Trucking into food heaven

I imagined my first food truck experience to be straight out of the freewheeling Jon Favreau’s 2014 film Chef, taking me to melty cheesy barbecued heaven and even though it wasn’t by a beachside promenade in San Francisco and on a leafy bylane of Indiranagar, Bengaluru instead, I was not complaining.

Salivating at the thought of a freshly grilled and juicy chicken steak burger and onion rings from the Spitfire BBQ truck, I made my way to 6th Main, Indiranagar.

The last thing I expected in this gastronomic idyll was an ugly run-in with the local authorities and the very serious problem that this burgeoning business of food trucks in the city is facing, something that could shut down this novel enterprise altogether.

I entered a scene of chaos. There were hungry diners in queue, waiting for their food, three cops in their police van, making rude gestures to shut down operations and the last wonderful smells of freshly grilled meat dying out as the grill was extinguished and the back doors of the truck closed, signalling the end of the evening.

As I followed the truck away from the main road into a quiet alley by a park, I met the two harried partners of Spitfire BBQ, Siddhant Sawkar and Pratika Binani and tried to understand what the problem was. The lack of any existing laws or licences around food trucks in India makes them operate in a grey area where they are neither breaking any laws nor conforming to them. More than anything else, it makes these upcoming young startups ripe for exploitation by every neighbourhood police authority, residents’ association or even other fixed commercial establishments. “Anyone can slam a case for anything ranging from ‘public nuisance’ to disruption of peace. In fact someone even complained to the cops saying that we were blocking his view...and the view from his house was of a bar across the street!” says Siddhant.

While Spitfire BBQ’s three-day stint at Indiranagar was part of their Save the Food Trucks drive, there is clearly a problem here and laws need to be put in place to protect as well as nurture these small startups which could portend exciting things for street food.

Spitfire BBQ comprises a young and enterprising duo who started their business from scratch, outfitting the truck themselves and launching their food dream of classic American-style fast food on wheels. Siddhant is the chef among the two who believes that quality produce goes a long way and in keeping with this idea, every aspect of their menu is handcrafted from scratch. Not only does he make the bread for the burgers himself, each burger is stuffed with a freshly cooked chicken steak hot off the grill. Everything is carefully sourced from local farms and Siddhant maintains high quality controls and consistency across his menu which keeps changing depending on the availability of ingredients. At one point, he was curing his own meats and even making his own cheese. However that was very hard to sustain as a business model especially since they plan to scale up and are looking at franchisee options.

Comparisons with Jon Favreau’s food truck in the film are inevitable and it is interesting that a whole two weeks after watching the film, Spitfire BBQ actually did their versions of the famous Cubanos or Cuban sandwiches, thus “giving the film free publicity,” says Siddhant.

Their menu ranges from sliders to burgers, onion rings to hot dogs with new stuff constantly being added to the list. Evrything carries Siddhant’s trademark ‘dude food’ style as well as a bit of Southern Italian flavours. So between driving around the city, dealing with the cops and irate neighbours, engaging with their customers (four groups came up to them while I was chatting with them) and cooking, the Spitfire BBQ guys have much on their plate and plans to increase their tribe as well. With competitive pricing (Rs 90 - Rs 300), this food truck encourages you to come out in support, eat their food and get some sauce on your chin!

This piece appeared in The New Indian Express Bangalore on 14 February, 2015

To Buy or Not to Buy, That is the Urban Vegetable Question

I live, like many other migrants to Bengaluru, in a well-guarded multi-storied bastion, keeping the rest of the world out. I also live on a bustling main arterial road and the nearest market is a good 20-minute walk, 20 minutes too long after a long working day. My early days in the city thus saw me heavily dependent on a well-known supermarket chain which has its outlet right within the campus of my building. While it is adequate enough for daily groceries, it is a disaster as a greengrocer. With maggoty fruits, holey salad leaves and bruised veggies, this was the nail in the coffin for my supermarket adventures which had started with a rat which jumped out of a shelf full of wilted spinach in a neighbourhood supermarket in Delhi. For me, that moment marked everything that was wrong with our so-called retail food boom.

