KL Strikes Back

I visited KL in 2006. I was mighty unimpressed. Wrote about the same here.

Now one could always argue that this was a superficial outsiders un-researched take. But then that's what this blog is meant to be. A sum up of first impressions. I was actually at KL for more than a week. First for a conference. And then with Kainaz when she joined me. We did the touristy bits. Saw the Twin Towers. Climbed the other tower. Went to the Batik factories. The Museum and the Malls. Scoured the streets for food. Went to a highly recommended disc. Zouk. Which was shut. We were happy and relived to move onto Langkawi.

Three years down the line I discovered that the best way to see KL is to skip the Twin Towers!
If you look at KL from the surface then it is hard to find anything which distinguishes it from other Asian Tiger cities. What you need is someone who loves the city. And shares common interests with you to give you a real peek into the city.

Folks like Arindam and Sasha. Bengalis who moved into KL from Calcutta then Delhi and finally Mumbai. Arindam was earlier upset when he read that I was not impressed by KL. And was incensed that I had called Singapore the food capital of the world. He was bent on proving me wrong. Soon the opportunity came and I landed at their place at KL one Friday. What followed was a culinary romp through buttered pork, suckling pigs, chilly pan mee, siew yoke, fried frogs and lots lots more with a bit of touristy shopping thrown in at Ikea, Watsons and Carrefour.

We didn't see the Twin Towers. And I had a whale of a time.

Moral of the story. It pays to connect with someone who knows the city before you land up there. Ideally someone who has common interests with you. This will not always be possible. But you will be surprised what a little bit of blog searching or Facebook questioning could throw up. I learnt this from the expert. Sasha actually reads up travel sites and enters into discussions there before she plans Arindam and her vacations. Individuals tend to give less exhaustive but more intense and useful information. You are likely to gain much more than just going to impersonal travel directories, books or agents. I am going to do that the next time.

Anyone interested in Mumbai, Calcutta (slightly dated info), Baga Goa feel free to ask me questions. Especially if they are to do with food.

And you can go to my food blog, Finely Chopped, to see what we were up to in KL this time. Check this for live updates from KL and some more posts after I returned.

Here are some pictures to tempt you ...

Sasha and Arindam... the two people who can really bring KL alive for you

My first bite of frog

Roast suckling pork

Home of a heavenly delight - Chilly Pan Mee -handmade noodles, poached egg, fried mice pork, fried anchovies, a secret eleven spice chilly mix

A great place near the Mid Valley Mall for Siew Yoke (pork belly) and the legendary Chicken Rice

Yes, yes ...you guys win, KL 7 Singapore 1

Goodbye Gurgaon, Ruby Tuesday

I was quite happy to leave the Smart Villa the heartbreak motel of Gurgaon.

The client presentations went off like a dream. In fact the board applauded after I finished. I could barely hear it though as I was deaf from the air cabin pressure drops. Still it was a relief as I had flown in with a bad throat and blocked nose and was keeping my fingers about lasting the presentation. And then I had to spend the night at the sleazy dump where I was kept. Few things at work give me a bigger high than a good presentation.

We went for lunch at Ruby Tuesday after the first presentation. This is opposite TGIF. This time I had couple of colleagues with me.

We started with a broccoli and cheese soup which was quite nice. The broccoli was finely shredded so you didn't mind it and the cheese was nice and solid. I enjoyed this and it was good for my throat.

I had a half rack of pork spare ribs. As the menu promised the meat was extremely pliant and tender. 'Fork removable' was the term they used and they were right. The barbecue sauce was on the sweeter side. It reminded me of a teriyaki sauce. It came with a baked potato and sour cream which I didn't care much for.

My colleagues had batter fried shrimp and spaghetti bolougnaise. The dishes looked good and they said that they enjoyed it.

The food was pretty good. Prices (Rs 400 - 600, 10 -15 USD a dish) were similar to TGIF. But the service was less attentive and informed than TGIF and the place was even deader with just two tables occupied on Monday afternoon.

