Theobroma - a Patisserie in Bandra

A good patisserie should not only have a friendly staff but should also be very clean and hygienic.

Last week I went to buy some pastries and was quite impressed with the pastry shop that I visited here in Spain, where I have come to spend some time.

“May I click your picture” said I and they stopped to pose for me.

Some people sat at the back enjoying chitchat and their midday meal.

I am reminded of the similar patisserie back home in Bandra too.

My friend often goes to this shop after 9pm to buy the bread or pastries, she says that they are sold at half the rate to finish the remaining stock of the day.

This is Theobroma, just off Linking road, opposite KFC.

After receiving the Entrepreneur of the Year award by the Indian Federation of Culinary Associates this year, the following month Kainaz Messman spoke at the World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce: "Our success formula is simple, yet it is a difficult balance to get right. We offer a good product at an honest price and have a genuine desire to please. We don’t always get it right but we cannot be accused of not trying. We work endlessly to meet and exceed the expectations of our customers. We judge our own success by the positive comments that come our way and feel genuinely hurt, tired and miserable when the feedback is negative. We serve smiles on a plate and that does make our job a whole lot easier but make no mistake, we work very very very hard for those smiles.

When the owner of Theobroma at Bandra outlet, Kainez Messman talks about the toils and joys of satisfying Mumbai’s sweet tooth, does she also do the quality control? Do we have regular inspections for watching the hygiene and the service of these eating-places?

“Cockroach in my Theobroma hot chocolate! Icky feeling! Not going back” screamed my friend Jhumur on her facebook status.

I asked her whether she complained to the management, and she says that she did but they didn't seem too bothered but after she stared at them like a stubborn mule, they waived off her bill

But not all complain.

A twitter friend, Nitishta found hair in her coffee. Disgusted, she just quietly ordered a fresh one and left'

Would they go again?

"Oh yes." says her friend Poppin "But then again, their blue berry cheese cake gives them the biased forgiveness."

A food blogger who visited this place was disappointed too. You can never fool a food blogger who knows exactly what Kejriwal and Akuri looks and tastes like, Give a different name, if you cannot replicate it, but when people come to eat a particular dish, they expect authenticity.

S Mukerjee says “I knew it! Went there last Wednesday for brekkie and u had to see the confusion, sloppy service and the way the fresh stock was lying around open to the elements in plastic crates- like sabji in a market. I just had a smoothie after seeing the stuff lying around like that..yuckkk”

One thing the management should realize is that the client is not a fool. He will eat the unhygienic food on the road if he wants a quick bite, but if he is walking through those shiny glass doors, and willingly to pay the price, he expects quality and service too.

Wok-An Asian Cuisine

Would you prefer ‘Buffet’ or ‘A la carte’?

H says she would love to go for Buffet because there is a big variety to choose from and there is no hurry to eat, we can take our own sweet time to eat whatever we wish, Chinese, Japanese or Intercontinental food. There is lot to choose from and if we don’t like what is on display we can select the raw stuff and go to cooking station to get it cooked.

Sounds interesting, so family and I headed towards Puerto de la Cruz at ‘Trompo Centro Commercial’ to a special restaurant called ‘Wok’ that serves only buffet. The rate of the buffet varies with 15 Euros on weekends and 10 Euros during weekdays.

“Don’t rush to grab the food like some starving urchins” says B, “let us order drinks first”. The drinks are not included (“they need to make money on drinks”, informs H) so we wait for our order to arrive.

Whenever I go for buffet, I always make a round to see what is on display and make a mental note of the food that I might want to try. There is not much variety. There are only about hundred containers to choose from, and that includes soups, salads, starters, mains and dessert.

I don't have a very large appetite, therefore I must be very selective. I start with sushi, cabbage salad and boiled egg. How pathetic, I pick only two sushis from the variety of twelve different types. one is coated with salmon and other with dried mushroom. I soak each sushi in wasabi and soya sauce, add a bit of pickled ginger and take mouthful. yum...it tastes good.

My brother and his wife are pure vegetarian, so while they nibble on few  vegetarian finger food and salads, they order some food from cooking station. Within ten minute, a plateful of freshly prepared fried rice and Pakchoy arrive.

Pakchoy with sea weeds is crispy, stir fried and cooked in ginger. Brother has his Aha moments with every bite.

After my second round of finger food that includes assorted roasted chicken and some vegetarian snacks, I walk to select few raw stuff for cooking. I pick up shells, shrimps, black mushrooms, capsicum, squids, lettuce and carrots and head towards cooking station to make me a spicy dish.

I want to see him prepare, so I wait. He empties my plate of raw food in a big pan, adds water and lets it boil for five minutes. Filter out the liquid and keeps the boiled stuff aside. He has different containers of differently prepared sauces. He takes a spoon of one sauces, stir fries and then puts the boiled ingredients, add few more sauces, few spices and the plates it.

It is steaming hot, ready to eat.

Completely satiated I head towards dessert station that has fruits, sweets and big range of ice-creams. 

