>Lake Placid. Just Kerala, Andheri East

>

I thought Kerala was a part of India till I read this sign

In case you feel that I over reacted about my move to Andheri East from Fort then this post will change your mind.

Remember Deluxe, Rahmaniya and Fountain Plaza, the honest Keralite joints at Fort that even a Bengali like me would feel so at home? Well the Malayali restaurant, Just Kerala, at Andheri East near the Mirador hotel is their polar opposite. We wasted Rs 360 (8 USD) each eating sub-standard food there and I am not going to waste too much time posting about it. The restaurant was suggested by a Malayali colleague, Sneha. Herself a gourmand and really interested in things to do with food. It was sad to see her wince through the meal.

Papads. The first to arrive after 20 minutes

Sleepy, empty, Malayali channel on TV

Sneha did seem a bit sheepish and the irony is that the restaurant didn’t live up to her love and knowledge of food.

The only authentic part was the service. Both Kerala and Bengal are rumoured to be lazy sleepy states. Just Kerala was quite slothful. They took more than twenty minutes to get the food. One of our group had to leave early and they couldn’t get the food fast enough for her. We later packed some food for her. After eating it she decided to eat at the office cafeteria in the future. It’s not that they were crowded. In fact there were hardly any people there. And, as we found out later, nor was the food freshly prepared.

I ordered a beef chilli fry off the menu as recommended by folks on twitter. Sneha looked at it and politely said, ‘”this is not how beef chilli fry should be. This is over fried.” It resembled, and possibly tasted like, dehydrated goat droppings if you ask me.

Beef chilli

The fish moilee didn’t like any that I had seen on TV. And there are many food programmes shot at Kerela. I thought it would be yellower. Sneha said that the look was fine. Then we both had the pomfret in the curry and winced. It was staler than the jokes in an average Akshay Kumar movie.

Certainly not fish moilee

Then came the Chicken ‘tongue twister’. Sorry, chicken varatharachad. Sneha thought it was OK. I couldn’t taste anything as the gravy was a bit like a fetid Lake Placid sort of swamp. Our colleague whom we packed it for said that she could only taste the ‘masala’. And had heart burns after that.

Chicken in Lake Placid

The porotas were not flaky enough. The appams too crisp and over powering. The vegetarians liked their thali. But as someone who has eaten quite a few meals at Deluxe, I can safely say that most of the stuff was too starchy. They had a semolina pudding or kheer at the end at the end of the thalis. A colleague of mine and I lapped them up in a desperate attempt to forget the meal. It was nice but North Indian. One could hardly taste any coconut flavour in it.

With restaurants like these one is better off cocooned in the office cafeteria.

The veg thali stuff. Come on, I have eaten at Deluxe

Starchy stew

Excessively crispy appams. Parathas which weren’t flaky

A very North India kheer

And thank God for it

Photo credit: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1693945856/tt0139414

>Oriental Indulgence. Golden Dragon, The Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai

>

 

We were at a loss on where to close my birthday eating with. I was treating but K left the choice of place and cuisine to me. Sancho’s where we ate lunch had set a really high standard. Mexican cuisine was reasonably new to my palate. I wanted more. Let this birthday be a day of discoveries. There were a couple of French restaurants/ cafes which have opened in Mumbai recently. The feedback on them ranged from ambivalent to vitriolic after I asked around on twitter. Then K pointed me to my favourite cuisine. Chinese. She suggested the hallowed Golden Dragon of the Taj. Seemed like a good choice. Plus Ranjit, who had carefully hand picked a birthday gift hamper of the choicest condiments, said that Golden Dragon is good on Sichuan cuisine. While Mumbai is big on red coloured dishes called Schezwan, you can rarely get authentic Sichuan pepper based dishes outside of a five star here. We were on a relaxed budget that night.

We took a cab and went as we were told there was no valet parking. Unlike the ITC Grand Maratha or Thai Pavilion (Amba’s anniversary story), you don’t get a cake or free dessert at the Golden Dragon even if you suggestively say ‘birthday’ while booking. No free cabbage or khimchi either and we were a bit hungry.

The restaurant was brightly lit and the food blogger in me got excited. Good Photos. Most high end places at Mumbai are so dark. Almost as if they are embarrassed of the food they serve. No such problems here. The decor was reminiscent of a dining room of cruises in Agatha Christie murder movies. Grand, yet understated. Not too big. Sitting at a table across was a Parsi family who seemed quite at home here.

K chose a mocktail which was described as a ‘melted tiramisu’. She completely agreed with this. Made it a point to tell me that I should write that she disagreed with my description of ‘like cold coffee’. She knocked over a bit of her drink in her excitement. The folks at the Golden Dragon immediately replenished it. My Long Island Ice Tea was well made too.

K sips on her tiramisu

They were at their Candies

We had a fairly experienced gentleman named Elvis taking our order. He had a point of view on things. He rejected my order of ‘char siew’. Said it would be too sweet unless we wanted it that way. Thankfully approved of our next option. Sliced pork, bacon and string beans. This was a fantastic dish. The pork had a good lineage. The ham tender and yet salty like soft hearted sailor. The string beans extremely fresh and bouncy. We quite enjoyed the crunchy beans and didn’t fish it out as we normally do with vegetables that come with meat. An interesting balance of the innocence of greens and the sins of red meat. Almost like a Playboy Centrefold in a Nun’s habit.

I voluntarily finished the greens

 

Our other order of lobsters in pickle with ginger was poetic to say the least. The lobsters were demure and tender and were married harmoniously to the sharp and passionate pickles and ginger. An amazing combination of very pleasant, succulent bites punctuated by the odd zest of pickles. Both dishes were stellar and rose to the occasion.

Lobsters

 

We had this with a Sichuan vegetable noodles that Elvis recommended. This was off the menu. He had a strong point of view on this. I had visions of ghastly red noodles in my mind but went ahead with his recommendation. My first reaction when the noodles came was “it looks like something I would have cooked”. And I mean this is as a compliment. There was a certain fluffy airiness about the noodles which made you fall in love with them.Then there were the bites of fresh fiery Sichuan peppers which made you realised that this cherubic dish had a few pranks up its sleeve.

The food was really grand up to this point. My only grouse was that they got the dishes  immediately after the drinks which was a bit sad. What if we didn’t want to run out in twenty minutes after paying a good part of a cost of a night’s stay at the hotel? They should have at least asked if wanted the food along with the drinks instead of plonking it down all together.