I had grown up in Kolkata, going to the local market with my grandfather, where everyday's veggies were bought fresh from the vendors whose burlap sacks upended piles of fresh seasonal vegetables straight from the local farmers. There was no excess and there was no wastage from the seller to buyer and from the cooking to the eating. It was a way of shopping and eating that has become alien in our workaday lives. We now live away from our families and their expansive kitchens. We shop on weekends at chain stores, buying stuff for the fortnight and the food we eat comprises limp, half-frozen vegetables that are turned into quick and insipid curries.  

In my mind I was an old-fashioned sort. It is the early morning market visits with my grandfather which taught me that. I liked handpicking my veggies. However, as a recently grown up, working and married woman who had recently left her pampered home and hearth, these shopping rituals were hardly a luxury. From Delhi to Bengaluru, my experiences with local sabziwallahs have been complicated. As they looked at my discomfiture vis-a-vis veggies that I had grown up hating, they would give me withering looks. My naivete made me especially gullible to the vagaries of these men and women who would convince me of the seasonal freshness, the problems with the crops and the unfamiliarity with the local prices.

This is what drove me to a supermarket and its everything-under-one roof convenience. As I would move from aisle to aisle towards the vegetable section with my hope still afloat. Every single supermarket disappointed. Every fruit and vegetable on the shelf looked like it had travelled the breadth of the country fighting disease and deprivation till it reached this particular metal shelf—its chosen spot for its last breath. It was organic carnage. The potatoes had either turned green or into mutant flowerpots with little leafy stems. Tomatoes would burst into a bloody mess the moment I dropped it into my empty cart and once, I even saw a few little worms clinging to the plastic of the cling-wrapped Washington apples.

My local sabziwallah would set up his cart-shop ten minutes away from my apartment every evening from 5-9 pm without fail. I would return to that shop over and over with a woebegone face. I imagined him smirking as he imperiously tossed fresh-from-the-field veggies into my bag while charging me a premium and dismissing my arguments about the supermarket deals with a single "take it or leave it" look.
It is quite the conundrum, one that eludes a perfect solution. Bengaluru is a city of many choices from the exorbitant organic to the weekly farm-fresh produce in mandis at the other end of town. However, in all these situations, the idea of being an incompetent haggler in an unfamiliar language was as unpleasant as it is was a blow to the ego of a bargain hunter such as myself.

In my search for options, I often ended up at a bright, airy and air conditioned gourmet store sprawled across the top floor of a swanky city mall. The visit to this store ended up being weekend entertainment like visiting the zoo rather than a chore. As unfamiliar food and artistic culinary displays have a strange allure for me taking me to unknown lands on the culinary map. This particular store with its piles of delicate berries, smelly cheeses, exotic mushrooms and candied fruits, is my vicarious food trip across the world. Rare mushrooms, Mediterranean peppers and hairy tropical fruits jostled for space in this alien smorgasbord straight out of a Ridley Scott masterpiece. The end result, I purchase no useful staples that we can actually eat, but overpriced and useless exotica which sit uneasy in a good home-cooked meal.
Despite my aversion to aisle store fare, I do recommend its fair pricing. In the many veggie cons that have been pulled on me, most famous was the one where I went to a specialist Bengali market where I met a vegetable seller with the gift of the gab though and I was the recipient of the one standout sale he made that day. I bought a lau (a bottle gourd), which according to him had arrived that very day from Kolkata on the superfast train. And with such a narrative flourish, he sold us a `15 vegetable for more than five times its worth.

As I returned time and again to my neighbourhood sabziwallah, his grouchy face seemed to occasionally carry the hint of a smile. It was a less-than-perfect relationship. Yet, we learn to make do. And he always sold me the plumpest, reddest and freshest tomatoes which made up for my disillusionment with the pre-packaged "lowest price" supermarket rotters.

