Food Hacks 102- Be the hostel MasterChef

This is my continuation to the post Food hacks 101 to survive in Amrita Hostel. Well I tried sharing my insights of how to survive in the dire conditions we are left to survive, this post, I've tried putting together some of my favorite foods I learnt and mastered (not really) in the hostel. 

The basic requirement of a kitchen include an induction stove, pan and minimal cutlery, (knife, couple of spoons, peeler, etc.) a room far away from the warden’s den, a decent ventilation for the designated “kitchen." 
The collection of spices can vary as per the monetary availability. If you’re looking for things to get; salt, sugar, packaged seasonings are essentials. Seasonings could be as simple as a garlic or ginger powder, garam masala, jaljeera mix, oregano, mixed pasta or pizza toppings, jeera powder, pepper, spiced cheese, ketchup, peri peri sauce, salad dressings etc. You don’t get most of these in the stores, so make sure you load up with those when you get the chance. Some can also be bought online reducing the risk of being caught in the gate.

-         Maggie

Classic things first, add up a few table spoons of your flavoured cheese spread and add a punch. The cheese Maggie is the most sought after thing during our times. If you could get a little creative use up and mix as many seasonings you can to the Maggie, some work others have an adverse effect on the stomach, so beware. PS- Maggie is back into the market and is available on snapdeal. You could use a million other such commercial noodles or soupy variants as well

-         Cold coffee

This is a little exotic. The classic way of making this is cold milk from the stores and sugar and coffee powder, replace the milk with cavins vanilla and a little vanilla or chocolate ice cream, and blend them well with sugar and coffee. Thank me later.

-         Mashed potatoes

This is another lip smacking delicacy we hogged upon for more than a year. Boil the potatoes well in the pan, or kettle. Mince the onions, chillies, tomato, capsicum, cucumber, mint leaves, coriander, little curry leaves, and splash em over the mashed boiled potatoes. Season up with chaat masala, garam masala, or any other seasonings available. Adding a little olive oil or coconut oil (if you’re a fan of it) on the hot potatoes builds the flavour.

Use your innovation on this to add some Andhra pickles or the groundnut powder your telugu friends might have. The spicy ones will be a burst in the palate.
PS- Excessive potatoes causes gas accumulation if you’re not used to it. So show your body some variety or you’d have a tough time while sleeping.

-         Roti with Nutella

This is pretty famous. Flick a couple of rotis from the mess, spread some Nutella over and munch. The roti would taste pathetic if its cold so take that into account. If you got some time to spare and prepare, empty a glass of cold milk, marinate or leave the roti in it for some time (not very long,) and then proceed with the Nutella. Be sure not the waste the remaining milk. Replace the Nutella with sugar during extreme cases.

-         Bread with pickle

As crazy as it might sound, tastes heavenly. The fact that the Andhra pickle could practically go with anything backs the awesomeness of this dish. My friend came up with this masterpiece when he was left alone in the room staring at the pickle dabba on a rainy weekend. If you’re mad enough try the Andhra pickle with noodles as well.

-         Club sandwich

Cut the veggies, stack them up between the bread, put some butter. You have options of flicking the butter off from the mess in the mornings if you can store it, but be careful as it’d get messy. I’ve never tried buying butter from the GS, I use cheese slice or spread instead. Spice it up with some seasonings or pickles if you like.

-         Bhel Puri/ Pani Puri

Same procedure, cut them veggies first, add a dash of lemons and add the puffed rice and sev to top off. If you don’t get puffed rice, try using kurkure instead. Watch on the lemon if you’re innovating with spicy versions of kurkure. Bhujiya and sev and a few other A1 chips namkeen we get from our stores would go good.

For pani puri you could utilise some of the similar cut greens, and make the jaljeera with a dash of lemon and afloat a couple of mint leaves. Add dry mango powder if you like it sour. Avoid using green chillies, they spoil the safe zone!