The good food at TGIF and Ruby Tuesday helped reduce the pain of spending the night, Smart Villa and wannabe Gurgaon.

TG for TGIF: down and out in Gurgaon

Gurgaon is a satellite city of New Delhi.

It is located in the state of Haryana. It is a 20-30 minute drive from the airport thanks to the swanky new flyover. It has developed at very fast pace over the recent years with swanky malls, BPOs and MNCs shifting base here to steel and chrome office towers. Frankly, it looks a bit like Vegas to me. Amazing buildings interspersed in fairly desolate, dusty and arid patches of land.

I have made a number of work trips here recently where I fly in the morning and return by evening. This Sunday was different. I had two presentations to make on Monday. So I came in the previous evening as the winter fogs at Delhi have turned the schedules of flights topsy turvy.

So here I am on Sunday night at Gurgaon. 'Gaon' means village and Gurgaon seems like that. What adds to the feeling is the guesthouse that the client has put me in. Its neat and clean but is fairly sleazy. Red blankets, plastic pink roses, waiter knocks and walks before you can open the door, stained toilet seats, no hat water in the basin, you get the gist. No way comparable to the hotels one stays in at New Delhi. One of the barest places I have stayed in at Delhi while travelling on work. Apparently Gurgaon rates are fairly expensive. I should have probably stayed at my company's guest house in New Delhi. It is supposed to be good and New Delhi is at least a town.

This place is a freaking ghost town. There is no life on the roads. Everyone's either in the malls or at the offices. So you can imagine how depressing the can be on a Sunday night. To top it I left Bombay with a throat and nose infection. And now I am deaf after the flight thanks to the pressure drops. I hope the block opens before I present. i can barely hear myself speak!

And then I came to this maudlin guest house. I took one look at the tattered room service menu and said that's it... fog and cold be damned. I called for a cab and went over to TGIF at the Metropolitan Mall. I remembered going there with my boss earlier and enjoying it.

I had some piping hot mushroom soup for my throat. Then the waiter strongly recommended a roast turkey platter. This came with a glass of house wine. The Turkey piece was nice and springy. It tasted like chicken but had a nicer feel to it. I enjoyed every bite. It came with a nice, creamy, mildly tangy sauce, buttered vegetables, a fair bit of nice mash and a fresh garlic toast. The combo was finished off with a slab of Christmas cake, which was hard and a bit frozen, but was also sweet an comforting. Just about three to four tables were occupied which further bolsters my village theory. You wouldn't fine a prime restaurant so empty at Bombay on a Sunday night.

I rarely go out alone to restaurants when I am travelling in India. But room service was not really an option in the guest house I am staying at. At least the great dinner helped to restore my spirits and to help me tide over a wasted Sunday night in this glorified motel (Smart Villa) in this wannabe one hick town.

Follow the yellow brick road: Mumbai Pune Expressway

I still remember the excitement which was there when the expressway opened between Mumbai and Pune. We had rarely seen a road like that in India. And it cut down the distance by almost two hours from what it used to be.

It still is about a 2 hr drive and another 1.5 hrs to get in and out of the cities.

I have travelled the route over the years and have seen the highway grow. As have the food courts!

I did the route yesterday and I saw that the food courts have really grown in number and variety. There is something for everyone. I was telling my colleagues that I felt like I was seeing a baby grow. And it felt good!