This appeared in the New Indian Express Bangalore on 29 November, 2014

You gotta roll with it

The quintessential kati roll was born in a cavernous and smoky Mughlai restaurant in the Byzantine back alleys of Kolkata called Nizam's way back in 1932. The classic kebab cooked on a bamboo skewer or kati (as it was called in Bengali) and stuffed in a fluffy paratha, was a quick meal on the go and a substantial snack that nurtured generationsof Calcuttans. The kati roll shortened to a simple 'roll' soon travelled with enterprising Bengalis to other parts of the country and was soon appropriated as Indian street food available in every nook and corner in every city across the country. Everyone had their own secret spices, their own meat and veggie variation and their own secret sauces. From Delhi's kakori kebab rolls to Mumbai's aloo filled frankies, the roll has many avatars. However, it is the Kolkata-style kati roll that has survived many pretenders and converted even the health food junkie to break their resolve and try a bite of this delicious, greasy and unbelievably hearty meal on a stick. Bangalore as a shape-shifting city of expats is home to varied cuisines and cultures and a large Bengali population (numbering in lakhs) has ensured that the Calcutta-style kati roll has found its way into the leafy bylanes of neighbourhoods across the city. Surprsingly, we found some delicious rolls hidden away in the backlanes of Indiranagar, that posh high street of gourmet restaurants and chic pubs. Move away from the glittery neon lights of the main roads, through the warren of bungalows and boutiques, use your nose as a GPS radar, follow the smoky smell of burning charcoal and before long, you will find yourself at these popular hole-in-the-wall establishments that have become my comfort food on blustery and rainy days.

Chakum Chukum: Calcutta on a Roll: This little roll shop tucked away in a corner off
7th Main Road, Indiranagar is always busy and the few plastic chairs and stools outside its outlet are almost always occupied and many others stand by waiting for the parcels or chowing down hot rolls under the tree. The three or four member staff operate out of minuscule kitchen churning out rolls by the dozen with assembly line precision. The paratha in each roll is equally crisp, the lemony onions creating the perfect balance with the charred edges of the kebab or veggie filling. Started by an advertising executive, Sujoy Das (also the man behind the innovative Bengali and Anglo-Indian restaurant Bow Barracks which has unfortunately shut shop) and his wife Arpita Sinha, this little joint has a loyal; customer base as well as daily converts. My favourite: their Double Chicken Egg Roll where the paratha is cooked on the griddle along with egg, creating this flaky hybrid paratha-omelette which is then given that right bit of heat with the green chillies, the sweet and sour red onions and the melt-in-the mouth and tangy chicken tikkas. This one is really Calcutta on a kati. Priced at `140, this is a perfect substitute for dinner. The  prices start at Rs 50.

Khan Saheb Grills and Rolls: Just down the road from Chakum Chukum, Khan Saheb
is located on the ground floor of Sri Shiva Sai Complex on the 13th Main, HAL 2nd stage Indiranagar and is a roll shop worth patronizing. Another primarily takeaway joint, they make their rolls in paratha, roomali roll as well as whole wheat
wraps. They also have a more extensive menu with kebabs and tandoori items as well
as beda roti and bhuna combos. However, since rolls were what I wanted, rolls werewhat I stuck to. I tried their Chicken Reshmi Tikka Roll in a whole wheat wrap. This healthy option was surprisingly tasty and holding the succulent kebab filling with elan. The Mutton Seekh Roll (one cannot have do justice to a mutton roll unless it comes in a paratha) was a delightful spicy concoction of finely ground meat kebabs and julienned onions. Priced at Rs 70 and Rs 120 each, the two rolls were an economical and satisfying
late evening snack. While this roll joint combines the Kolkata kati roll with local flavour, it does so with finesse, making sure that kati roll junkies or wrap-eating fitness enthusiasts get their fix.