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      Birthday cakes

Who doesn’t like birthdays! We’ve succeeded in celebrating a handful of birthdays with a cake that’s made indigenously within the supplies we have at the general store. Here’s what you’ll need

Bread- one or two loafs (get the buns if it’s a party for lesser people)
Chocolates- The galaxy milky ones are more easy to melt down, diary milk silk and any other plain ones will be equally good. Get extra considering the fact that you’ll eat off the majority while making it.
Sweet cream cookies- I would suggest staying up with oreos for the taste, but if you’re innovative you could happily choose between other variants.
Choco pie
Milky bar chocolates, for the icing
Sugar- icing
Gems, kitkat, wafers for toppings

Cut the bread in transverse section, and stuff them with as much chocolate as possible. To make the chocolate easil workable dip them in a bowl of hot water and wait until it's molten enough to flow like fudge. Adding a little layer of butter in the middle will give an excellent texture.

-         Pan fried Chicken

This is for the pro cooks who’ve got the will and strength to do something. This project, if taken light could cause a few suspensions including confiscation of cutlery and cooking gears, so be very wary. In addition to the cooking team, you need some special engineering skills to carefully ventilate the gas and smell outward. Have a person monitor the corridor and plan for an emergency (like the power tripping off or the hostel maintenance dude check on your floor.)

Get the following,
Onions 250 gms
Garlic 15 cloves
Coriander
Sesame
Jeera
Chicken masala
Salt
Lemon
Anything else required for flavouring
Red dry chillies 100 gms

-Start off with tossing the chillies in low heat, in oil and add the chicken when they’re roast.
-Do not add extra water, sprinkle a little turmeric powder, simmer with lid on for 20 mins at least, stir occasionally.
- When the chicken is cooked (it should be easy to chew and visibly cooked on the inside) top off with masala. Stay on the blander sides with the masala as they could take longer to cook.
- Add salt to flavour and hunt it down.

PRECAUTION

• There are high risks of getting caught if you leave your room un-ventilated. Use the engineering you’ve learnt and get to work.
• If you’re sauteeing something, use minimal oil and don’t let the oil heat in the pan, as adding veggies then will instantly create a burst of vapours and a dash of a smell.
• Using deodorants or room sprays is not going to help suppress the smell and flavour in the air- ventilation is the key.
• Be sure to keep the fan off while cooking.
• Seal off the room from the corridors (the portion above the door lintels) unless you want to invite the whole corridor for a supper
• Closed cooking rapidly decreases the cooking time and the water requirement of cooking, last thing you want is to attract eyes while walking to and fro the water dispenser.
• Vegetables are fine to be eaten a little under cooked. Don’t bother too much to fry or toss em up.
• Cooking such real-time food requires a little experience and cooking without getting caught is simple team work. In the end if at all you get caught ask for the warden to wait until the meal is done and offer him a bite and try your luck. If your chances are good, you might get away with a warning. Hide the stove and surrender the pan. Remember this, sometimes people don’t think as much as we think they do. They might actually forget about the stove (I’m not assuring anything.) 

Photos Courtesy- Anju Venugopal, Amrita Sabhapathi, Gayatri, Kaavya R, Pagalavan M, Prem
Content Courtesy- Dept. Of Civil Engineering (as in the students who pass out in 2016)

Le Sucre, a worth visit for your weekly cup-cake cravings.

After a little too much bias and hype from fellow people who drool over cup cakes and red velvet, I decided to pay tribute to this petite cup-cake place on a Friday evening. 

Sit here to enjoy your cupcake,
enjoy being looked at like a show piece.

Ambiance

Being located at a mall, parking is no big deal. Unlike other malls, the parking is a little less expensive. Thirty bucks an hour (if you're saying wtf now, welcome to the club.) The table room or more of a "cup-cake cafe" is located in the third floor of the Brookfields mall (first ever mainstream malls to reach the shores of Coimbatore,) near Odyssey, not inside the food court. The inside is completely quiet from the usual chaos, they pay good attention to maintain the place spic and span. The wall hangings on the west was amazing, pretty impressive collection. The show plates near the glazed entrance were empty (and I don't like me plate empty.) 