Here were some of the pleasant discoveries on the way to Pune from Mumbai:

- The Mc Donalds at Panvel, which is actually before the highway while coming from Bombay – now opens at 6 AM and serves breakfast. I remember stopping there earlier at 9 and 10 AM in the morning and being turned back as they opened at 11 AM. This time we had some very nice sausage muffins (the bread was light and slightly crisp compared to the burgers), excellent pancakes with coffee and maple syrup, Georgia Coffee (very nice), Minute Maid orange Juice. A colleague had has brown potatoes which looked tasty. Most dishes cost Rs 50 (1 USD). I wished they served this at Bombay too. They had done up the toilets too and they looked nicer than before

- The side of the lane facing Pune has a largish stop in the middle with a number of restaurants which sell local Maharashtrian fare (upma, bata vad, etc), South Indian Stuff, juices and sandwiches. This is one of the first courts but has grown with time. The average dish costs Rs 20 – 40 (50 – 60 cents) here
- Now there is a stop at the end of the highway towards Pune. This is the second stop after it ends and you have a Coffee Day there if you don’t like the local coffee in the earlier stops. Good to buck you before a meeting or before entering Pune.

There are quite a few stops on the way back to Mumbai from Pune

- There is a stop before Lonavla which has a Coffee Day, a US pizza shop and local stuff as well
- Then there is a largish stop after Lonavla which has at least 6-7 options: Ramakant's vada pao (they used to serve local fare such as vada pao in a van on the highway before the food court), a Café Coffee Day, some other local stores AND a 24 hr Mc Donalds

My excitement would sound strange to people from the West or even from countries like Thailand. But these are big improvements in India.

I was travelling with a couple of colleagues yesterday who shared my love for food. We kept talking about food through the journey. Which was good as our meeting at Pune seemed a bit pointless.

Traveler’s Notes:
- These stops have ample parking
- Now there are signs directing them to you on the road so you are warned well in avance in case you want to turn in
- There is quite a variety of options, most places are reasonably clean and hardly any have dishes which cost more than Rs 50 (or 1 USD)
- Most of these places have washrooms which are ‘fairly’ clean

- There are gas stations/ petrol pumps at all these stops

- Most also have shops where you can buy local favourites such as chiki (nuts in hard boiled jaggery), chocolate fudge, jelly sweets, jams and juices which you can take as gifts

Hips don't lie: Turkish belly dance

We wanted to do something special for our anniversary dinner. Arvind and Dilber of Faraway Travels, our travel agents in India, suggested that we have dinner at the Keravan Serai. Dilber also said they have Turkey’s highest paid belly dancer there. Belly dancer?! You need to have a fairly sporting wife to go there for your anniversary.

Well we did go there on the 22nd of October, our anniversary, and had a fairly majestic experience straight out of an Ottoman sultan’s court.

The place was packed, largely with tour groups from across the world. In fact, we saw quite a few Indians for the first time in our holiday at Turkey. Thomas Cook, SOTC, Kuoni, all the usual suspects were there.

While most were sitting on common tables our travel agent had got Kainaz and me a cosy table for two where he had quite a romantic candle light dinner.

The belly dancers were quite awesome. Their moves defied the laws of gravity, biology and physics. They were quite artistic and heady. They were anything but raunchy. In fact rhythmic and exotic are words I would use. And I must say that I am not writing this to be politically correct or because, more importantly, Kainaz would be reading this. They were genuinely graceful and I really felt like I was sitting in an Ottoman court and enjoying it. Just to highlight the point it would be a polar opposite, pun intended, to pole dances or Bollywood item numbers. Quite poetic. All right, all right most of the dancers were quite pleasing on the eye too :) The ‘highest paid’ belly dancer of Turkey (in the picture below) did live up to her star billing.

It was amusing to see some of our fellow Indians watch the dancers with their mouth open. Their wives steadfastly looked down at their plates. Quite different from Bharat Natyam and Kathakali.


The belly dances were interspersed with Turkish folk shows like Caucasian dances, gypsy sword throwers and so on. They were nice though I am sure the audience’s heart wasn’t in this.

The second half of the show saw one of the most talented performers that we had ever seen. I think Arvind had told us about him. This person was a linguist, singer, dancer, comedian rolled in one…a vaudeville artist who would probably give the best in Broadway or West End a run for their money. He would ask people which country they had come from and speak to them and sing in their native language. Indian (awara hoon), Mexican, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, American, British, Brazilian, Persian, Russian …nothing stumped him. He would respond instantly. He had a good voice too and really got the audience involved.