Kitchen of Joy: This tiny and cheerful snack joint is bedecked with snapshots of the city,
stuffed with Kolkata-themed memorabilia and little tables and mudas where your knees and elbows might graze against your neighbours, providing the perfect session for intimate adda sessions or a frugal first date. Apart from chops, samosas, boiled eggs and a range of teas, the little shop modelled after a neighboured snack joint in Kolkata, also serves kati rolls. I picked a Chicken Egg roll and was surprised to find a generous portion of a tawa-style chicken stuffed inside a flaky paratha. While there are some purists who argue that the regular kati roll can sometimes be a tad too dry, this roll is the answer to all those cribs. Coated in a spicy sauce, onions and slivers of capsicum, this roll is hearty and fillling. Quell your tingling tastebuds with a soft rosogolla from the same shop and you will leave as a happy camper. The Chicken Egg roll is competitively priced at Rs 90.

(This story was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore on 15 November 2014)

The Shop around the Corner

I live, like many other migrants to Bengaluru, in a well-guarded multi-storied bastion, keeping the rest of the world out. I also live on a bustling main arterial road and the nearest market is a good 20-minute walk, 20 minutes too long after a long working day. My early days in the city thus saw me heavily dependent on a well-known supermarket chain which has its outlet right within the campus of my building. While it is adequate enough for daily groceries, it is a disaster as a greengrocer. With maggoty fruits, holey salad leaves and bruised veggies, this was the nail in the coffin for my supermarket adventures which had started with a rat which jumped out of a shelf full of wilted spinach in a neighbourhood supermarket in Delhi. For me, that moment marked everything that was wrong with our so-called retail food boom.
I had grown up in Kolkata, going to the local market with my grandfather, where everyday's veggies were bought fresh from the vendors whose burlap sacks upended piles of fresh seasonal vegetables straight from the local farmers. There was no excess and there was no wastage from the seller to buyer and from the cooking to the eating. It was a way of shopping and eating that has become alien in our workaday lives. We now live away from our families and their expansive kitchens. We shop on weekends at chain stores, buying stuff for the fortnight and the food we eat comprises limp, half-frozen vegetables that are turned into quick and insipid curries.   
In my mind I was an old-fashioned sort. It is the early morning market visits with my grandfather which taught me that. I liked handpicking my veggies. However, as a recently grown up, working and married woman who had recently left her pampered home and hearth, these shopping rituals were hardly a luxury. From Delhi to Bengaluru, my experiences with local sabziwallahs have been complicated. As they looked at my discomfiture vis-a-vis veggies that I had grown up hating, they would give me withering looks. My naivete made me especially gullible to the vagaries of these men and women who would convince me of the seasonal freshness, the problems with the crops and the unfamiliarity with the local prices.
This is what drove me to a supermarket and its everything-under-one roof convenience. As I would move from aisle to aisle towards the vegetable section with my hope still afloat. Every single supermarket disappointed. Every fruit and vegetable on the shelf looked like it had travelled the breadth of the country fighting disease and deprivation till it reached this particular metal shelf—its chosen spot for its last breath. It was organic carnage. The potatoes had either turned green or into mutant flowerpots with little leafy stems. Tomatoes would burst into a bloody mess the moment I dropped it into my empty cart and once, I even saw a few little worms clinging to the plastic of the cling-wrapped Washington apples.
My local sabziwallah would set up his cart-shop ten minutes away from my apartment every evening from 5-9 pm without fail. I would return to that shop over and over with a woebegone face. I imagined him smirking as he imperiously tossed fresh-from-the-field veggies into my bag while charging me a premium and dismissing my arguments about the supermarket deals with a single "take it or leave it" look.
It is quite the conundrum, one that eludes a perfect solution. Bengaluru is a city of many choices from the exorbitant organic to the weekly farm-fresh produce in mandis at the other end of town. However, in all these situations, the idea of being an incompetent haggler in an unfamiliar language was as unpleasant as it is was a blow to the ego of a bargain hunter such as myself.
In my search for options, I often ended up at a bright, airy and air conditioned gourmet store sprawled across the top floor of a swanky city mall. The visit to this store ended up being weekend entertainment like visiting the zoo rather than a chore. As unfamiliar food and artistic culinary displays have a strange allure for me taking me to unknown lands on the culinary map. This particular store with its piles of delicate berries, smelly cheeses, exotic mushrooms and candied fruits, is my vicarious food trip across the world. Rare mushrooms, Mediterranean peppers and hairy tropical fruits jostled for space in this alien smorgasbord straight out of a Ridley Scott masterpiece. The end result, I purchase no useful staples that we can actually eat, but overpriced and useless exotica which sit uneasy in a good home-cooked meal.
Despite my aversion to aisle store fare, I do recommend its fair pricing. In the many veggie cons that have been pulled on me, most famous was the one where I went to a specialist Bengali market where I met a vegetable seller with the gift of the gab though and I was the recipient of the one standout sale he made that day. I bought a lau (a bottle gourd), which according to him had arrived that very day from Kolkata on the superfast train. And with such a narrative flourish, he sold us a `15 vegetable for more than five times its worth.
As I returned time and again to my neighbourhood sabziwallah, his grouchy face seemed to occasionally carry the hint of a smile. It was a less-than-perfect relationship. Yet, we learn to make do. And he always sold me the plumpest, reddest and freshest tomatoes which made up for my disillusionment with the pre-packaged "lowest price" supermarket rotters.