The noodles wasn’t enough and I thought I’d go for a fried rice. They had burnt garlic rice and a rice with prawns, roast pork, chicken. After much silent callisthenics I managed to attract a waiter. Not Elvis though. This guy refused to give me a burnt garlic rice with roast pork. Apparently their chefs are too mechanised to be able to customise.  Which, for a very expensive place, was difficult to digest. Especially for someone who often thinks on his feet as he cooks. I went for an egg fried rice which was quite ordinary, not well flavoured and didn’t even seem very authentic to me. The rice was more Mr Chows than Taj IMHO.

Elvis later came and told us that we should have gone for the full blown pork, prawn ,chicken rice. Probably would have if he was taking our order and not the Storm Trooper.

Still, I must say that we ate a really grand dinner. Left me a lot happier than our meals at San Qi at Four Seasons and the one at the China House, Chinese place at the Santa Cruz Hyatt, did. And I was glad that K, who is not too fond of Chinese, or Mexican, liked both the meals. I was treating after all.

The price? I won’t mention that here as that would surely lead to an income tax raid at my place. Let’s say that it cost me as much as two night’s stay at a four star at Penang cost me. Remember, we didn’t drink too much. No desserts. No starters. But then you can’t expect ‘cheap’ when you go to THE Taj.

So would I prefer the Golden Dragon to a couple of nights at Penang and its Cafe 78? You should know me well enough by now.

Dreaming of the Orient. Of Georgetown. Of Cafe 78

>RIP JATC

>

“I can walk to a place where butter melts on hot waffles and coffee shops know my name. That’s why I live in Bandra.”  Mrs Knife’s Facebook Status after our last breakfast at JATC

It felt strange to see the grey wall in front of me as I drove down today.

I felt like the legendary Bengali lover, Devdas, coming back home to find that his childhood sweetheart had got married and had gone off to her in laws. 

I knew that JATC Bandra had shut down a few days back. Twitter was abuzz with it. It’s just that I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Was oblivious to it. Till I saw the high walls coming up where the welcoming gate once was. A part inside me died.

Just Around The Corner or JATC at Bandra was so much a part of my life here. It was a landmark. It represented everything that Bandra promised to a set of out of towners who had come to make their fortunes, all right who am I kidding, to get a job, at Mumbai. The atmosphere was casual, young, vibrant. You got a peep of the fringes of Bollywood. Over the years I had spotted Tabu and Mallaika Arora here. JATC was open late into the night. We could hang out here much later than what we were allowed to back home. It was a common meeting place. A place to grab a salad before catching a movie at Gaiety, Galaxy. Sarfarosh on a wet night if I remember right. The salad bar itself was so typical of our new world. It was a new concept. Symbolic of the new life we had moved into. As were the brownies and ice creams.

A year of courtship followed. We would stop at JATC at least once a week for dinner. Would have been more if K could rebut my theory that ‘salad isn’t dinner’. The ‘all you can pile on your plate’ salad concept was manna to couples eating on a budget. I was an expert of talking a half plate (Rs 70, 2000-01), piling salads then more sauces then more salads…then topping it with boiled eggs and desperately searched for pieces of ham. Patting it all together with a fork to form a pyramid. Hoping that the wobbling tower of boiled stuff wouldn’t topple over before you reached the cash counter. Come on, admit it, you have all done it.

Bachelorhood ended and the salad dinner dates turned into waffle breakfast outings. They had a waffle and coffee combo at JATC. That along with a Mid Day, that K would give me 5 Rs to buy with, was the only way to start a Sunday.

Then  Candies came into our lives, the odd trip to Crepe Station or Coffee Bean, and the breakfast trips to JATC became rare. Plus I would always end up bursting a few blood vessels as week after week the folks at JATC would never follow my instructions to get the waffles and coffee together.

Of course JATC was about more than just salads and waffles. A preferred spot for her to storm off to after the noodles turned out to be soggy and over cooked. A place to pick up the chocolate milk shake that she so liked when she was home and not well. With extra chocolate sprinkles. The place where we picked up pastas one NYE when we couldn’t get a restaurant table.  A place to have the in laws over for sandwiches that ‘daddy liked’. Chicken junglee, shredded ham and cheese. And boiled egg salad for the mother in law.

We went to JATC after ages sometime back. The waffles were perfect. Butter and honey happily flowing over mine. Just butter over hers. The coffee was brought in at the right time. The conversation was pleasant. The morning scripted to perfection. The birds were chirping. The world was happy.

Little did we know that it was our last breakfast at JATC, Bandra.

PS: This was apparently not The End. Read this 10/2/2011

>There is no business like the food business

>

I went to the food blogger’s dinner at Mumbai last night. This was sponsored by the wine division of the folks at UB. Hosted at Olive at Mahalaxmi.

The chief wine maker of UB was there and held forth on wines to a table of Mumbai’s food bloggers through the evening. I reached late after I had my breath knocked out by the heartless Mumbai traffic while navigating meetings earlier in the evening.

I was seated at a little table beside the main table. Caught up with a couple of old friends, Rushina and Jyotika. Wouldn’t have made it but for the earnest urgings from both of them.  Met some new folks – couple of charming ladies from the agency that organized the evening and a Chino German animator who was marooned in India after the film she came to make got delayed. I missed out on the wine lecture though. Well, as they say bad boys have all the fun.

We tasted wines. Without the commentary to go with it. I must admit that I am a bit of a Bacchanalian philistine. Wines give me headaches. But some of the stuff did smell good. I made the appropriate motions of occasionally stuffing my nose into the glasses of wine. Hopefully, looked enough of a ‘connoisseur’ to not make the sponsors question the organizers for inviting me.

The food had its moments. Three courses. Managed to find a few shreds of smoked salmon in the smoked salmon salad. The lights were rather dim and some of the pinkish bits turned out to be tomatoes. Which, dear vegetarians, cannot be a substitute for smoked salmon. I selected the brie phillo puff for the next course. By a fluke of nature I got the grilled tiger prawns instead. Which was great as the prawns were huge and yet wickedly juicy. Wouldn’t have wanted to be one of the vegetarians around though when this happened to me. I chose chicken skewers with pilaf for the mains. The highlight of the chicken plate was the toasted pine (?) nuts which came on the side. Added a nice texture to the rice and meat. Had a bit from the beef that Irene from Germany went for. It was rather tough. Jyotika’s choice of lamb was more succulent…Moroccan and therefore fairly Indian in taste. I quite liked the rather strong cheesecake which was there for dessert. Overpowered the crème brulee that followed. Couldn’t taste the latter. Guess the conversations were the high point of the dinner.

