food – Page 9 – Pertinent Observations

Encountering Mark Zuckerberg

I first visited New York City in January 2010. It was a work trip, as I was working for a Wall Street firm back then. Blessed with a generous expense account, one of the aims of that trip was to sample all that New York had to offer in terms of culinary experience. One such experience took me to Hangawi, a Korean vegetarian restaurant. This was in midtown (32nd and 5th, if I’m not wrong). Amazing candle-lit ambiance. awesome food, exemplary service, nice soft music.. On my return to my hotel that night I’d called up my girlfriend (now my wife) promising to take her there sometime. I had also told her that “the next time I go to Hangawi will be with you”.

I must confess I tried to break that promise, the lure of the place was too hard to resist during my trip to New York City earlier this year. However, fate wouldn’t let me, as I was told that there were no tables available. The nice person at the front desk, however, said that there was room at another Korean vegetarian restaurant run by the same people who ran Hangawi. She gave me directions to Franchia, on 34th and Park.

It was easy to find a table there – the ambiance was nothing compared to that at Hangawi, and the food (which was as excellent) was much cheaper. There was a small group of young men seated at a table close by, and one of them looked exceedingly familiar. I tried hard not to stare, and trawled the depths of my “brain hard disk” while stealing glances between sips of my excellent soup. I have this amazing knack of identifying lookalikes (in fact, the name “pertinent observation” was first given to my propensity to find similarities in looks between people), so I didn’t know if it was actually Mark Zuckerberg who was sitting there, or just a lookalike. For the rest of this post, let’s assume it was Zuckerberg there.

Zuckerberg was dressed in a neatly tailored grey suit, complete with a waist-coat, while his associates were in casuals. The suit was what raised doubts about Zuckerberg’s identity. Why would a Silicon Valley CEO be dressed so formally, I had reasoned, when I had decided that it was someone else. Also, I had wondered, what had made such a “big person” come to a reasonably nondescript vegetarian place for dinner. If I had twitter or facebook enabled on my blackberry, I would’ve instantly broadcasted the likeness, and somehow tried to find out if it was actually Zuckerberg. Unfortunately, Wall Street firms are careful in blocking such frivolous apps when they hand over blackberries to their employees. I decided to focus on my dinner, which was fantastic.

I was to read later that Zuckerberg has these crazy New Year resolutions. For 2010, he had decided he’ll wear a suit every day. In 2011, he is mostly vegetarian, and eats meat only if he has killed the animal himself. Putting one and one together, could it be that in February 2011, he would turn up in a formal suit at a vegetarian restaurant in New York? The probability is not low.

So I’ll perhaps go on and claim that, on 15th February 2011 (not 100% sure of the date), at a Korean vegetarian restaurant in New York, I sat one table away from Mark Zuckerberg (and in New York, owing to real estate costs, restaurants place tables really close to each other).

Vegetable shopping – It’s not about percentages

Some habits are hard to change. One that is especially hard to change is bargaining for vegetables. I was trained well, I must say, in the bazaars of Jayanagar 4th Block Shopping Complex. I was taught that one needs to do a full round of the market before making any purchase, in order to understand the “market price”. I was taught techniques that would make the shopkeepers give the goods for the price I offered, I was told what demographics to approach for what kind of vegetables, and over time I must say I became an excellent vegetable shopper, when sent to Jayanagar 4th Block that is.

Another thing that is hard to change is willingness to pay, and this is where I see some irrationality. For example, I’ve just returned from the fruit and vegetable shop close to my house, having refused to buy a cucumber because the shopkeeper asked for Rs. 10 for it, a 100% markup on the not-so-longterm average price of Rs. 5. And that is precisely the problem – looking at it as percentages.

We don’t usually consume too much cucumber. If I’d bought that cucumber it would’ve lasted about a week. So by refusing to pay the “100% premium” for it, I’ve essentially saved my family a maximum of five rupees over the course of a week (and this is in the best case – conditional on my being able to procure cucumber at the “normal rate” soon. Else the loss is larger). And given our not-so-inconsiderable weekly expenses, and the fact that our “discretionary spend” is an order of magnitude larger than the five rupees I’ve saved on the cucumber, this just doesn’t make sense.

The mistake we make here is to look at the percentage increase in weekly budget of the particular item, and base our decision on that. Instead, if we were to look at the increase in the “total weekly budget” (across all items), that could help us get a more realistic figure for our willingness to pay for certain things.