Pig-Tales II: Initiation

Pig (noun): An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it balks at pig.

Edible (adjective): Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.  

from Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary (1906)

The pig has remained a curious creature, wallowing in the no man's land between the sacred and profane. On the one hand the pig and the swineherd have St. Anthony as their patron saint. The same religious canon declared the pig as unfit for consumption in Book of Deuteronomy which laid down acceptable food habits for the people of Israel. Confusing contradictions seem to have coloured this animal's often tragic and bloody history. 

Early Chinese dragons had faces resembling those of wild boars. Pigs were symbols of the fertility in Celtic mythology with the sow goddess Henwen. Pigs were associated with the worship of Demeter and ritually sacrificed at her altar. The Egyptians feared the pig as a creature of the underworld. The chosen sacrifice for Thoth, God of Wisdom and the Moon and Osiris, God of the Afterlife, this animal became associated with the gods on whose altars its blood was spilled. Nuit, Goddess of Night was often represented as a sow.

Why did the sacrificial lamb become the greater icon? Why did 'scaping' the goat become the practice rather than the pig? After all the pig did carry the greater burden of the sin of human gluttony since the beginning of time.

As a religious icon and the favourite sacrificial animal,  the history of the pig remains one that has bloodied the annals of time. 

However, like all transitions from the sacred to the profane, the pig as a lesser deity vaulted its way through the multi-hued warps of time and space and fell from the skies right on to cold steel tables of "Porkopolis" Cincinnati around the early 19th century. 

Demystified and far away from the inner precincts of any temple, the pig now appeared on labels stuck on cans of luncheon meat and cocktail sausages.    

Meanwhile, my own history with pork was yet to be written.

On a hot summer day in Delhi circa 2004, I visited a shop that would help heal my tapeworm-ringed nightmares forever. 

It was a particularly lazy and aimless afternoons just after classes had ended. Impending boredom made me accompany my environmentally conscious, vegetarian, conservationist friend on his jaunt around the city running errands for his mum. It was slightly ironic that his chores included buying the family's weekly supply of meat. The journey through the city wound its way through my friend's shopping list, with stops for dog food, laundry and other sundry domestic items. 

Finally, we reached a little shop tucked away in a quiet, leafy neighbourhood in Jorbagh. This was an elegant neighborhood, home to little blue-eyed American babies on their tricycles; tall German sophisticates with little dogs in their handbags; grey-haired Indian writers taking an occasional walk in the neighborhood park, chewing on the end of their cigars.

It was a charming market selling carpets, books, cheese and pork. Lots and lots of pork. One could miss the little shop altogether if you didnt stop to actually peer in. The door swung open and I was inside Pigpo. 
I remember thinking that "Po" seemed the perfect oriental suffix to be tacked on to the pig. 