These are interesting times for food in India and everyone wants a piece of it. So you have about three exclusive food channels being launched now. Every news channel has at least one food related programme going for them. You have recipe shows on TV, with pre Doordashan days production qualities, which are surprisingly good cures for insomnia. And restaurant reviews where every restaurant is the best in the world and where every dish is the meal of a lifetime.

Talking of TV, Master Chef Australia 2 was aired on Star World here and it caught the imagination of many. It suddenly had people who normally do not cook rush into the kitchen to make coriander enrobed pomfret or Crème Anglais. It democratized food and went beyond foodies, food bloggers, food snobs and critics. Suddenly food was cool. Till Star Plus blundered in with Master Chef India.

The food business in India draws inspiration from the West. If you have salivated over the French Laundry Cookbook and been enthralled by the prose in the Les Halles Cookbook then you have a restaurant cookbook in India too. The Mainland China Cookbook. If the Les Halles and French Laundry books are labours of love and passion then this is its antiseptic opposite. The same publishers have now done a book around NDTV’s Rocky and Mayur’s ‘Highway on my Plate’. This is a Lonely Planet like restaurant directory which thankfully has a touch of colour. I read the chapters on Andhra, Arunachal and Assam last night and went to bed with colourful images of yak blood sausages, rohu cooked straight from the pond, pigeon curries, duck curries and meals eaten at tribal huts. There is still hope.

Following in the tradition of movie and auto awards you now have foodie awards. There was one from a newspaper group recently where a majority of awards went to restaurants of five and seven star hotels. Seemed more like a ‘Fine Dining’ award list. The remaining scraps went to stand alone restaurants which are normally in the news. The unsung, non PR savvy restaurants which just focus on serving simple and honest food went unnoticed. Then there was another award from the Internet portal of an American news channel. They said that the ‘best’ place to enjoy street food at Mumbai was apparently Punjab Sweets at Bandra. I am sure that local vada pao and bhel lovers would have a point of view about the mineral water sanitized North Indian chaats trumping the Mumbai street food charts. The best biriyani here too was from a five star. So what are my choices for the ‘best’ restaurants at Mumbai? I won’t be vain enough for that. But here is a list of my ‘favourites’.

Food bloggers are everyone’s meat. There are web sites and even mainstream newspapers and magazine lifting photographs and content from blogs without acknowledging the source. And you have startups and even established sites and newspapers and magazines asking bloggers to write for free…dangling carrots of visibility. 

The carnival continues. Restaurants and food marketers have discovered food bloggers. Offers to send yogurts and olive oils flood are mailed in. As do invites to “come and try the food at our restaurant”. . And offers to host food blogger meets. “Would be nice if you and your food blogger friends drop in”.

Well, as the cliché goes, ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch and all that jazz. Why waste money on mass media, it is all about media efficiency. So would bloggers go the journo and junket way? Or would they remain an independent voice?

Only time will tell.

>Highway in my street…the mystery of Papa Pancho, Bandra

>

 Interspersed the post with pics instead of dumping them at the end as per your feedback.


Think ‘dhabas’ and you think of the legendary pit stops on the highways of India. Trucks parked. Swarthy drivers taking a break over tumblers of lassi, resting on charpoys (sort of hammocks on four legs). The picture that comes to mind is that of twirling moustaches, rippling muscles, calloused hands and colourful turbans. Dusty roads where men and are men and the milk full cream.

Now in an ideal world I would be a travel writer who would fly business class, stay in seven stars and then go and eat in hole in the walls nearby. I suspect that I am not alone. So you would find a string of ‘dhabas’ in most Indian cities, bringing in the romance of the roads into our own alleys. An urbane way of eating earthy Punjabi trucker’s food. Often with sacrilegious matching cutlery and even tissue paper.

We have a ‘dhaba’ at Bandra too. Bang in the middle of Mumbai’s ‘Queen of The Suburbs’, home to film stars and expatriates, once an East Indian colony, now a booming cosmopolitan hot spot. Coffee shops, gelaterias, sushi bars … you can think of lot of things when it comes to Bandra. But surely not a ‘dhaba’.

Well actually there is a place called ‘Azad Hind’ if I remember right opposite Nootan Nagar near Bandra Station where I used to live as a PG (paying Guest). I had been there once. A congested grimy place serving hearty dhaba food. Legend has it that Dharmendra, the original Punjab da puttar (son of Punjab), used to eat there when he was a struggling actor. I must confess that it’s been ages since I have been down that road. So would be great if someones been there recently and tell us more about it. Hope the place is still there. Hope I got the name right.

Dharmendra…in another century. Photo source: http://www.movieinf.com/dharmendra/

I am not talking of Dharamji’s dhaba here though. I am talking of Papa Pancho, the make belief dhaba at Pali Naka. Sandwiched between Cocoberry and Toni and Guy. Brands yet to dot the highways of India. Papa Pancho was started years back by ad film maker, Prahalad Kakkar. The man who also made The India Tea Centre fashionable. Kakkar’s associations with both places ended eventually but both continued to popular spots in the Mumbai landscape.

Though why Papa Pancho is so popular remains to be as much a mystery as why Punjabi food represents ‘Indian’ internationally. Papa Pancho is not cheap. I wrote about Papa Pancho earlier. I had mentioned that the standard of food is ‘uneven’ to put it politely. The waiters are singularly uninformed for a restaurant of this price and at the heart of Bandra. They can barely answer your questions even when you speak to them in Hindi. And the other day should have pointed out that we had over ordered.

Yet Papa Pancho continues to be full in most evenings. And, what the hell, even we went back. I guess they have a lucky charm. Well, as Woody Allen says, ‘whatever works’.

I wanted to try the Punjabi winter fare at Papa Pancho. K and I went there a few nights back. The decor was still true to the deliberately Punjabi kitsch which was conjured by adman Kakkar. The conversation from the neighbouring tables were full of ’40 second edits’, ‘new surf excel ad’, ‘ad shoots in Kerala’ and on the way out we even bumped into a girl who was a model in one of K’s ad films.  In fact, barring the waiters and me, most people around me, including K, seemed to be connected with advertising and as taking about it as ad folks tend to do. But you can’t hold that against a restaurant.