Lighting was just sufficient with white predominantly bounced from muted walls. 

Furniture was decent, but the chairs were a bit tall for the table provided. The stools (as they were more like that) resembled bar stool and wasn't really the thing for a place of this kind. On the other hand, sofas are well chosen, cozy too. 

Behind the display and billing lay another set of visually appealing cutlers, more for a show purpose than being actually used. 

The display trays were decent enough for the spread of the menu. The whole cafe at a go could serve up to 20 people seating, however seats were limited to 15. Good not being over cramped. The cutlery, plates in specific, were white and dirty :/ A darker colour could have worked better. 

Chocoholic

Food

The menu was simple with, cup cakes as the main seller and was sided with green tea, cappuccino, only reason being, cup-cakes don't feel left alone. We walked in at almost 8 pm and red velvet cup cake already ran out of stocks. With great disappointment I chose to have a few others. I could lay hands on the chocoholic, a heavenly chocolate cup cake baked with dark choc and topped with beaten chocolate, they made an awesome blend on the top, but was more sugary leaving you blind in sweetness. The strawberry cheesecake is something that drove me with it's name, it's baked with biscuits at the bottom with the whole cake made of normal buttered flour, that was too dry, it crumbled as it was pierced, topped off with a layer of crème cheese, highlighted in the centre with raspberry Jam! Irony, because of the jam, it tasted like Jim Jam biscuit. This particular dish could be improved by a layer of cheese in the middle and more butter in the

Nutella Cup cake

cake flour. Also flavoring the cheese with strawberry instead of the jam would greatly improve. One made with Nutella (forgot the name) was the best I laid hands on! It was usual chocolate based cake topped with nutella and iced with choco cips. The cake was fresh and... chewey, sweetness was well maintained and the chocochips didn't do as much damage as I thought it'd do. 

Heavenly chocolate was another in the list, which was sweet chocolate cake topped with a thick layer of éclair. Had a hard time finishing it and I died for something spicy to over come the sweetness, my bad cappuccino also wasn't available. 

Service

The franchise is run by a pretty famous group of companies in CBE. It's self service and if you're a huge crowd you might spend some time to get em proper. 

Cupcakes cost about 69 and 59 and coffee about 40, green tea at 30. If you choose a wise range of serving, it is absolute value for money. The so called dessert places that cost twice hardly serve the same or even worse, so if you're dying for cup cakes, walk right into here. 

They open by 11 is in the afternoon and close by 9:00 pm. So in case you get disappointed because it's closed, you're just at the tip of the ice berg. 

Their best seller is the Red velvet which gets sold out by 4:00 pm max. 

If you might need more at a go, you could even try calling up for a pre-order, which I'm sure they would entertain (I haven't tried though.) 

Yari- Saibaba Colony Coimbatore

Having read raving reviews about this place made me wishlist this restaurant a few months back. And it remained there until we chose to drop in on our food walk in Saibaba colony and Rs puram for some "pre-lunch" food. 

I've heard so much about their starters and fusion cuisines, a couple of friends were lucky enough to meet the chef responsible for the food on one of their visits. His humility is an exact contrary to what comes on the plate.

The table room is huge, can seat a 120-140 people easily, and the seating is made quite closer to each other. Not too close but placed just far away from each other for a decent walk through space. The crowd is noisy and can hardly give you a peace of mind.

Service is top notch, the servers know what is what and the waiters who receive the orders know better and their suggestions were just helpful. Food arrives in less than 15 minutes and successive meal arrives in no time. 

They are famous for their Tandoori Broccoli, Dahi chats, papdi chats and rotis. I personally LOVED the cream of spinach soup. There was a little excess of flavours for a soup, but the flavours were top notch.  The consistency was rich and was topped off with cream that enhanced the texture of the soup.

Gilafi Seek kabab- took me by awe. It was supposed to be mediumly spiced as per the waiter, but tasted a little too bland. I wonder what the plain seek kabab would taste then. However, the other aspects of the kebab were just perfect. They were cooked well unlike the other veg ones we’d expect there was no raw flavour of the flour. Kudos to the chef for mastering the Art.