Of course, the big problem here is that even if my rational mind says this, there’s a behavioural issue in paying much more than the price we’ve been “anchored” to. I don’t know how we need to get over this.

The Pasta Darshini

A long time back I’d cribbed that in places like Bangalore where not too many people are willing to experiment with food, non-standard cuisines end up being insanely expensive. This was perhaps during my first trip to New York last year, when I’d been amazed to find extremely high quality food at nondescript places for very reasonable rates, and was cursing my own city for making me pay up exorbitant amounts every time I wanted to have something “special”.

Given that background, the new Veekes and Thomas outlet in Jayanagar 4th block (I believe they have outlets elsewhere in the city also) comes as a pleasant surprise. It’s a small place, situated across the road from the more famous Maiya’s. The whole establishment is less than 100 sq ft, with a large part of it taken by a massive machine to make sugarcane juice. The two times I’ve visited, there have been two guys there, one to make sugarcane juice and the other to make pasta. The seating area is limited, and you’re served in disposable (areca bark) plates and glass glasses.

They mostly make pastas and some other european dishes (their subtitle is “fine European cuisine” though I’m not sure how “fine” they are), and represent really awesome value for money. The average pasta there costs Rs. 60, and a soup I had on my last visit (wasn’t too great) was Rs. 15. And perhaps to go with the fact that they’re situated in the heavily-vegetarian Jayanagar, they don’t serve meat.

The wife says that it’s among the best pasta she’s eaten in Bangalore. While I disagree with that, I do think the food is really good given the price point. Also, given that they have only one cook, the waiting time can get a little long. The other thing with Pasta is that it is a slow-cooking dish, which is why it doesn’t lend itself too well to the darshini format – which is more suited for made-to-order or assemble-to-order dishes.

Nevertheless this is a good start. It’s hopefully a harbinger (sorry for using such a lofty word here; nothing simpler came to mind) for cheap “non-standard cuisine” in Bangalore. The next logical setup, I guess, would be a falafel-hummus stall. The advantages there are that the dishes are either quick-cooking or can be made to stock , ingredients to make them are easily available here, not much is lost by having a vegetarian-only place (I think there are easier to set up in terms of licensing than places that serve meat; and easier to cook as well) and the taste isn’t very different from Indian (yesterday I was describing the falafel as “AmboDe made out of chickpeas”).

Again, I can help someone set this up, though I’m not particularly interested in running the business since I think it involves a lot of hassles.

The Wife’s Methods

During a particularly acrimonious fight last night, I found that I was losing myself, and had no clue what was happening. Tempers were frayed, voices were raised and a huge towel had become wet from our collective tears and nose-goo. And I was fighting a losing battle, against myself. It seemed like I was consuming myself, and there was no way out.

I walked up to the kitchen and pulled out two New York shot glasses from the shelf. I reached for the top shelf, where we store the stuff, and pulled out the Talisker bottle. And I filled the shot glasses, up to the brim, and we downed it, one glass each. Soon, it seemed like all was going to be fine with the world.

At once we calmed down. We started thinking more rationally now. The fight continued, but the voices got lowered, the collective discharge into the towel ebbed. We weren’t consumed by ourselves any more. Instead, we were now calmly talking to each other, trying to find a way out of the problem we had at hand. Note that we didn’t kiss-and-make-up-and-bury-the-fight like we used to earlier. We didn’t sleep until we’d finished our business and reached an agreement. But life had become so much better.

I must admit that over the last year or more, I’ve consistently underestimated the wife (earlier the girlfriend) and her methods. Sometimes I’ve never understood why she does things in a certain way (and expects me to do things the same way), at other times I’ve been too arrogant in my own thoughts, to give her methods a fair hearing. This was yet another such example.

It was I who had made an irrational decision that Talisker was meant for slow sipping and savouring. It was I who had thought it was “too expensive to be shot down”. And it was I who had made the wife promise she won’t gulp it down before buying the current bottle of Talsker. I admit it, I was wrong. Wrong. The wife, it turns out, had always been right.

Mutter Paneer for Breakfast!!

So when our newly-recruited cook told us last week that she knows how to cook North Indian dishes, and when we bought Paneer and Frozen Peas at the supermarket yesterday, I assumed that we’ll be having Mutter Paneer for dinner tonight. The cook comes in around 6am, a little after I leave for the gym, so it’s usually the wife’s responsibility to tell her what to make.