You could eat at 5 dhabas at these prices…but then this is Bandra

Look Ma, no onions

There is a small upper section too

 

The service was inert and the waiter definitely didn’t seem to be anything like the lively, jovial, chatty folks one would associate with dhabas. We had evidently over-ordered. Each dish came with daal, roti and curd on the side. We ordered two main courses. And then a kulcha. Wish the waiter had stopped us the way the guys at 5 Spice do when you over-order.

The lassi was too sweet and too frothy. Now, I don’t  have a benchmark from Punjab but the lassis at places such as Moti Lassi, the fifty year old Punjabi sweetshop  at Fort, and Mathura Sweets, another fifty year oldshop, are way creamier. Kainaz’s nimbu paani (or fresh lemonade) smelt of raw onions. Which, with my limited knowledge of mixology, is not de rigeur.
 

The best part about the lassi was the tumbler

Why do I keep coming back to you?

So the drinks were dodgy. And how was the food? Well the ‘winter stuff’ that I went for was good actually. The sarson ke saag, the winter speciality of Punjab, apparently made with pureed leaves of mustard was fresh, zestful and was guaranteed to make you feel warm on a chilly evening. I am not Punjabi so wouldn’t know if this is the way moms would make it but it did leave us with a peaceful, easy feeling. As were the makkai ki roti (maize rotis) which usually go with sarson ke saag. The makkai rotis here were stiff, firm, crusty and yet left a distinctly pleasant memory with each bite. It had the rustic texture of highway food and the simple, honesty which go with them.

The winter dessert of gajar ka halwa (made with shredded carrots) had its moments. It was hot, not overtly sweet. A lot less richer than the gajjar ka halwas that I have eaten at the sweet shops at New Delhi during winter or even Punjab Sweets down the road at Bandra. This seemed to be an unusually fitness conscious version of the usually rich and decadent North Indian treat. Still, worked for us city slickers who don’t have the heart and passion of thoroughbred sons of Punjab.

One of these combos. and a kulcha are enough for two in my opinion

Sarson ke saag

A rather pale gajar ka halwa

The dahi or curd which came with the meals had a nice maternal feel to it. The texture was was rough and choppy like that of home made curd. Different from the Star- trooper smooth packaged curds that we buy. Almost felt as if Kirron Kher, the popular choice to play Punjabi mothers in Hindi films these days, was feeding you. Now that’s disturbing.

The black daal, which came on the side, was exactly as I remembered it to be at Papa Pancho. Lukewarm and insipid. Almost as if a timid Bengali or a Tamilian had tried to make this robust Punjabi daal. A weak shadow of the black daals that you get at Khaane Khaas or Kakori House at Bandra.

I wanted to have a kulcha and K encouraged me to go for it. We ordered an ‘Amritsari Kulcha. ‘Amritsari because it had ‘peas and potatoes’ according to the waiter. A man who should have told us to shut up and stop ordering. Our main dishes came with parathas/ rotis but it was too late to cancel the kulchas. My take is that one full meal and one kulcha would be enough for two. The kulchas were hot but lacked the passion and big heartedness of the Kulchas at Punjab Sweets. This was a paler version.
 

A very soulless rendition of maa ki daal, soul food for Punjabis

A fairly forgettable kulcha

Kirron Kher, Punjabi for Bollywood Mom. Photo source: http://www.net-planet.org/entertainment/videos/index.php?key=Kirron+Kher

And finally the ‘I told you moment’. Kainaz warned me that the chicken here wasn’t good. I still went ahead and ordered a tangdi (drumstick) kebab. It looked luscious but was tough and undercooked. There was  blood streaking down the meat. We certainly hadn’t asked for ‘rare’. No Salmonella worries of the The Master Chef Australia judges.

The chicken was not only uncooked but it lacked flavour too. I packed the rest of the chicken, shredded it the next morning, tossed it with diced onions & chillies in a pan and made chicken rolls the next morning. The meat was still tough. The blood there, though no longer fresh. And the only flavour that came was from the fried onions and chillies. Very avoidable.

Yes, the wife is always right

Extra tough chicken

This, rather average meal for two, cost us more than Rs 800 (USD 20ish), which was highway robbery. But this is Bandra. And for some reason the crowds will continue to pour in.

At least the after meals digestive golis had some spunk. The light was good for photography. But my search for good Punjabi food in Mumbai continues,

‘golis’ which brought the dinner to a digestible end

>Mr Moshe Shek I presume… the hunt for the perfect cookie in Mumbai

>

Moshe’s Walnut Fudge Cookies

I am a bit under the weather thanks to the blizzard at Mumbai right now. The temperature dropped below twenty degrees. Centigrade! But then I am Bong. Genetically conditioned to be a hypochondriac.

Felt like a steaming cup of coffee and a good soft chocolate chip cookie to fix me up a couple of days back. Thought of my options. Most Mumbai coffee shops are non starters when it comes to cookies – Barista, CCD, Costa even Candies (!).

I like the chocolate chip cookie at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf but a kilometre seemed a bit too far to travel in this state. Went to Gloria Jean’s next door to home. Love the coffee there. Love to sit on the cosy sofas. I tried the chocolate chip cookies. Rock solid. Sushil Kumar, wrestling champ might have better luck, but I couldn’t muster the strength to break it.

Coffee Bean and Tea leaf Chocolate chip cookie: the only decent coffee shop cookie

Attempting to break the Gloria Jean’s chocolate chip cookie

Sushil Kumar the man who can actually break the Gloria Jean’s Cookie. Photo credit http://y .in.com/connect/images/profile/b_profile4/Sushil_Kumar_%28wrestler%29_300.jpg

 

Gloria Jean’s cookie: Rock solid. Excessively sweet

I still wanted good cookies. We don’t have a Cookie Man at Bandra. So K took me to the new Moshe’s at Bandra.

We were greeted at the cookie cupboard shelves by a thin, unassuming man who asked us what we wanted and then politely pointed us to the walnut fudge cookies of Moshe’s. Definitely the best cookies to be had for your money at Mumbai. I also ordered a humus from a waiter who passed by, Picked up an interesting looking olive foccaccia bread.

Then on a hunch asked another waiter “is that Moshe’s”. Turned out that the diminutive man who greeted us  in the beginning was Moshe Shek, celebrity Chef and Restaurateur, himself.