I am being very honest here when I say that he left a greater impression on us than the belly dancers!

The food? We had quite a nice fare. A bottle of red wine which Kainaz tried out too though she is not much of a wine drinker. A prawn cocktail like fish dish topped with caviar, mint flavoured paneer samosas (!), roast lamb with mashed potato, lovely breads and fruit salad.

A most memorable anniversary dinner.

Some of the other anniversary dinners over the years which I remember include the basement English Pub at Glennaries Darjeeling (we later got locked out of our hotel as were late and froze outside), Sunderban Tiger Camp, Sadri’s Malaysian fish at Langkawi (and our sad faces when we saw the price) and the continental place at Pattaya where we had some lovely risotto and pasta.

Traveller’s notes:

- There are other shows in Istanbul. One is called Sultana, 1001 nights. I’d strongly recommend Keravan Serai as it is quite well rounded
- The listed cost is 70 euros per head if you land up by yourself. Our travel agent got it at 40 euros per head. This includes a drop from the hotel, food and alcohol
- Menu is fixed though differs from group to group. I saw that those in the Indian tour groups had salads, mezze, shaslik. They also have vegetarian options
- Alcohol is sufficient, though not unlimited. My definition of sufficient is two glasses per person
Duration: You are picked at 8PM and dropped back at 11PM. Show is for around 2 hrs
- This is close to Taksim

Eat in peace at Istanbul

Indians love to travel. Indian tourists form a sizeable chunk of tourists worldwide these days. One area where many face a problem though is when it comes to food. Some typical problems are:

- Where to get vegetarian food?
- How does one avoid meats like beef or pork which are taboos for Many Hindus and Muslims?
- How does one get used to sharp and alien tastes, food textures, smells?

The preferred antidote to this are packaged tours. The deal is that you get Indian meals every day cooked by Indian chefs who go along with the group. Doesn’t make sense to people like me who love to try out new dishes. I do understand that religious taboos could be a constraint for some who might be open to trying out new cuisines. Well, at least Turkey or Istanbul won’t be a problem for them.

The concept of ‘vegetarianism’ is quite understood there. The moment the heard that we were Indian or Hindistani they would offer us vegetarian options. And here I am speaking of the basic delis and not the up market restaurants. I remember once someone was asking a cart lady at the Sum Lum night market in Bangkok whether a dish was vegetarian and all she got in reply was ‘no pork’. That is unlikely to happen in Istanbul.



You also get a range of vegetarian dishes made with chick peas, kidney beans, beans and of course the ubiquitous green salads. I do not understand vegetarians and share Anthony Bourdain’s impatience with them. Still, I thought I must make this point for those who would like to travel by themselves but join the packaged tour circus of food fears.

The restaurant folks will even tell you what meat has been used. Chicken is obvious. But there are people who don’t eat beef for example. In Istanbul they will tell you whether it is mutton or beef or the more rare pork.

I remember that we had once ordered ‘kokerece (?)’ which was a dish made with intestines. This was in a restaurant in upscale Cisek Padesi. The waiter checked with us at least thrice before finally asking whether we had sany idea what we were ordering. We had to spend some time assuring him that we know and like our organs. Thank God that we convinced him as this chilly powder based, buttery, dish was heavenly and quite unique from most of the fare there.




For breakfast you won’t get the Indian dosas, idlis and parathas which you get in the Far East. But you do get loads of bread, an unbelievable array of cheese which I stuffed myself with every morning, salads, cereals, fruits, the works and of course cold cuts and eggs.




A lot of the dishes have fried onion, tomato, red chillies, Indian spices and the taste is different without being miles apart from (North) Indian food. You also get local breads which are similar to tandoori rotis, naans, parathas (called pide there) and rumali rotis. So you won’t miss home food as much as if you were depending on Chinese noodle soups, Thai coconut milk and fish oil based curries, bland fish and chips or Italian cheese and tomato dumps.

