Cocktail Making Competition

I took part in cocktail making competition at Mogamoto (Fort) and was surprised when my team  bagged the first prize.

We were the team of food bloggers grouped into 3 persons for each team and the idea was to create an innovative cocktail. Since I like spicy stuff, I decided to add black pepper.

It was a relaxing afternoon at the Mogamoto at Fort, restaurant done up beautifully with drapes on the ceiling and art on the walls. A flight of 10 wooden steps separates the restaurant into two levels giving it a cozy touch.

Each team went behind the bar at the cocktail station to play around with the ingredients. There were drinks, juices, syrups, garnish and exotic ingredients. The temptation to make an innovative cocktail was strong. Initially, I wanted to be just an audience, watching all the teams perform, but at the last moment, I was inspired too and decided to make something different by playing around with the ingredients.

It was fun watching team prepare the cocktail. There was lotsa discussion on what to add, with little prompts from the bar tender, who were always willing to help. The crew of ‘Food Food Channel’ were all set with their cameras, shooting the session for their program, while the judges asked questions after every drink, discussing the ingredients used, and then passing around to everybody to taste and pass the verdicts.

Team A

Team B

Team C

Team D

 I am not much of cocktail or mocktail person. If left on my own, I will just sip plain water. But in a company of friends,( so as to not stand apart), I will have a small glass of fresh juice. Lately cocktails and mocktail have made remarkable appearances at the parties. You feast on finger food and sip your drink. To go with a flow, I drink whatever is available. I normally take just one small glass and it stays with me as an ornament after few small sips.

So, what is cocktail?

A cocktail is kind of a salad, mixing of hard drinks, fruit juices, herbs, water and whatever you fancy. It normally consists of three different classes of ingredients.

The first: the base.

Base is normally some sort of spirit like gin, whisky, vodka, wine, brandy, etc.

The second: The modifier.

This is used to bring out the aroma of the base and to modify the taste. The main flavoring is normally different fruit juices.

The third: The flavor

Flavor is added to enhance the taste of the base and also adds color to the drink. Common special flavoring are basil leaves, kafir leaves, lime, lemon, ginger and other garnishes.

Most cocktails are also decorated with fruit slices like orange peels, cocktail sticks, mint twigs etc.

Off the track, a friend asks 

‘Why did cocktail bleed?’ – 

because it was bloody Mary, 

another Q- ‘Why did cocktail not marry? – 

because it preferred to be virgin Mary……

Winter Cuisine at Punjab Grill

I like this new trend of sharing the chef table with other foodies. The food talks are interesting so are the variety of food offered during the meals. This Saturday, I attended the launch of winter menu at Punjab Grill.

 Why winter menu?

There is a tight link between food and our hormones and this can be noticed in our seasonal cravings. In winter, there is craving for comfort food that is generally high in fats and carb. Plants start converting their starches into sugar. The cold-sweetening occurs in many cold-tolerant vegetable plants like beets, carrots, and root vegetables. 

Mumbaites don’t experience the vast difference in climate change but the drop in temperatures to as low as 13 degrees is good enough reason to pamper one self and deviate from normal cuisine.

Punjab Grill understands that, it is all dressed up for this winter session.

There is a great selection of drinks, mocktails and cocktails, to choose from. Normally the drinks have a slice of lime and salt dust on the rim, but here I was staring at a bright green chili on my drink. 

This restaurant has a class of its own.

I ordered ‘Mast Guava’ a cocktail that contains Vodka, Guava, tobasco, coriander leaves and ..er..guess what else?.hmmmn…can't believe my luck!..finely chopped green chilies..now…that was a complete nirvana!

There is a surprise element in the presentation with every serving. When the men in black approached our table with serving dishes, we stopped midway in our conversation to see what was on the tray behind the smoking glass lid, under the metallic conical cover, in those porcelain cups. We craned our neck to get the view before it even reached our plates.

I don’t much like vegetarian food, therefore my vegetarian serving was just a spoonful of each dish for taste. The winter vegetables are sweetish, not my kind of food. However, I loved matured Kaanji carrot juice served in earthen pots that had a strong flavors of mustard seeds. The sweet potato and star fruit tossed in sweet and sour tamarind, a chaat I have never tasted before, but it was something different (not sure if I liked it) and one needs to develop a taste for it. ‘Sarson da Saag’ bright green fragrant vegetable is ‘must have’ vegetarian dish.

But the non-vegetable was commendable. I especially like the ‘Tabak Maaz’,  and ‘Methi Chicken Tikka.  The succulent lamb ribs simmered in fennel-flavored milk were cooked just right, so soft that it melts in the mouth on first bite. Grilled ‘Chicken Tikka’ infused with fenugreek leaves was a pleasant delight. I didn’t enjoy the ‘Bheja Masala’ that had an over powering taste of Garam masala.