Tandoori Broccoli- A friend of mine who drools over broccoli spoilt the experience for me with all the hype. The broccoli was undercooked and tandoored on a wrong temperature (hotter than it should be I guess) because the outer was scorched (almost) and inside was fresh and raw. Should be a small error, which shouldn’t be ignored nonetheless

To summarise, this is one feast for veggies where we get to lay hands on the finest and the most sought after north Indian foods in one place and they are pretty much authentic and fusion-ed at the same. Definitely worth visiting a couple of times until you’re done with almost all the dishes served here. 

FOOD- 4.5/5

Ambience- 3.5/5 

Service- 3.5/5

Cost- 3.5/5

Food hacks 101 for a starving soul in Amrita hostel

This post is not just restricted to Amrita hostels, it could be any hostel for that matter. I've written this post with my experience and surviving tactics I've learnt here. I hope this post does not hurt anyone directly or indirectly and for the record, the food here at Amrita(if not amazing) is definitely not as bad as I've exaggerated. To state some facts, I have lost about 20 kg (86~65 kg)in the first four-five months in hostel, mainly because of the combined effort of yoga, swimming and running, but the food intake levels also had a decorative effect.    

It’s 11:15 pm, the doors of night canteen are slam shut and so are the hostel doors, the dogs in the campus aren’t allowed to take a stroll out at this hour. Feeling hungry is the most dreaded thing we could end up doing. Irrespective of whether there’s a time bomb under your bed or worse, an exam up in front lined up the next week, this call needs to be answered. You could really hunt down a thin crust cheese burst pizza or your mom’s dhal makhni or some butter chicken from that gully wale, the more you get reminded the worse it gets. So here’s how I managed to help drag myself out of this ambush of thoughts about lip smacking food.

What entitles me to write this? I would have survived 4 years in this place in another 6 months and I, unlike most of you am the weakest on the face of good food. The very sight or smell or the thought about food starts the gastronomical cycle eating my brain up leaving me hungry and thinking about and longing for good food.

Here’s a list of things to follow that could possibly help you out of the most difficult times at hostel. A few of this might sound a little parental and a few… well out-right nonsense, trust me each of these have helped me(us) survive better with the limited supplies I(we) was left with.

1.      Never skip a meal

You might feel like stopping to read this, but it helps. Not about statistics, but you’re 100% more likely to feel hungry and long for good food if you’re starving. However bad it tastes, be it the mighty idlies, or the bread biriyanis, kichdi, or the curd rice that has no taste, eat as much as possible. If not actually fill in your appetite, they might fool your brain saying you aren't starving.

2.     The evening snacks and tea

The evening tea and snacks is the most underrated of all. They are terribly well designed to fill your stomach for a small amount of time. The wonderful things thats served (so called tea and coffee) are predominantly made of water and coffee/tea flavor have a capacity to fake your thoughts and they make your brain believe you’re fed well. With an extra mug of those, I could all night without feeling a thing on my stomach

3.     USE the GS!!

Spend a semester in the campus and anybody would curse the General Store for having NOTHING! If looked upon closely, they’ve got a little more than nothing. Here’s a list of things that could turn out to be a life saver when you’re starving and don’t feel like eating in the mess
- MILK The packed milk is pasteurized implying it is free from any possible germs or impurities. I’ve been drinking a half liter cold milk right off the pack on and off and I hadn’t had any issues. They are a classic appetite killer and could keep your stomach calm for a few hours.
Excessive consumption of milk as a replacement for meal is injurious to health. More of just milk dinner- you might have to consult a doctor for malnutrition.
- Bread, Bun, cream bun- These are excellent sides to the milk pack. A loaf of bread and a pack of 500ml milk will do the trick
- Plantain and other seasonal fruits
- Paal guava

4.    Load up during an apocalypse

A week with periodicals, or a busy weekend stuck up with the lame project works, this is the driest periods of our lives. This is when we call up the people we made friends and acquaintances in our whole college life and ask them to get the smallest possible treats from outside. It is times like these that one should be really locked and loaded with ample food supply especially because you’ll be island-ed with the college food for the longest spell. The best things to load up would be your favorite chips or anything JUNK! Hogging on junk during such spells would kill the long lasting cravings. During these times having a few extra boxes of cookies saved and some nuts to be on the healthy side would turn out more useful than ever.