So drop your inhibitions and explore Istanbul. You won’t regret it.

if nothing else you have the American saviours there in most tourist spots. I am not sepaking of Rambo or Obama but of the fast food joints. Mc Donalds (apprently more popular than Mc Cain), Burger King, Starbucks, KFC... name it and its there.

You can read more on restaurants in turkey in my food blog, finely chopped.

Notes;

1. The beauty at the top of the post is a lovely mutton kaba dish that I had the day we landed

2. The average price for a dinner for two in a street deli costs about 15 Turkish Lira or 8-10 euros

3. Most meals are served with complimentary bread, rice. So unlike in India you don't have to order rice or bread separately with the main dish

4. Try the local butter milk which is called Ayran very similar to lassi

5. Curd is quite popular in Turkey and you can get pachaged curds to go with your meals

6. Cheese is called 'peynir' but is rarely like the Indian 'paneer'

7. Turkey is big in fried, roasted chillies. These are served with kebabs but you can ask for it separately too. They are not very hot though

Mumbai budget Eats

A reader of my food blog, finely chopped, wrote in yesterday asking for suggestions on where to treat an out of town friend at Colaba or Bandra at Mumbai. She requested me to keep in mind that she'd be footing the bill so requested me to keep a tight budget in mind.

Here's what I wrote to her:

I have tried to think of places which are economical yet seem special as you are treating someone. Some of these places don't serve alcohol. Alcohol jacks up the price.

List of around Rs 750 (USD 10) for 2 places:

Bandra:-

• Carter Rd Gully: Karims (he might get to see Malaika Arora there, I ate here last night a lovely Muslim dinner for two cost us Rs 315/ 8 USD),Kwik Wok (Oriental), Open Affair (no theme), Maybe (continental, very basic tastes), Crepe Station (ditto) all without alcohol...finish off with gelato or (romantic?) walk by the sea
• JATC (salads, pizzas, pastas, sand wich, subs) no alcohol but very alive
• 5 Spice: alcohol but expensive, food very value for money - one main dish more than enough for . Try - chilly chicken, burnt chilly rice or noodle, Thai curry. Desserts are 125 plus but very good - MY PICK
• Basilico, Out of the blue, Red Box very nice but will cross 1000 minimum
• If you are willing to slum it, Khaane Khaas, well within 500 lovely food, clean but spartan seating. Try tandoori chicken, black daal,jeera chicken, fish tikka. Great service, no crowd

Colaba/ South Bombay

• Churchill - lovely continental food, average price of 200 per dish -must have sausages in firecracker sauce, prawn newberg, ice tea. Long queues though
• Mocambo - beside Citibank in Fort. Lovely ambiance. Insist on theParsi menu. Conti stuff is 300 plus. But Parsi/ Goan stuff is around Rs100 per plate and can be positioned as unique to Bombay. Must trys -dhansak or pulao, daal, bheja cutlet, if adventurous - Ox's tongue. MY PICK given its a treat and has to be economical and should give a flavour of Bombay. You get alcohol too. Ice teas are very good, same management as Churchill
• Leopolds - very cult specially if he has read Shantaram. Sit downstairs though as upstairs is very expensive. Chinese is good and potions are large
• If he doesn't mind no meat or no alcohol take him to the Gujarati Thali places such as Golden Star at Charni Rd. Quite ornate, unique,food is plenty and prices are fixed (around 300 per thali)

Readers: please add in your suggestions. The brief is inexpensive yet not 'cheap'

The Chilly Crab Trail : The world on a platter at Singapore, April 2008

Have you ever seen a stuffed toy which comes with its own recipe?

The hospitality kit at my hotel at Singapore had just that. A tiny red stuffed toy in the shape of a crab. It had a ‘Uniquely Singapore’ label attached to it. The label read ‘Chilli (sic) crab – one of the most famous dishes you can savour in Singapore, where the world comes to feast’. It also had a recipe of a dish called ‘chilly crab’. This was apparently the national dish of Singapore.