I went up to him and introduced myself as a fan of his cookies. (sounds weird doesn’t it). Moshe smiled and said that the cookies taste best when heated for 7 seconds in the micro. The best cookies according to him are the ones which do not use too many ingredients. We spoke about focaccia bread and Yazdani Bakery. Turned out that one of the current owners of Yazadani was Mr Shek’s classmate at Sophia’s. “Their stuff is good”, he said. I complimented him on the mezze platter at Moshe’s. I told him about how I was looking for the non pasta stuff when I came for lunch last time. Moshe said that they keep pastas specially for vegetarians but recommended the trout and chicken in figs (if I remember right) for me.

On the way out K and I tasted the chocolate dense cake. We let out a sigh of a very adult pleasure in unison. This was wicked stuff. You just take a bite, place a piece on your tongue and feel it slowly melt down. Sweet mother of God!

Came home and discovered that the olive foccaccia was as soft and adorable as it looked. The olives added a bite of cherubic mischief to it. This was great bread. The hummus? Perfect consistency and balance of taste… the sort of thing which tells you that being a desert nomad needn’t always be bad.

Ironically I wasn’t carrying my camera on both my trips to Moshe’s. Plus I just love photographing foccacia…love the textures and the balance of diverse colours…a photo shoot followed at home… you can see all the pics on this album on the Finely Chopped Facebook page.

And the cookies. Close your eyes and imagine the most sensuous tastes your have ever experienced. Let your imagination run wild. Think satin smooth. Think cream. Think textures. Think sweet. Think salt. Every forbidden pleasure you dreamt o as you grew up.

Imagine nibbling into the cookie. Feel it give in in your mouth. Making your every sense leap up in ecstasy as it trickles down, titillating you all the way down. Feel loved like you never have been.

Yes, that pretty much sums up the walnut fudge cookies of Moshe’s.

Moshe’s Olive foccaccia

Moshe’s Hummus

>Punjab da Bummer. A sociological analysis of why it’s so difficult to get good Punjabi food at Mumbai

>

Punjab Sweets, Bandra

 
People occasionally ask me to name favourite restaurants, make a list, etc etc. I never could. And then out of boredom I made a list a few days back. I realised that I did have a strong point of view on some restaurants.

Of course the list was biased. It consisted of restaurants at Fort, Colaba and Bandra. No, I am not the sort who travels miles in his own town to check out new places to eat. I am too lazy for that. The list was based on meals I paid for and therefore only covers parts of menus. I chose one restaurant per genre. Some of these such as Ling’s or Ideal Corner, not the most obvious of choices.

There was a little bit of controversy after I posted. Not because of any of the stuff above. But because I wrote ‘none’ against Punjabi.

What about Papa Poncho? What about Copper Chimney? What about Dhaba…Moti Mahal…the questions poured in.

I am not Punjabi. Nor have I had many meals at Punjab. Yet, I stick to my stand.

Let’s step back a bit and look at my exposure to Punjabi food so far. Punjabi food is the most abused cuisine going around after Chinese in India. The latter’s ok…they deserve that as they keep stepping on our toes. Punjabi food doesn’t deserve this though.

The problem with Punjabi food lies in the fact that it has become synonymous with ‘Indian food’. It is our Cantonese. So you have Bangladeshis making ‘Indian’ curries. Punjabi. I have eaten ‘chicken tikkas’ made by a Bangladeshi woman in KL. So spicy and hot that all the rivers of Punjab couldn’t soothe your tummy. I have stared with shock at a cream coloured ‘tandoori’ chicken in a hotel buffet at Bangkok. I have suffered through the channa masalas and paneer burjees of Udipi Shiv Sagars and their ilk. Super oily channa bhatures in Bombay Blues. And had a local rather flaky lady, point at dosas in the menu of an Indian  restaurant called ‘Santoor’ at Dhaka, and say “this is nice Punjabi food”. That was a decade back and I was upset in any case that the’special’ lunch in my honour was in an Indian restaurant.

The revenge of  The Green Curry: Tandoori chicken made by a Swiss Hotel at Bangkok

I have survived on honest home made Punjabi vegetarian food at my PG aunty’s place when I landed at Mumbai. Rotis straight from the heart to the burner to the plate. Round as footballs. Piping hot. Heart warming back daal on the tap. With a day’s notice. Called ‘Maa ki daal’ (literally mother’s daal but actually Udad Daal as pointed out by Satya in the comments) as I found out. Rather appropriately.

I ate a decade back at the vegetarian Vaishno Dhabas of Ludhiana in Punjab with salad carts standing in attention. Our request for ghee free daal resulted in a brass pail of daal with two inches of ghee (clarified butter). Kulche chhole on the Golden Shatabdi, breakfast on a train was never zestful. Langar at the Golden Temple at Amritsar. Halwa offered to the Gods and then to those who had come to the temple. No questions asked. Laden with ghee and dry fruits. No half measures. A temple of peace so different from the blood soaked images that we had of Operation Blue Star from our half pant days.

Yes, I can’t claim to be an expert on Punjabi food. But I instinctively know that you can’t get good Punjabi food at Mumbai. That’s because there is a fundamental disconnect.

I have eaten Punjabi food at Delhi. That too at least three years back. I still remember the tastes vividly. Once was from a place called Chawla’s where the folks we were working with ordered from. There was chicken, there was daal, rotis. Unwrapped from humble plastic bags. A creamy, dreamlike treat of sheer opulence.

Once when I stopped at one of the Moti Mohals at either South Ex of Def Col market on the way to Delhi airport. I ordered the famous ‘butter chicken’. First bite and I knew that what was paraded as ‘butter chicken’ in Mumbai were a series of impostors. The curry was like a bed of roses. You fell in love as you sunk into it. Never wanting to stop. And the chicken, oh so tender, so juicy, it had blue blood running through it… meat the way God  meant it to be in the Garden of Eden. Not the scrawny soul-less meat that we mortals have to be content with at Mumbai.
 
So here’s my thesis. Punjabis as a race are a full blooded. They live life to the fullest. They don’t hold anything back. The Punjabi ethos seems to be emotional, unrestrained and that of wearing ones heart on ones sleeve. Very different from the pragmatic, goal oriented, no time to stop and smell the flowers creed of Mumbai.