Did I tell you that I am a small eater? Well..they should have served Chinese tea for digestion..you know.....

When in Spain, Eat like Locals do

I asked the kids at home if they would like to go the club for swimming. They didn’t want to go swimming but agreed to come with me to spend few hours at the club and probably try some Canarian food.

Our social club is a great place to spend few hours. It offers beautiful view from all sides and over looks the San Marco beach that has black sand. It is well-equipped club with tennis lawn, play area for kids, swimming pool, sauna, gym, indoor games room and a small restaurant.

We headed straight to the restaurant hoping to eat a typical Spanish food. The menu card had pizzas, sandwiches and few tapas.

We ordered squid fritters, French fries, salads and tortilla. The bread was freshly baked and the lunch was filling. I was hoping I had brought my chili sauce with me because Spanish don’t eat chilies at all and many times I find the food bland.

tuna salad

freshly baked bread

vegetarian salad which contained mayonnaise,pineapple and raisins

egg omelette called tortilla

squid fritters

Okay, I agree what we actually ate were just tapas, one of Spain’s great contributions to world’s gastronomy, and Spanish are seen indulging in this kind of tapas at any hour of the day, eating tapas and sipping beer or cortado (strong coffee) is their general passtime. It’s a good way to sample variety of tastes in short time.

Spanish eating habits are very much different from other Europeans. Spanish normally don’t have breakfast like a king but instead have small meals during day with a large meal during siesta time.

For breakfast they have freshly squeezed fruit juice, sweet roll, croissant or pastries. If you go early mornings out, you are likely to see Spanish enjoying freshly fried Churros with hot chocolate.

At around 11am you see them again in the restaurants having their bigger breakfast, that’s ‘merienda’ or ‘elevenses’ which is always sandwich or ‘bocadillo’ made from baguette and filled with anything from tuna fish, cured ham, cheese or meat.

Lunch hour is the feast time for Spanish people. All the shops close from 1:30pm to 4pm and it’s siesta time. Proper meals at eaten at this time which consists of lentils with chorizo, rice and fish/poultry/meat. Their meal lasts for an hour and it’s a grand feast followed by desert or fruits. Even the restaurants are full during this time with offers of ‘menu del dia’ that is a three-course meal with fixed price and includes starters, mains and desserts. Bread and drinks are also included in the price and sometimes coffee as well. This is more economical that ordering a la carte.

All the shops close around 8pm, and Spanish people socialize after 8pm, eating tapas and sipping beer, to return home around 10pm.

Dinner is very light, just soup, salad and maybe a sandwich while enjoying their favorite TV programs in Spanish language only.

Vegetarian Tortilla

Tortilla is the favorite snack in Tenerife and is available in every bar and in a restaurant. It is normally an egg dish that is stuffed with assorted meat, fish or vegetables. I had blog earlier about this Spanish omelet. I had a guest from Panama city who had demonstrated her way of preparing this dish.

Since this requires egg, therefore this could be limited to non-vegetarian folks only, right?

Wrong!

Vegetarians can be quite creative and those who cannot eat egg will find a way to relish this dish by finding a suitable combination that will replace egg.

Today when I entered the kitchen, I saw M prepare the vegetarian version.

So what did she do to change it to a vegetarian dish. I walked closer to have a look. She was mixing 1 tbsp of wheat flour, 1 tbsp of corn flour and 1 tbsp of gram flour with 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of milk.

Good enough, egg is the binding ingredient, well this flour batter would serve the purpose too.

So all she needs to do was to prepare the vegetarian stuffing.

She finely chopped the onions, red and yellow capsicum, coriander leaves and green chilies and set them aside.

Potatoes are must in a tortilla dish. Some use the boiled potatoes and some use deep fried. But M is the careful cook and tries to avoid fried stuff, so she diced two potatoes in small bits and steamed them.

For vegetable stuffing, she fried 1 tbsp of garlic in 1 tbsp of olive oil and then added chopped cabbage, carrots and mushroom, and stir fried till they were tender.

Now was the time to mix gently all the steamed potatoes, the stir fried vegetables, onion, red and yellow capsicum, coriander leaves, green chilies and avocado into the flour batter.

The mixture was gently transferred to a non stick frying pan, covered and cooked on medium flame for 12 minutes.

after 12 minutes, it was flipped over to other side and cooked for another 7 minutes

The Spanish enjoy this dish with hard drinks, vegetarians will enjoy this with fresh fruit juice. I tasted a slice....no difference at all, so much resemblance in taste too....

PS: But those who are still interested in using egg. You make take 6 eggs. separate the egg yolk and beat the whites till they are stiff. then add egg yolk and all the other ingredients and follow the same method.

Sharpen the Knife

People who have full time live-in maid have one great advantage, that they ask their maid to do all the chopping and cutting for them. But there is risk there. Only the person who cooks knows, in what way a particular vegetable has to be chopped. When chopping for noodles, they have to be chopped in string style, long and thin, when it is for rice dish, it needs to be diced into thin tiny pieces, for veggies to be cooked on high heat, they need to be chopped slant wise and for plain cooking just round circles will do.