5.    Mix ‘em up

So this is the final and favorite section! Something as simple as a pinch of sugar can kill the groaning stomach. To be listed below are a set of recipes I’ve heard from friends, most of which I have survived on for more than three years. My next post will feature some of the easiest to the pro cookery we've learnt and perfected in hostel.

STAY TUNED!

Restaurant review: New Delhi, Naturals Ice cream- Connaught Place

Ice cream parlor posts raining in my blog doesn't mean I love ice creams so much. But it's never bad to lay hands on a fine tasting frozen dessert. This was a sensational, most talked about place (apparently.) One of my friends who was my local guide in Delhi bragged so much about this place and their mouthwatering delights. A quick peek into zomato for an assessment was no different. 

After a light dinner at the nearby Sagar Rathna saving a lot of space for ice creams payed off. The parlor looks cozy, designed to hold a lot of people, limited seating in a breathtaking ambiance. What came in as a surprise was, they have an entire wall, 15'X5' dedicated to show off the articles about this place on newspapers and other printed media.

They've got over 70 branches across metros and it all started with the Juhu beach outlet, says their website. Quite sophisticated methods of manufacture, they've grown to a level where they needed to start their own facility for manufacturing the dessert. 

FOOD, I got myself two variants that pretty much let me judge the quality of ice cream they serve. Unlike what I've (we've) mostly known to, the flavoring are either added as a synthetic syrup whose preservative content ruins the original taste or the ones where the dessert is minced and smashed and mixed with flavours on a cold stone. But here, they get to the roots. Flavor is added to the blend before they are frozen and the blending process is done so perfect that you wouldn't find a sign of deterioration. About the ice cream, they are visibly more creamy, better than almost every "brand" that we'd have tasted, not a lump of ice or much of a gas, this is good as home made with no d Here are the only two flavors I could lay hands on;

Tender coconut- What I expected was some weird flavor of tender coconut to accompany shredded coconut as topping, what turned out blew my mind. The ice cream was blended along with fresh tender coconut, so fresh you'd get reminded of the ones you get in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. With every bite of it comes a shred of the coconut skin that explodes as a treat in the palate. This is love at first bite!

Kiwi- Not a fan of the fruit but this one is a time bomb! The first bite doesn't invite much of a recognition to the flavors and in three two one... boom! There's kiwi all over. I grew a love for the fruit after tasting the ice cream.  

Apart from these they serve a dash of flavors like, watermelon, custard apple, roasted almond, papaya pineapple, strawberries, fig, peach apricot, mango, chikoo, black grapes

This is one heck of an ice cream parlor and their innovations and contributions towards the food is worth being noted. 

About this outlet in particular, the service is pretty good, and the staff knew whats what to guide us through the menu. When I was trying to click a picture of the live counter, I was asked by the staff to not click which is why I am not posting any pictures. 

My final split up

Food- 5/5

Ambiance- 4.5/5

Service- 4.5/5

Cost- 5/5

Cream Stone, Peelamedu, Coimbatore

Tiramisu

If you’re bored of kuchi ice, cone ice and cup ice and looking for something different in ice creams and frozen desserts. Give this place a try here. 

In association with SMS hotels group they’ve finally made a debut in Coimbatore right off SMS on Avinashi road.  I am not a great fan of ice creams as such but wouldn’t miss a good serve of it. The restaurant design both interiors and exteriors are top notch. The signage is big enough to be visible form any corner of the road. Any passer-by could spot it. The table room is split in two, one large one with ample room to walk around, and good enough to seat 20 people. And another chamber that secretly lies inside with a seating capacity for another 20-25. The glazed walls allow ample light into the table room. Had it been a sunny afternoon, I think it’d get a little hot then. 

