at Christian Constants’ Les Cocottes, Joël Robuchon’s langoustini ravioli with truffle sauce to name a few. Le Reminet by Seine, near Notre Dame, is a tiny restaurant where we ate one of the most delicious meals this Paris trip. And we could have been eating in San Francisco.
Les Cocottes, eating near Eiffel Tower
Neighbor with a morning cup of coffee and cigarette
One nice thing about traveling from San Francisco to Paris is the hour you wake up on the very first day – it was three in the morning for us. Paris is beautifully lit and quiet at that time. We waited eagerly for our first taste of croissant and coffee at the neighborhood cafe. Early signs of dawn breaking are the activities around these breakfast cafes. Morning load of pastries and bread arrives, the chairs are placed out, the waiters share a few moments over their morning cigarettes. I notice a neighbor popping her head out of, what I assume to be, her bathroom window for a smoke.
Dressed in our freshly bought European style attire, we headed out. After a week, my beautiful shoes and the cobblestone paths of Paris parted ways but not on the first day. We decided to combine the two most quintessential symbols of Paris, Siene and Eiffel tower in one shot, walk along Siene to Eiffel tower. From Place Michel Debre to Blvd Saint-Germain to Rue De Bac to river Seine. Even with our hundred stops for photographs, we were near the tower in a couple of hours. Does a slow saunter work up an appetite? No. But sight of delicious pastries from the storefront definitely does.
 While waiting for Les Cocottes to open |
 Canelés, baked flour cakes soaked in syrup |
Breasts, patchouli oil, mint tisane and a Bangla conversation at the Parisian hammam
Sleeping at Jardin de Plantes
I like a good deep tissue massage to undo the damages caused by hours of sitting hunched over on the computer. My local massage spa in San Francisco Bay Area is less of a spa and more of a therapeutic center. Housed in an ugly building in a strip mall, the masseuse pummels the life out of you, kneading and elbowing and kneeing your muscles into submission. All knots begone. I thank the American immigration system that brings me the expertise of traditional Chinese massage techniques at my doorstep. When traveling, I try to get one in a strange city or airport with the purpose of undoing the tortures of the airlines seat. The tale of Korean massage where they turn you into a minor contortionist is for another occasion. This time, the story starts at a hammam in Paris – this is a story of oiled breasts, steamy dark rooms, minty potions and odd snatches of conversations.
One river to bind them all
In cities like Calcutta or Paris, the river is the precious that brings together the livelihoods and lifestyles of the people of the city. There is no denying the differences of course. In Calcutta, Ganges river is wide. Wide enough that on a regular traffic clogging business day, crossing one of the two bridges can take an hour or more. For many in Calcutta, the river is everything. They live in small precariously placed shacks along the riverside, cooking on crude stoves, bathing, urinating, defecating in the river, making a living off odd jobs by the riverside. Every once in a while the city police comes by and tears down the shacks and the cycle starts up all over again. For other Calcuttans, the riverside is a sanctuary from the hot and muggy interiors of the city. Often in the evening, when the rays of setting sun make the silt laden water look like gold, the Bengali babus can seen heatedly debating politics and cricket accompanied with roasted peanuts and hot chai. The local train line is just by the banks so every once in a while the toot of the train pierces the surrounding noise and the din. Is it just the mugginess that makes everything feel slow even in that throng of moving bodies? Large ferry and cargo boats crawl past without attracting attention. Tiny little picturesque boats offer rides to young lovers who can perhaps steal a kiss away from the throng of hawkers and gawkers. Nothing spectacular but nevertheless stunning.
 Goddess idol being prepared for immersion |
 Traveling priest or a homeless person |
 Live music between Ile de la Cite and Ile Saint-Louis |
 Notre Dame and cruise boat |