‘Dildaar’ or big hearted is a term associated with them. After all it took a Punjabi in a focus group at Delhi to come up with the word ‘Josh’ for an American car manufacturer who wanted a term to connote ‘full of life’ for its new car. That was a decade back. Since then I learnt that this race is different in a way we Bengalis can never comprehend. For we would check the menu before a wedding feast. They would break into a Bhangra, the folk dance of the Punjabi, before dinner.

Think Punjab and you think of green fields, festivities, emotions, vivid colours, boisterous music, blue skies and rejuvenating rivers. And when I look around at Mumbai I see grey, I see concrete, I see traffic, I see busy people, I see purpose, commitment…lowered eyes, focused at goals.

Which brings me back to why you will never get good Punjabi food at Mumbai. Get it? Never ‘the twain shall meet’.

This, in my opinion, is the problem with Punjabi food in Mumbai. It lacks soul, passion, grandeur, pomp and splendour. It lacks life. The meat would be tough here. The curries artificially coloured. Pale imitations of full blooded Punjabi food. The ‘Punabi’ food of Mumbai lacks the pure and noble spirit of what the British called Poonjab. Mumbai, with its life on a treadmill, is not psychologically attuned to the mood of Punjab.

So what have I tried of Mumbai’s Punjabi food? Of course I have been to Copper Chimney. To the convenient corporate buffets at Worli and the odd a la carte. All I remember is the paapdi chaat in the buffet. That says it all. I’ve been to Moti Mahal at Bandra. Almost lost a tooth biting into a so called (Lucknowi) Gulauti kebab. By definition meant to be melt in the mouth. Yes, I have eaten at Papa Poncho, Bandra  Thrice in seven years. Was underwhelmed by the mutton curry the first time. Impressed by the sarson ke saag and makai roti the next time. Baffled by the unevenly micro-waved black daal the third time. A far cry from the restaurants I have named as favourites. Some of which have never served me a bad meal in ten years.

I have eaten at Mini Punjab and Great Punjab at Bandra. Again don’t remember what I ate at GP but I remember it was a pleasant experience. Mini Punjab was patchy. The less famous Khane Khaas somewhat works for us. A friend introduced me to the black daal and tandoori chicken there after a drink at Toto’s years back. She’s left the country since then. I haven’t gone to Toto’s in a lifetime. But Khaane Khaas’s black daal and tandoori chicken never disappoint. The other dishes have the odd bad day though.

Punjab sweets, chhole kulche, jal jeera

But wait. I have had a couple of good Punjabi food experiences at Mumbai recently. Neither of them was one of the ‘usual suspects’. One was at Punjab Sweets at Bandra’s Pali Naka. An old landmark which had recently opened a vegetarian restaurant section. I had a lip smacking, heartfelt meal of jal jeera, padi chaat, chhole bursting with the martial spirit of the Khalsas and royal kulchas. Transformed a grey wet afternoon at Mumbai  into the bright sunflower fields of Yash Chopra’s Punjab.

Punjab Sweets: My first taste of stuffed kulchas

The other experience comes from a restaurant called The Legacy of Punjab. Set up by the young scions of the Dhingras, a family of restaurateurs in Mumbai. It is actually on the Mumbai Nasik highway. I had the chance to taste their stuff at  a dinner hosted by Rushina of A Perfect Bite for the launch of Yashbir Sharma’s travelogue, ‘The Food Trail (sic) of Punjab’.

The menu was vegetarian in deference to the venue. But I was wowed by the chhole, maa ki daal and rotis and kulchas made by the cooks of The Legacy of Punjab. The food was rich and oozing with the same maternal love and care one would associate with cheerful Punjabi ladies in their flowery salwars and kurtas with their huge smiles and big hugs. This was food that came straight from the heart.

The fare at Punjab Sweets and Legacy of Punjab captured the zest and fervour of the Punjabis of North India which is so missing in frenetic and frantic Mumbai. Pity that neither meal allowed one to taste the national bird of Punjab, Tandoori chicken. Though as Pooja of Le 15, the proud sister of the young owner of LOP, whispered into my ears, you apparently get a stellar lemon chicken at Legacy of Punjab. I won’t argue with the lady who has been instrumental in making macarons the new cheesecakes of Mumbai. Well, next time one plans a Faraway Foods post I guess.

So there you have folks, the reason why I don’t have a favourite Punjabi restaurant at Mumbai. It is all about loving your Tandoori.

Legacy of Punjab’s chhole…this is the pomp I was talking of: Pic possibly taken by Jyotika Purwar of Curry Spice with my camera

“Maa ki daal’….Legacy of Punjab…as maternal as food can get

Legacy of Punjab: Kulchas with hidden treasures inside

Rabdi from Legacy of Punjab…Punjabi for so ‘cho chweet’

If you ever get a chance for a good Punjabi meal at Mumbai then grab it with both hands: ‘Food trail of Punjab’ launch, catered by Legacy of Punjab. Pooja’s in the black sweater. Vikram Doctor, food writer for ET, in the beard

>Sicko. And now they stole my fish.

>I fell for flattery the first time.

They were launching their Mumbai edition and wanted ‘prominent’ Mumbai bloggers to write for them on the food and night life scene at Mumbai. An unwritten agreement followed after the first piece… words for Rupees. It was fun initially. Chasing the elusive cheque every month a small irritant…the value would barely cover a restaurant meal in any case.

Then came the bummer in month four. They printed my article on Bandra without giving me credit. Angst, recriminations were to no avail though surprisingly the cheque came later. Meanwhile I had sent my next write up to them in good faith. It was on the fish scene at Mumbai. I had no idea what happened to that. Was it even published? My contact went silent. And copies of  the magazine could not be found anywhere in Mumbai. I wrote a couple of times to them and then forgot about it.

Saw the link to their e magazine on a fellow blogger’s Facebook page last week. Went and checked. They had published my seafood article in their August or September edition. More mails. Copy to the editorial team. My handler woke up. Denials. Then silence again.

Wrote a mail to the editor who funnily enough had just joined the Finely Chopped Facebook Page. The editor did a Sphinx. But my handler woke up again. Spewed venom. We have discovered that we actually haven’t paid you. But we are shocked that you brought it up. Shame on you. Bad bad boy …

To which my answer was, keep the change!

Frankly the affair was getting too murky and filthy for me. The antithesis of what many of us blog for. To share our opinions, feel good about ourselves. To sleep well.