The key thing with their ice creams is that they make it fresh and the Sunday is mixed in a live counter that gives it a rich texture. The consistency of the ice cream stands for the quality. They serve a list of about 15 variants and also have a custom choice where the diner can choose the type of toppings or admixtures for the dessert. Unlike other commons, they have a wide range of mixes, the favourites and top selling are the brownies and the chocolate fudge; the other unsung yet lip smacking ones range from, litchis, chikku, and a lot of other fresh fruits that would go excellent with an ice cream. And some common ones like choco sticks, wafers, etc. 

I got to lay hands on the tiramisu and brownie delight. Tiramisu is just the name. It was made of vanilla ice cream mixed with oreos and coffee and topped off with cocoa powder served on a waffle. Cost a 110 bucks+tax. The brownie delight was a chocolate ice cream with hot chocolate fudge mixed with Oreo and brownies. It was clearly classic. Rich in taste super yummy. Cost 99+tax. 

If looked at the outline, spending 100+tax on an average for a 50ml cup is ruthless, but having the quality in mind and the amount of variants available, I wouldn’t call it VFM, but also not overpriced. My tip to the restaurant is to increase the portion size and serves. 

Service was all fine. We were hardly accompanied by three others so it was pretty quick. 

My verdict on this dessert parlor

Food- 4/5

Cost- 3/5

Service- 3.5/5

Parking- 3.5/5

Ambiance- 3.5/5 

Restaurant Review Chennai : Val's Pattiserie

This is where we got directed when we inquired a local about good places near Ashok Nagar. 
Spot on,

64/77, Sriji Apartments, 12th Avenue, Ashok Nagar, Chennai

Val's Patisserie is located on the ground floor Sriji Apartments. It doesn't have a catchy display board nor there's any signage on the road to direct you, but once on 12th avenue it should be quite easy to find spot on. 

Being located in an apartment, there is ample parking space and there's not much traffic so on street parking shouldn't be a problem as well. 

The ambiance wasn't bad, decently lit and natural light is made use optimally. AC was turned on only after we entered. The place was empty owing to the time we chose to walk in at 4pm. The place seems quite like an old 80's house renovated frequently and has the jigs of a restaurant. The table room looks like it was expanded recently with a few extra new set of tables that clearly was a spoiler to the appearance. The arrangement of the tables was however pretty good, staggered and plain, not much of the over-decorative type. There's a mat kinda thingy on which the plates are laid on the table, it looks pretty well, but not sure on how often they get to meet with cleaning. 

Food, the ones we got to lay up our hands on were very average, and apparently the place is famous for their pastas! But our bad we didn't try it then. 

- Sandwich was made a little too dry without toasting or anything that took a while to find its way through the food pipe. The fillings inside were decent but didn't go very well with the bread and the flavors were very mild, very average.

- The fries that came along was the best thing. The flavors were excellent and seasoned and well distributed over all.

- Potato wedges were a bit over fried. They were too crisp till the core. 

- Pizza, was decent enough. Tasted authentic topped with olive oil on a bread base though. The toppings were very sparse and the cheese layer was thin as butter, was fresh but over baked. The toppings composed of a few other discrete unidentified particles. 

- Irish Frappe! The thing to try here. It was over sweet though, but the consistency was great. They might have run an ice-cream through the blender, not sure.

The dishes were sided with just ketchup and not many other things. 

As the name goes, they make a few varieties of cakes as well, but didn't find any on the menu. 

Cost, it was around 350 for three people, and I guess it explains for what was served. However, running a place like this can't come anymore cheaper. So it's value for money. 

Serving time was around 15 minutes and service was prompt.

I would personally suggest to add more color and light to the table room and concentrate on smaller aspects like the focus lamps and ceiling lights. The place on a whole looked very dull, and was running low on everything which could be the reason it hasn't gone wild with the outer world. People from the local areas still flock around for they've got a great reputation behind which is promising and worth reinventing.