And so I return from the gym and find out to my horror that we’re going to have Mutter Paneer for breakfast instead! I mean, who has mutter paneer for breakfast? Or even, who has chapati for breakfast? Isn’t it a dinner item? Well, that’s been one of the longest standing disputes the wife and I have had ever since we started living together.

She comes from a family of rice-eaters (she’s technically Gult, I’ve told you right?), without anyone in her immediate ancestry suffering from any lifestyle disease (heart/diabetes/cholestrol/etc.). And so, they’ve been used to having rice for meals. Rice for lunch, and rice for dinner. And occasionally chapati for breakfast.

I remember this being the case in my family, too, when I was a small kid, but things changed sometime in the 90s. My parents were both plump by then, and for a variety of other reasons, we switched to having oil-free chapatis (phulkas) for dinner. And now that chapati had become a dinner item, it automatically stopped being a breakfast item, and so for breakfast we restricted ourselves to the “traditional stuff” like dosa, akki rotti, uppit, avalakki, etc. (I hate homemade idlis so that was never a part of the menu). And for dinner, apart from chapati, we also started having ragi mudde (ragi balls, made world famous all over India by former PM HD Deve Gowda).

And so the battle begins. She, who has grown up always eating chapati for breakfast, and never for dinner. And I, having been looking at chapati as solely a dinner item for the last twenty years. Ok, chapati and onion-potato palya for breakfast is acceptable. But Mutter Paneer for breakfast? You gotta be kidding me!

Anyways, the Mutter Paneer was good, and I did need a high-calorie meal after the gym session, so this cribbing here is more for the sake of cribbing rather than a genuine crib. Also, it is possible that it’s healthier to reserve the high-density food for breakfast, and have something light for dinner (I admit mutter paneer for dinner isn’t that good for health). But mutter paneer for breakfast and then rasam rice for dinner?

I’m sorry but I’m not a big fan of rasam. I find it too low-density and not filling enough. And in order to fill myself I need to eat a lot of rice, and eating a lot of rice at night makes me sometimes feel gross as soon as I get up the next morning.

Ok I’ll stop cribbing now. And I guess I’m a CHoM.

On Hating Talisker

I must thank Mohits Senior and Junior for introducing me to the wonderful world of Single Malts in general, and to Talisker in particular. If I remember right, this was at a meeting of a certain secret society in Senior’s house, where Junior had procured the said substance. I remember being floored by it, and thinking I’d never thought liquor could taste so good. And till yesterday I used to think no one can ever hate this drink.

The first time I got down to buying a bottle of it (though I’d had it by the glass a couple of times outside) was in a duty free shop on my way back from my honeymoon last winter. The wife, as I’d expected, took a huge liking for it. In fact, it seemed like she liked it much more than I did. I must also mention here that for a very long time, that bottle of Talisker was the only liquor available at home.

So whenever we would fight (in our early days of marriage it was quite often, I must admit) the wife would want to distract herself and cool off by “lightening” herself. And would gulp down some Talisker straight from the bottle, as I stood aside, aghast. The subject matter of the fight would be quickly forgotten, with my foremost thought being “what a waste of such fine booze”, and she being distracted by the contents of the said booze.

That first bottle of Talisker didn’t last too long.

So on our way back from Italy and Greece this summer, I bought another bottle of Talisker. And even before I got it billed, I told the wife that it wasn’t for gulping down, and especially not she was angry. I’ll keep a bottle of cheap whisky at home, I said, for her to drink when angry, and the Talisker should be accessed only when we’re looking to savour our drink.

So last night, on the occasion of her birthday, we decided we want to savour some drink, and down came the bottle of Talisker. She had hardly taken a couple of sips, when she handed the glass back to me. “I can’t take this any more”, she said. “Now, every time I drink Talisker, I get reminded of those times when I was angry and we would be fighting. I don’t want this any more’. So finally there exists a person who hates Talisker, for whatever reason!

For the record, I finished the rest of her drink last night.

Degree Coffee

During my experiments to make hot chocolate of various degrees of chocolate-milk combination revealed that the higher the milk-to-water ratio, the more frothy the chocolate became. That was when I realized why restaurants (especially in Bangalore and Madras) try to make their coffee frothy – it’s a sign of quality, that they’ve used sufficient milk and not diluted it with water. Hence you get “degree coffee”. The “fat concentration” in the milk, that provides the froth, needs to be above a certain limit, which is measured using this instrument with the reading in “degrees”.

