Dakshin Coastal - The Franco Pondi Food Fest.

Every once in a while good things do happen to me, a few weeks ago my friend & fellow gastronome Nikhil Merchant (@nikhilmerchant) invited me to the Franco-Pondi food festival at Dakshin Coastal the ITC Grand Maratha. Dakshin is a bit of a drive from where i am but the Franco Pondi thing sounded fairly intriguing.

While pondicherry was a French colony and the influences persist, little is known about how the two cuisines came together. I was curious to see how they would bring the two together.

Dakshin is of course known for being a melting pot of South India cuisine, a one stop shop to get all your Southern rocks off. 

The chutneys were pretty insane, you could make a meal of these and i usually do.

 its difficult not to eat the poppadums with these seasonal creations. the red tomato and the tamarind were just out of this world. 

you also get your selection of molga pudi, gun powder and other spices to which you add ghee

the rasam was brilliant, a little spicy and flavoured with coconut milk and tamarind extract which is apparently a pondi speciality (and we welcome it to Bombay)

corn nibblets, these were pretty good and went well with the chutneys, weirdly one can find something similar in Bengali cuisine. I was also told that there is an old French colony in West Bengal and i wonder if that is the reason. 

fried potato, again an interesting choice, didn't expect this at Dakshin, everyday you learn something new.

turnips cooked in red chilli went well with the appams.

the appams were near perfect, soft, thin, could eat a dozen and not miss a beat.

i am not a fan of okra but this too went well with the appams.

topped off with spot on filter coffee !

it certainly is interesting that Dakshin is adding a new cuisine, there certainly is a lot of interest in the Franco-Pondi space, the non-veg items were quite a hit and the veggie too is interesting. I am not a fan of things like okra and aubergine but the curries themselves work pretty well.

Some rice preparations would be interesting to see as well as curries. Expect lots of coconut in the food.

All in all, an evening well spent, with good food and a motley crue of people. 

Formaggio - New to the neighbourhood

Name : Formaggio

Loc : Cumballa Hill, Opp 36, Oak & Barley
Meal : Dinner

While walking up to Moshe's @ Crossword from my parents i saw to my surprise that the Falafal Hummus House is no more and has been replaced by the two day old Formaggio. A little dismayed as I have had many a meal delivered from Falafel in my time of need.

So we decided to skip Cafe Moshe and dived in. The place is small and split levelled, pre-dominantly white (even the exposed brick wall is white washed) Its not a full fledged restaurant as much as it is a hole in the wall.

With a name like Formaggio i was expecting lots of Italian and a cheese platter (ha!) but the menu is fairly expansive and covers a lot of ground. They serve something for everyone with soups, sandwiches, pasta, pizza, north Indian and Mezze.

The cream of mushroom was a little runny and did not have any mushroom in it (which is super annoying to me personally) it tasted okay, but a little truffle oil perhaps or some chopped mushroom and a little less water would go a long way. 

Mrs J got the taco, which was a lot of lettuce and some beans, passable. 

The falafal wrap was pretty good, not soggy, contained most of the staples, no complaints here. 

Another Mrs J order, the potato wedges were microwaved hot and all i could taste was seasoning. 

The place is just two days old and yet to get its bearings, majority of the diners that evening seemed to be friends of the owners. Most things on the menu were not available yet (sandwiches, mezze) so they have not gone the whole nine yards in the kitchen yet.

Overall, its a neighbourhood restaurant that tries to do a lot of things, while i did not try that much i believe its going to be a Gujju interpretation of most dishes (which is not a slur in anyway, the Gujju versions certainly have their place in the sun and i love the stuff once in a while )

The Jains in the area will surely rejoice. I probably will not go there again but will certainly call up to order stuff, especially their mezze which they seem to have a decent handle on.

Food : 6/10
Service : 6/10
Damage: 550

New York Fries - Hong Kong - Diabolical

Stanley and the drive over there via Repulse Bay is one of the loveliest things about Hong Kong. Driving through you would not believe this is on the same concrete, glass and people fused island as the rest of HKG.

Its like driving through Florida to get to Lake Tahoe. Anyway we were there as a troop and while the women scoured the market the men were out looking for beers and a chair by the water. One of the boys started mumbling that he was sure there was a NYF around and began tweaking like a crystal meth addict. I was in no mood to have fries but i tagged along and boy was i glad i did. 

New York Fries, despite the name is actually a Canadian chain that serves large, LARGE portions with the skin on and topped with unimaginable delights. These are not your dad's fries.One can choose from Braised Beef, Pulled Pork, Butter Chicken or The Works. Poutine the classic Canadian version with curds and gravy too is available.

This is the veggie works, cheese sauce, sour cream tomato, spring onions and we picked up some malt vinegar to boot.Was it good, no.. it was great. The skin was on the fries which i love and you reall can't go wrong with cheese sauce and sour cream now can you.

It was positively the most diabolical thing i have ever seen in my 33 years. You MUST go to Stanley and when there you MUST get something at New York Fries. If you don't like it, ill refund your money.