So if you are launching a magazine or a portal, I wish you luck but please employ writers. If you are launching cooking oils, dips… please support the media industry…pay and advertise. And if you are opening a new restaurant please keep your free meal to yourself. I only write about food that I pay for.

A young blogger I admire said, when I discussed the issue of ‘free dinners’ with her, “that would be whoring right?”

All I could say is “language young lady” and nod in agreement at her wise words.

Oh and here’s the article in question, at least they gave the name credit for it:

Twenty thousand leagues above the sea … Mumbai’s seafood.

It is natural to think of Mumbai as a seafood heaven. It is a port city after all. Well you are not wrong. The city’s dining tables are loaded with the treasures of the sea. Ready to welcome you.

However, one needs to set one’s expectations right in the beginning. First of all don’t think that ‘abundant’ is equal to ‘cheap’. Seafood is fairly expensive here. More expensive than poultry, or even fresh water fish favoured by those from the East. Secondly, remember that Mumbai is the commercial capital of India. Not exactly a beach resort or a tourist hub. So you won’t find the sort of seafood courts which you would find in the Far East or in the Mediterranean. Thirdly, don’t expect dishes which romance the wonders of the sea. Bring out their flavours. Celebrate their tastes. Local seafood dishes are loaded with heavy spices. As a well travelled Italian Chef once told me about the clam masala that he ordered from Jai Hind at Bandra, ‘I love it. I can’t taste the clams. But I love the masaaala’. 

Thus acclimatised you can begin your discovery of the seafood delights of Mumbai.My first foray into the Piscean offerings in Mumbai was at a small family run restaurant called Saayba. Saayba is located on S V Road at the beginning of Bandra W. You can identify it by the huge queues waiting to be seated in the evenings. This is where I first had fried Bombay Duck or Bombil. As any quizzard will tell you, Bombay Duck is not a ‘duck’. It is a fish which is quite popular with Mumbaikars. Locals make curries and even pickles with dried Bombay Ducks. Fried Bombay Duck is what those at restaurants prefer. The trick is to get the right balance of the soft flesh of the fish and the thin layers of semolina (rawa) batter coating it. Neither should dominate. And if fried right, as they do in Saayba, then it should melt in your mouth. Some of the other must haves at Saayba are the prawn fry masala for those who like their prawns to be juicy and spicy. And if you, like me, were traumatised by the movie ‘Jaws’ while growing up then go in for a Baby Shark Achari. This is a very fiery preparation though and is likely to bring tears to your eyes.

Saayba is a Gomantak restaurant. Gomantak and Konkani cuisines are native to Maharashtra and come from the coastal regions of the Malwan district. You would find a number of reasonably priced Malvani restaurants at traditional Maharashtrian areas of Mumbai such as Mahim, Dadar and Bandra East. Some of the popular ones would include Gomantak and Sindhudurg at Dadar. Sadicha and Highway Gomantak at  Bandra E. Fresh Catch at Mahim. These are places where the locals eat. Always a sign of a good restaurant. These are simple operations. Usually non air conditioned. Family run. Crowded with a steady of flow of customers. The fish will be fresh given the high turnover. The portions are small. Prices are kept affordable enough for blue collar workers. 

You could travel all the way to Pangat close to Borivili National Park for a lavish, cramped but air conditioned Malvani seafood experience. Clams, mussels, oysters, fish, squids, lobsters, prawns, sharks … just let your mind wander and choose what you want to eat.

Most Malvani food is coconut based. The difference, I am told, comes from the proportion of dry and wet coconut used in the dishes. Traditional Indian spices like ground red chilli, garam masala, garlic and a local favourite, Kokum, feature liberally in the curries and masalas. These often overpower the taste of the fish. A far cry from the rock salt flecked, fire roasted fish of Istanbul or the Soy, lemon and spring onion kissed Baba Noynya cuisine of Malacca. A stroke of luck for those who find the taste of fish too ‘fishy’. What you get here is a complete meal which appeals to all senses. Not just a fish dish. Most Malvani dishes are served with a curry on the side and you can have this with rice or chapatti.

The most famous Malvani restaurant would possibly be Gajalee. By ‘famous’ I mean the one that features most often on TV and in print. Gajalee started off in Vile Parle in the Western Suburbs of Mumbai. Since then it has branched to a number of places including Phoenix Mills in Central Mumbai. The new branches are fairly modern affairs. Air conditioned, English speaking head waiters, inviting sofas, look classy enough for corporate dinners. Not where locals flock to. My travels seeking out good food in foreign lands have taught me that such places are likely to be expensive and not truly authentic. There are many who praise the tandoori crab or whole stuffed pomfrets at Gajalee. These are the dishes which feature on television and are likely to burn a whole in your pocket. I am obviously not a big fan of the food here. I have not been impressed during the couple of occasions that I ate at their Phoenix outlet. Yes, I went for the comparatively cheaper dishes and not the blockbusters which many swear by. All I will say is that this is the place to go to if you want to sample local Malvani food and are not really willing to roll up your sleeves and hit the streets for it.

Mumbai seafood is not all about Malvani food. You could sample the Mangalorean fare from across the state border in what are known as the Shetty restaurants. The triumvirate of Mahesh, Apoorva and Trishna in South Mumbai’s Fort area have defined this cuisine for years. They have now branched out to the suburbs as well. This is a good place to try South Indian dishes such as fish or prawn gassi, coconut based curries, with the string hopper like neer dosas. You will find a higher proportion of curry leaves and mustard seeds in the dishes here in comparison to the Malvani dishes. The standout dish in my opinion is a preparation called ‘butter pepper garlic’ at Mahesh. You can have this with crabs if you are not out on your first date. They break the shell for you if you so wish. For the lazy, this dish is available in easier to eat options such as squids or prawns.

You could try the Goan version of seafood dishes. Goan cuisine could broadly be divided into two schools. One is the Portuguese influenced Catholic pork and vinegar based dishes. The other consists of the seafood dishes preferred by the Hindu Saraswat Brahmins. These are coconut based and are similar to the cuisine of Malwan. There aren’t too many places which serve Saraswat cuisine in Mumbai. The Goan owned Soul Fry at Bandra’s Pali Naka is a good bet.  

Then you have the Jai Hind chain spread across Mumbai. Here you will get a taste of everything … Malvani, Goan, Mangalorean. The dishes are less expensive than those of Gajalee. Taste closer to the real thing in my opinion. Are more accessible through the city. Have air conditioned options for those who are not comfortable with the Spartan settings of the more simple Maharashtrian ‘lunch homes’. You must try the bombil stuffed with prawns here. A truly memorable dish.