The quality of a good hot cup of “milk coffee” comes from two ingredients – the coffee powder and milk. If there were a way in which coffee beans could lend their flavour to milk directly, that would have been the ideal coffee. Unfortunately, since this is not possible, you need to add water. Water adds nothing to the taste of coffee. It only dilutes it. However, it is critical because it is the passing of hot water or steam that allows the flavour of the coffee beans to be released.

Given this, the ideal coffee is one where the concentration of coffee flavour and milk are maximized for a unit volume of coffee (ok concentration of flavour varies according to taste (I prefer “strong” coffee) but milk is important). This implies that to make good coffee you need to make a very concentrated decoction (one that maximizes flavour per unit volume) and then “dilute” it with an appropriate amount of milk.

Which is why you see that in “darshini” restaurants in Bangalore, they put very little “decoction” in the cup and pour a large quantity of milk. And the coffee in most darshinis is invariably tasty. Similarly in the small restaurants of Madras. Similar algo. And in the cafes of Rome, where they make a concentrated espresso and then add foamed milk to produce absolutely stunning cappuccino.

Working further backwards, the trick is to extract as much flavour as possible using as little water as possible. This is why “decant coffee” and “brewed coffee” (that you get in America) suck. They use way too much water for way too little flavour. Espresso is designed towards extracting a lot of flavour using very little water (or steam). Also, there is an “espresso roast” – coffee beans are roasted more than usual in order to make espresso. Unfortunately the technology is too expensive to keep in the homes.

In India the traditional method is “filter coffee”, where hot water passes through a bed of coffee powder. I prefer, however, to use a percolator, which uses steam rather than hot water, and which works against the direction of gravity (steam moves up while collecting coffee flavour and then condenses in a jar above). Unfortunately the percolator I use (purchased from Coffee Day) is unstable and prone to falling off and ruining the kitchen.

What’s the best coffee you’ve had? How do you prepare coffee to get strong decoction? Do you swear by the filter? Or do you get reasonably priced espresso machines? Let me know.

The Basavanagudi Food Arrangement

Vidyarthi Bhavan has its weekly holiday on Friday
Mahalakshmi Tiffin Room doesn’t open for business on Saturday
Brahmins Coffee Bar is closed on Sunday
Upahara Darshini used to be closed on Mondays, though in the last few years they’ve been open 7 days a week
Dwaraka and the Gandhibazaar branch of Adigas are closed on Tuesdays (not sure of Adigas anymore, Dwaraka still closed on Tuesdays)

A wonderful arrangement by the different restaurants in Basavanagudi to ensure that they all get their weekly off, and yet not deny food to the residents of the area!

Written after a leisurely and sumptuous breakfast at Mahalakshmi. Idli-vade-khalidose-coffee.

PS: “Plain dose” and “khali dose” mean different things in Bangalore, though they literally mean the same thing. Khali dose is soft and fluffy. Plain dose is dark brown and crisp, basically masale dose without the masale.

Complimentary Wine

Half a litre of it.

At Savas in Monastiraki square in Athens. And such awesome food.

Druink.

Red wine and mirchi

is such an awesome combo. As we just discovered, here in Monastiraki square in Athens. It was this restaurant called Savas. Specializing in one “Sauvlaki”.

So over the last week or so of vacation, the girlfriend has been complaining of not eating spicy enough food. So as we settle down today, and get our can of wine (yeah, you get half a litre of wine in an aluminium can here. Awesome it is), I see this “spicy hot peppers” on the menu.

And given that the girlfriend has been deprived of spicy food, and I like peppers it doesn’t take long for me to order it. And boy was it hot.

I gave up after a couple of bites of the pepper. No amounts of pita bread and Tzatziki (the Greek version of raita – with cucumber and garlic blended into curd) could cure the hotness on my tongue. With there being no water on the table, I went straight for the wine.

I’ve always suspected it when the girlfriend has claimed to have Gult roots. Of course, I’ve seen a lot of Gult being spoken in her family, and had half my pre-wedding dance party inundated with Gult songs, but still find it hard to accept she’s Gult. And did she prove it! She ate four whole peppers, as I struggled to finish half..

A couple of minutes back, we staggered back to the hotel. Absolutely drunk. We’d had 250 ml of red wine each, “house wine” according to the restaurant. And mirchi. Whatta combo. Surprised the “shady bars” of Bangalore haven’t exploited it yet. Maybe no one drinks wine there.