Just the welcome gift to make a foodie feel at home.

I set off on my quest for chilly crab. My first night was with some Indian friends who took me to an Indian restaurant at Clark Quay. Clark Quay is the redeveloped river front in Singapore which is its food Ibiza. You will find many restaurants from all over the world. The food ranges from Mongolian to Thai to Italian and of course good old desi curry. The architecture is quite hip with glass, chrome and laser lights. It is quite an awesome and glitzy place.

Now here’s the thing. I never have Indian food when I am abroad so good bye to the telecaller Mr 22 nights/ 23 days Europe Darshan with Indian Maharaj. I must admit that the channa masala, naans and tikkas in the restaurant were fairly good. But the fact that I don’t even remember the name of the restaurant reflects what I thought of it.

So night one was Indian with no sign of chilly crab. The next afternoon I disassociated from my friends who wanted to go malling and as I went to Museum Of Asian Civilisation (that’s the part of me which we Bengalis call aatel or intellectual). The museum was right in front of Boat Quay. Boat Quay was another reclaimed river front at Singapore. It is far more like the simple sister of Clark Quay. It has an array of open air restaurants facing the river front but doesn’t have the glamour and scale of Clark Quay.

I came fairly close to chilly crab here. I ordered the national dish here only to be told that there were no small crabs and the larger ones would be too big for not so little me. I left the place after having the most amazing prawn sambal there. They had done this dried red chilly based Indonesian dish to perfection with a few cubes of raw tomato giving just the right balance of tanginess. I had this with a fried rice which was not very different from what you get in Mumbai. So much for those who run down ‘Indian’ Chinese.

After Indian and Indonesian my next meal was Persian. I went with some folks I met at Singapore to Clark Quay one night where we went to a Persian restaurant called Shiraz. We had the most amazing feta cheese salad, the world’s best kebab platter which had a mix of venison, quail, fish, lamb and the most tender chicken ever. There was belly dancer there who through the haze of smoke and fumes of wine seemed to smack of Mebooba Mehbooba and Sholay.

The Singaporean national dish eluded me in my next meal too which was in a ‘hawker centre’ – Lau Pa Sat. The hawker centres in Singapore are food courtyards with an array of food stalls where you place your order and then eat in a central area. The dishes are fairly cheap and are popular with office folks, tourists and locals. Here I had an amazing Pilipino pork dish which had delectable chunks of pork in a creamy coconut sauce alone with some sticky rice. I also tried their pork satays which had a slightly tandoori’ish taste in comparison to the Malay version which is flavoured with crushed peanuts.

Our next dinner was hosted by a local Singaporean which was at the BIcentre. So would the revered chilly crab give us an audience? Missed again! We had some deceptively spicy clams, a stingray which was cooked partly in a lime marinade and partly in a red sambal paste, spicy prawn noodles. But no chilly crab!

It all came together in the banquet of the conference which I was attending. This was at a quaint restaurant called ‘No Signboard Restaurant’. The nine course dinner promised chilly crab at the end. I soldiered through the very soft and tantalising goose entrails, clams, prawns, venison cooked in a Chinese sauce and countless glasses of wine which the waitresses were refilling the way attendants replenish your glass of water in an Udipi.

Most at my table gave in by the time the chilly crabs appeared. I was the last man standing. Not for long though.

The chilly crab was a bit disappointing. The meat was a bit too ‘fish like’ for my taste. I did like the red sweetish gravy and dunked the sweet Chinese buns which come with in the gravy and quite enjoyed it. But overall, I think I would clearly prefer the butter pepper garlic crab at Mahesh in Bombay any day.

As my Singaporean sojourn came to an end it was clear that THIS was the food capital of the world. You get just about every cuisine there.

The national dish, chilly crab? Not hot and spicy enough for Indians I guess. I preferred the chilly crab that welcomed me to Singapore to the cooked version.