This is the shop that brought the western concept of a charcuterie and a deli into the culinary vocabulary of this city. No butcher shop I knew was this inviting. All the whispers of "dirty animal" in my head got left outside Pigpo's door. All the fears of tapeworm somehow got exorcised the moment I entered. 
The clear glass shop windows overlooked a pretty children's park with animal shaped swings and slides. Nestled in between a eclectic stationary store and a quaint furniture shop, Pigpo like its grand old neighbours reeked of character. 
The room inside had gigantic freezers, cool marble table tops and warm woodwork on the walls. Woodwork in a meat shop! The only wood I had ever seen a meat shop before this, was the roughly hewn stump of a tree that was used as the butcher's chopping block.

While my friend buried his nose in the shopping list and tried to avoid making any kind of eye or body contact with anything in the shop, I simply soaked it all in. My pork-starved self was suddenly in pork paradise. Every imaginable cut of the meat, sausages of various shapes, sizes and flavour, salami, ham, frankfurters, pepperoni, was laid out in all its nude glory.

 

Always overcome by a slight wave of nausea upon entering a meat shop with its cloying odour, its flies and my proximity to the chopping board, this was the first shop that didn't overpower me with its raw smell of death. A big framed picture on the wall had a fat porker drawn on it with arrows pointing to the different parts of its body and the corresponding cuts it would yield. It was a big picture chart designed to catch your attention. I stared at it with all the wonder of a ten year old entering the science lab and viewing the human skeleton for the first time.

This was the first time a meat shop made me feel hungry. I wanted big bagfuls of all the goodies.
I felt like a child in a sweet shop where I was only allowed to look and smell. I remember leaving
empty handed that day but Pigpo remained a firmly embedded memory. 

It was a cold and bright winter day in Delhi circa 2008, when I returned to the shop. Christmas was around the corner and I wanted to replicate just a little bit of mother's grand Christmas lunch that had been an enduring family tradition back in Calcutta. Armed with a good old-fashioned recipes from Julia Child and other stalwarts and dreaming about honey glazed ham and sausage stuffing, I entered Pigpo.

However, I braced myself for the now familiar disappointment that I had faced upon returning to this city since my college days. I had seen the slow death of favourite corner stores, standalone bookshops, age-old restaurants and movie theaters as the malls overran Delhi. We had become a generation of mall rats scurrying through bright glass and chrome corridors. 

Nothing had changed. The shop stood frozen in time gathering its unique character and serving dilliwallahs quality fresh pork that completely surpassed its frozen cling-film wrapped counterparts in swanky department stores. These icy cuts of tenderloin and pork chops looked like alien body parts that had lain frozen for centuries in deep underground vaults in secret locations in the middle of a desert. Or, they could be a potential murder weapon for a neurotic wife. They were so far removed from Pigpo's  fresh and tender pork that they disappeared from my horizon of fresh meat altogether.

   

Pigpo's display made my eyes light up with joy. The prospect of those fat and fresh sausages, chunky cuts of healthy pink meat edged by layers of snow-white fat, succulent bits of tenderloin, elegant strips of lean pork, gigantic pork chops, peppered salami, twice cured salami, incredibly plump bacon wrapped sausages, honey-glazed ham during Christmas and much much more made my brain go into overdrive. I did a mental flip across the pages of my cookbooks skimming over the the vindaloos, the brandied pork chops, the pork roast, and other exotic half remembered names and leaving a dribble of spit on my imagined flight across the glossy delectable photographs accompanying the recipes. 
I felt like a star chef in a Corsican village market waxing eloquent about the freshness and quality of the meat. This time I did leave with an armful of goodies. 

Since then I have returned to this shop many a time.

The men behind the counter are fast with their blades. They handle the meat lovingly carving the fatty layers into gourmet cuts with a few deft motions and occasional flashes of steel. They are quick with advice and even quicker at closing a an exceptionally large order, especially one that you did not plan to buy.

There is one particular man behind the counter who is a permanent fixture here. He is a nondescript man of indeterminable age. He offers advice about the best cuts for a curry or roast. Shares trivia. Sometimes scoffs at you if your purchase doesn't meet his rather exacting standards. 

He claims that he is as old as the shop. Since I can never quite guess his age, I don't know exactly how old Pigpo is. What I do know is that it has survived the turning tides of time.