It becomes important to chop them yourself rather than giving tutorials to the maid. But then, we will not chop if we don't enjoy it.

There is pleasure in cutting only when we have a sharp knife. No?

Using a sharp knife is as important as using the right kind of knife. With blunt knife there is exertion and too much effort as we struggle to chop, and if we are not careful, the knife may skid and move slantwise chopping a part of our finger too. Ouch!

Over the years, I have used different kinds of sharpeners, metal sharpeners, rough stones or rubbing of two knives in opposite directions.

This is the stone sharpener that I am using nowadays. I had picked this up during my last trip to Bangkok. This has a stone ring in the center that rotates while sharpening the blades.

But the best sharpened knife till date is still those done by professionals who do rounds in narrow streets and sharpen the knife on rotating wheel.

They have a certain knack.

While sharpening the knife the most important thing is consistency. They hold the blade at exactly the same angle for every stroke.

These guys know the correct techniques for sharpening the blades, keeping at certain angle to acquire the correct sharpness.

After every stroke, they check the blades.

The stone wheel is attached to the wheels and while he cycles the wheel, the rotating stone wheel is used for sharpening the knife, sometimes throwing sparkles due to friction.

There are large varieties of knife sharpening stones that are used, and are available in different types, sizes and material compositions.  Carborundrum (Silicon carbide) is the most popular type of material used for knife sharpening stones, the others are made of diamond stones, Arkansas stones, ceramic wet stones and Japanese water stones.  These sharpening materials are quarried of varying grits which are relative to their sharpening function. Smaller grit numbers give the stone a coarse surface which is initially used to get rid of the blade’s imperfections and those with higher grit numbers on the stone gives a finer finish.

Many years ago I had seen a Bollywood film 'Zanjeer' in which Jaya Bacchan plays the role of a lady who sharpens knife and there is a song too...Chakoo churri..tej karalo...

Get the drift??

Power Lunch

Gone are the days when power lunch was all about dining in a restaurant that had buffets tables set with variety of food of every imaginable cuisine. We used to have too much variety and were not able to decide what is good, little portion of each and your tummy is full with mixed flavors that had a war in the tummy starting from mouth. We hopped from our dining table to the food station for every course, meeting friends on the way, chatting with random people and sometimes eating while standing. Many times, we were not able to enjoy the best of dishes because by the time we reached that dessert station, we were too full already and so missed out the best options.

But things are changing for the better perhaps.

Two days ago, I was invited by Verve Magazine for a book reading of ‘The Reluctant detective’  by Kiran Manral at an Italian restaurant, Botticino, named after ‘Petra di Botticino’ the beautifully veined marble, that has been used extensively giving an artistically  shiny look to the hotel at Bandra-Kurla complex called Trident.

After the reading, and familiarizing with each other,  we headed towards the dining room, bright, well lighted with high ceiling that seemed as though it was hanging by the ceiling. The dining table had just fixed number of chairs for confirmed guests that were planned after the personalized invitations were sent and the number of guest confirmed.

There was a fixed menu with the assorted dishes specially prepared by Chef Vikas Vichare. We gave our order according to our preference and sat down to relish each dish as it arrived.

The freshly baked bread, straight from the kitchen is the good way to start any meal.

While we waited for our order to arrive, Chef Vikas Vichare came out to greet us bringing with him his specialty of diced mangoes topped with steamed asparagus.

The hard board menu card had the choice, vegetarian or non-vegetarian, On Saturdays I am strictly non-vegetarian, so wild Mushroom were out of my list...... I chose Pear and Pecorino salad with arugula and balsamic dressing from the list of Soup and Appetizer.

The sweet sour taste of fruits mingled with thinly sliced cheese and rocket leaves, topped with caramelized nuts....it was a happy beginning...

For the Main it was snapper for me....Chilli and Fennel crusted snapper with olives, potatoes and orange juice.

No, this is not Snapper but I am peeping on the side...attracted by the plating..thinking if he learnt the plating from TV program called Master Chef Australia?

The Herb encrusted Snapper swimming in the plate full of orange sauce and the colorful crunchy array of finely chopped fried potatoes, olives and carrots was up for Mains. The sweet and sour taste with crunchy vegetables floating in the orange sauce and the perfectly cooked fish, it was the dish to die for.....

Different stories are shared at the lunch table which is impossible during buffet,  I like the table setting where each person is seated and the dish arrives at regular interval one dish at a time which is tasted and relished slowly, wine glasses are refilled and as the conversation progresses, strangers become friends.....

The hours tick tock faster and the dessert time arrives. I choose Tiramisu with berry sorbet...

We rounded up the meal with a cupful of tiramisu, which has always been my favorite and I was happy to see it served specially for us. I bit into the thin crispy chocolate wafer that melted instantly into my mouth.

Once again I am mesmerized with the plating of this dessert wherein a thin chocolate wafer dips into the cup and a spiral chocolates reaches the berry sorbet making the dish visually appealing...

Also shared this content with the members of GBE2 on prompt "Two days Ago"