The ‘Winter Bread Basket’ was interesting assortments of Makki di roti, Bajra di roti and Palak di roti. They tasted delicious when laced with blob of white butter and pinch of ajwain infused Gurh.

I was happy that the service was slow. It gave us time to relish every dish, enjoy the varied flavors of each dish. The ambience of the restaurant is seductive. The beautiful Sufi music in the background, the twinkling lights on the trees above, and comfortable cushions on low sofa under the open starry sky added to the romance of the evening. The mood was set. There was enough time to socialize and familiarize with other foodies. We enjoyed sharing notes on wine, snacks and food culture of other cities.

By the time, the dessert arrive, we were friends chatting away.

Together we relished the sweet flavors of ‘Gurh Wale Chawal’ rice flavored with black cardamom, garnished with curled coconut strips and ‘Bajre Ki Choori’ The grandma style rotis and jaggery crumble that brought back the memories of my yearly visits to my maternal uncles house during my growing up days.

And Finally the famous 'Paan Shot'

I had heard about this Paan shot from my friends and I was eagerly waiting for it to arrive. Mixture of betel leaves with paan masala, all crushed together to make a concentrate drink. In one gulp, I emptied the glass, its cool fragrant taste gliding down my throat.

Verdict: Highly recommended for people who enjoy good Indian cuisine.

Where: Punjab Grill

Juhu Shopping Centre, Unit No24


Opp Criticare Hospital


9th Gulmohar Road,

Juhu, Mumbai – 400049 


Tel: +(91)-(22)-42433100, 42433101, 42433102

The Winter season is ushered in from 14th January and continues till end of February 2014.

Food Bloggers Award Nite

Most of the bloggers blog for their own personal pleasure. There is no financial gain, whatsoever. Its more like a mini diary where one maintains life events jotting down day-to-day anecdotes to refresh the memory on an another day.

Blogging brings me immense pleasure. I am not sure if anybody is reading my blogs but I have the satisfaction of sharing my experience with virtual world. My blog is not designed to encourage comments because I do not like spams and promotions that appear on my blogs and the unnecessary waste of my time, deleting those useless comments. I normally get my feedback in my personal inbox that keeps me inspired to write more. During my recent trip to Spain this year, one Spanish woman married to Indian, came up personally to thank me for starting a food blog. She said that her hubby loved the food that she makes following my recipes.

That is the my most satisfying reward.

As more people enter the blogging world, it is gaining momentum and getting recognition too.

There is always somebody reading your blog and analyzing it and surprisingly, now there are awards for blogging too!!.

The first ever award for food blogging was held at J W Marriott in Mumbai. I am amazed at the effort the jury had taken to go through more than 700 blogs across various categories such as food blogging on travel and story telling, baking, creativity, photography, regional, etc. 

It is not an easy task.

My sincere thanks to Sameer Malkani, co-founder of Food Bloggers Association of India for organizing such a great event and bringing all the food bloggers under one roof.

There are many blogs that I follow and was pleased to see some of my food-blogger friends as winners accepting the awards

My sincere congratulations and best wishes to a good friend Alka Keswani for winning an award in 'Regional Categories' for her ‘Sindhi Cuisine’

 I was happy to see my food blogger friend Kalyan Kamrakar of Finely Chopped accept an award in ‘Food Culinary and Travel’ category

‪I do follow many facebook food blogs too and was happy to see Pet Pujari and Bukkad as winners.

Pet Pujaris won the ‘Group Blog Award’ while The Big Bhookad won an award for being the best blog in the "Restaurant Review" category.

Just blogging on a facebook also gain recognition. Sandeep Shreedharan proved it by winning in ‘facebook blog’ category

Some of the blogs have personal stories attached to their recipes and this becomes interesting to read. Was happy that ‘The Best Writing and Story Telling Award’ go to  Charis B  of Culinary Storm fame. 

The award was not limited to Mumbai bloggers only, it was awarded to Indian bloggers around the world.

There was one winner from USA too

When Farrukh Shadab of 'Cubes and Juliennes' from Delhi won the award for ''The Best Recipe Blog', my friend was so excited that she immediately sent him the message congratulating him.

The event was well organized and partially hosted by Sarnash Golia who kept us in splits with his humor.

Since it was a food bloggers event, the food served before and after the event was excellent.

The party continued till late night, with bloggers interacting with each other, clicking pictures and cementing the ties that revolve around……What else? But Food!!!