  

  

Eight Decades in a Flurry

One more cup of coffee for the road

One more cup of coffee 'fore I go

To the valley below

This is the place that always made me  linger over my cup and I often found it amusing that the most common mispronunciation of the name would be "Flurry". Rarely, very rarely, would anything come in through the doors of Flury's in a flurry.

Bedecked in her tafetta pink splendour, Flury's is a confection of the times past and present. The gigantic Iron, an award from MTV for being the most stylish place in Calcutta is prominently displayed amid the towering model cakes. For a pastry shop that opened in 1927, it has been a rather remarkable  journey from neighborhood confectionary to a decrepit colonial coffeehouse to a stylish cafe/restaurant/bakery after the fashion of a turn-of-the-century European tea room.

Growing up in this city, my earliest memories of Flury's were its delightful pastries. This was still the pre-liberalization era. There were no coffee chains, no shops selling brownies, crepes, or gelatos. hell, we didn't even know what gelato was and the only ice cream around was the sort served in virulent orange cones.

This was also prior to the fresh fruit purees, whipped cream extravaganzas, and professionally designed cakes that looked as good as their airbrushed counterparts in the glossies.
I grew up during the era of marzipan. And the old Flury's made the most delightful marzipan concoctions. There was a marzipan treat for just about every occasion. There were the multi-hued marzipan coated easter eggs and bunnies. There was the legendary strawberry cube with the bright pink marzipan icing.

And then there were the cakes. the stuff of imagination, these cakes could bring just about every childhood fantasy to the table.
Birthday parties in Calcutta often saw wide-eyed kids waiting with bated breath for the magical moment when the box would open and unveil a fantastic creation that could range from the grand – a miniature Noah's Ark, to the scary - a black Gothic castle complete with towers and turrets to the cute – a little Tom and Jerry moment crafted out of Marzipan and decorating the creamy chocolate below.

My earliest memories of Flury's were these memories of marzipan.

This was the middle phase of Flury's before its 21st century facelift. It was a dingy, cavernous room with air conditioning that would chill you to the bone. The chairs were too heavy to maneuver and I always remember being at a rather uncomfortable distance from the table. I remember the waiters who looked as old as the place.
I remember one particular day. One particular waiter. A small bug crawled up the table on to the jug that he lifted to pour water into my glass. It then crawled up his arm and on to his collar and was about to inch its way into the hairy tufts in his ears when I screamed, half in horror and half in awe. He flicked it off with one single dextrous move. I remember being impressed at his composure.

I remember the old men with their newspapers. I remember watching the steaming cups of coffee till they stopped steaming.
This was the time when Flury's sold delicious cream rolls with thick, snow-white cream piled into the pastry shells. These were special treats for picnics and special holidays. This was also the time when the Viennese Coffee was not served in the delicate white china cups, but piled high with cream and slopping over the sides as the rather heavy, functional and ugly cup was plonked before you. The servings used to be larger and the coffee used to be more milky.

I was a child when Flury's  and Park Street in general seemed to be groaning under its colonial past. The buildings looked shabby. The restaurants seemed to have lost their music and joie de vivre and Flury's itself seemed a straggler confused by the coming of the new millennium.

The first few years of the 21st century saw the economy open up. The malls arrived along with the fast food chains, the coffee chains, the ice cream chains, the noodle chains, the dosa chains. Soft-serve ice creams, colas in cans and mass produced burger patties began to appear.
I began to worry about my own future and Flury's nearly at the same time, wondering where we were headed and venting my trepidation over the nth cuppa. I left the city soon after. Flury's was left far behind as well. It became a space of nostalgia and memory on gloomy days in the big bad capital city when I absolutely craved familiarity and comfort food.

I saw the downed shutters on a holiday one summer.  I was about to begin the process of mourning when I heard the whispers. The air around Stephen Court was thick with it. The word "renovation" was murmured by all who passed the mysteriously shrouded corner.