Most Continental restaurants in Mumbai served seafood dishes as well. For a Bengali fresh water fish experience you can head to Oh Calcutta or Calcutta Club.

It is natural to feel tempted to go out and buy fish in Mumbai and cook them at home. Where else would you get such a collection of fresh fish? The thing to keep in mind is that the traditional fish markets of Mumbai are ‘wet’ markets. They are literally muddy and messy and are likely to turn on those who love to buy fish. Most fish markets have an army of women selling a whole range of fish – pomfret, kingfish, mackerel, baby sharks, squids, clams, mussels, betki, rohu, prawns, lobsters, crabs – name it and you will get it. Fish is normally sold by piece and not be weight. Under intense haggling. These fisher women mean business. Use traditional shopping artillery such as a counter offer of half the price quoted or pretending to walk away in disgust. You will win some. Lose some. Definitely a more entertaining and dramatic experience than the average Hindi TV serial. For those not so adventurous, the cold storage of some malls offer a frigid, sterile, mechanised, non histrionic, uneventful, easier, hassle free way of buying fish.

So go out. Buy fish. Cook fish. Eat fish at the restaurants of Mumbai. And don’t forget to order the dish which most people love in Malvani seafood restaurants… Mutton Masala.

>The most beautiful mortar & pestle this side of Chiang Mai… penne pesto in sausages, rude cheese at Godrej Nature’s Basket, Bandra

>

Sometime back I bought a mortar and pestle. A petite, shiny marble one. Inspired by the Jamie Olivers of the world, I tried to make a pesto in the mortar and pestle. Later tossed prawns in some white squishy stuff and flattened basil leaves. Gia, our guest that night, sportingly praised the dish and then pointed out that I needed a bigger mortar and pestle, that I should have smashed the garlic, pine nuts and cheese one by one, that I should have removed the stalks from the basil leaves and then crushed the pesto mix.

I heard her. Next time I used the mixer grinder to make a perfect pesto.

Then I went to a cooking school at Chiang Mai, Thailand. Inspired I followed that with a trip to the local market. I lugged home the most beautiful and sensuous mortar and pestle West of Chiang Mai.

Yesterday I made a pesto mix that was much closer to what was required.

I remembered Gia’s wise words. I took a teaspoon of pine nuts and hammered into them in the new mortar. They became powderish. Then I added a tablespoon of peeled garlic. Bang bang bang. A proper paste. To this I added about 50 g of Parmesan. More pounding. A proper paste again.

Talking of Parmesan, what was with the girl at the cheese counter of Godrej Nature’s Basket, Bandra, yesterday? She guarded the cheese as if she wanted to eat it all herself. When we wanted to taste some she reluctantly parted with a sliver for one and for another said we could not taste another as there was very little. So only if we were buying it. We did buy a Gouda but frankly I was put off by the attitude of this Sour Puss as well as the long strand of hair in the cheese display. I went to Sante at Pali Naka and bought my Parmesan which was one fourth the price of that at Godrej Nature’s Basket. I must say that the guy at the meat counter at GNB was nicer and we picked up some ham and Thai sauces and ice tea too. But seriously, they need to put a less possessive person in charge of the cheese counter.

Well coming back to the pesto I took two handfuls of basil, leaves, removed the stalks as Gia said, and added them to the mix in the mortar. Wham bam bang bang and soon I had a good mix. I added a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and pounded again. A jet of oil flew out with the first bash. I had to do it far more delicately after that and blended it all together with a spoon. I was quite happy with the end result. It was ‘the beginning of a beautiful friendship’.

Here’s the recipe for the sausage penne in pesto that I made:

• Heat olive oil in a pan
• Add 200 g of sausages chopped into rings. Stir till they brown
• Add 20 g of pre-boiled penne
• Stir
• Add in pesto, salt, gently stir, add a bit more olive oil so that it doesn’t become too dry
• Top with some Parmesan shavings and your dish is ready

This dish becomes very easy if you buy a bottle of pesto from the market. Costs about Rs 150 – 200 (4 – 5 USD)

>A good comeback … pollo pesto or pan seared chicken wrapped in pesto

>Sour Note: I bought Parmesan from Sante at Pali Naka, Bandra, this time as well as the last time when I made pesto. Both times they gave the wax across two edges when they cut the cheese. That’s about 20 percent of very expensive cheese discarded. All I will say is that this never happened before the management change. Milinda where are you?

Sometime back I wrote about how I had slogged to make a pesto mix. The Pesto challenge at Master Chef Australia and earlier memories of Jamie Oliver making pesto on TV made me slip deeper and deeper into a bed of hubris. It seemed easy and I was ‘The Knife’ after all. Reading comments on the blog can really bloat one’s head. We bought a pestle and a mortar. I ground and I ground. Huffed and Puffed. Sat down. Flexed my muscles and ground and ground again. Forty five minutes later after a near slip disc, cardiac arrest and nervous breakdown  I looked down at a few shredded leaves of basil, some battered but not out garlic and flattened cheese.

I had learnt my lesson. This time I took out the food processor. I was back to lazy cooking. So here’s how I made pan seared chicken tossed in pesto.

Pesto mix: Three bunches or a bowl-full of basil leaves, 2 tablespoons of peeled garlic, a tablespoon of pine buts and about 50 g of parmesan and two tablespoons of olive oil into a mixer grinder. A few switches of the button and you will get your pesto.

Recipe:

• Heat some pine nuts in olive oil in a non stick pan
• Then add and fry 500 g of cubed boneless chicken leg pieces. Wait for the chicken to turn from pink to white. Meghna Agro (26413712) at Pali Nakra, Bandra, will give you leg pieces of boneless chicken without batting an eyelid
• Once done, add the pesto mix, slather it over the chicken. Switch off the gas. Finito. About ten to fifteen minutes of cooking time

I served this as a main course along with fusilli in a creamy bacon sauce. You can also serve this as a starter. Or make a sandwich with it as I did for breakfast today.

With wisdom came the food processor

The fragrance of fresh pesto wafting through the house is as heady as it gets

Can’t stop gloating about this

Pollo pesto

And its passionate companion, bacon pasta

This post has both the prawns in pesto and pasta in bacon cream sauce recipes