And one fine day it reopened. Flury's reentered the city's consciousness like a giantess...grabbing eyeballs and standing a mile taller than the nearest cafe with its orange walls and ambient electronic music. The new Flury's straddled history and a modern chic. It was just like your favourite 50 paise candy had been wrapped in delicate gold paper and handed to you on a silver plate. You unwrapped it and popped it in your mouth...and it tasted just the same.

A European tea room in the mornings, late afternoons, an eraly evenings.  A restaurant by noon.  A dining room by night.  Flury's juggled many roles, served many foods, and tickled many a taste bud.
While the pink and chocolate theme could make a first timer blush or blanch, it was easy to get used to. The colours were redolent of the trademark Flury's, the strawberry cubes and the chocolate pastries; the fruitcakes and the cheesy patties. While the glass display now holds fresh and strawberry tarts, decadent chocolate mousse and puddings, they remain carefully stacked against the strawberry cubes, the rich rum balls and the old fashioned fruit slices, the age-old favourites, made according to the same secret recipe since the beginning of Flury's time. One of my favourite additions to the old menu is the All Day Breakfast with the creamy, melt-in-your-mouth scrambled eggs or the perfect sunny side up eggs or the fluffy omelettes with hash browns, tomatoes,  freshly toasted bread and as many side orders of crisp bacon, fat and succulent sausages or generous portions of fragrant as you wish. Then there are cups of freshly brewed coffee or aromatic Darjeeling tea. It is truly a meal that makes me feel happy at any hour of the day.

I returned to the city. I returned to Flury's taking to the pink with all the enthusiasm of an adolescent teen.
It became a place for endless conversations, bitter reminiscing, good-natured camaraderie, sweet romance, and maddening love. I lived out all my separate selves here – as a poor masters student scraping together just enough for that Viennese coffee and a rum ball; as a struggling lifestyle journalist covering the launch of new menus, new books, and new chefs; as a true blue romantic indulging in snatched cups of coffee through a busy workaday week; as a tourist introducing the newcomers to the delights I had known; and as a lover, falling in love over cups of coffee, sharing intense moments over cups of coffee, professing love over cups of coffee, fighting over cups of coffee and existing in comfortable silence as we drank our coffee.

The sweet smell of freshly baked cakes and just brewed coffee has the warm familiarity of a place you'd call home. Walk in through the huge glass doors, sit by the large window, and watch the world go by in a flurry. Outside Flury's

(This is Part II of my tribute to an old favourite housed in the ground floor of Stephen Court)

Pictures courtesy www.flurysindia.com

A Cat called Peter

The reason I write this piece is because of the recent horrifying fire in the grand old Stephen Court. decrepit and a death trap in making, it still was an icon and the grande dame of Park Street. in the wake of the fire, the numerous deaths and the general pall of gloom, all one can do is draw what they hold nearer to them in a protective hug. This is part I of my tribute to two of my favourite spots in the city housed in that building. These are the two spaces I grew up in, of my individual memories that go into the pool of the collective past shared by the city.

 The original Peter was a cat who lived in the Lord’s cricket ground and actually got himself a place in history as the only animal whose obituary was printed in Wisden, the famous sports journal. In a continent away, nestled in the heart of the cricket-crazy city of Kolkata, there is an iconic restaurant that has do with either a Peter or a cat.Peter Cat is a mecca for foodies from within and without the city. It is a place for making memories. A dimly-lit space that is ideal for a secret rendezvous, it is that perfect place for that romantic first date where the cramped interiors and overhanging lamps create a sense of intimacy. It is an institution for a number of reasons and food is often not the most significant of them.
Nostalgia is often the most overpowering emotion evoked here.
The prices come from another decade as do the uniformed “bearers”. The names on the menu roll around your tongue with the familiarity of an old Cliff Richards song. Yes, they all seem to come from the same place.
The peculiarities of this place lie in the lovingly polished German silver receptacles used to serve Prawn Cocktail and the spotless white napkins carefully folded in the shape of the cat’s head.
This cat’s head, reminiscent of a child’s doodle, is omnipresent in the mats and the menus.
Peter Cat is where you will never get a table unless you were willing to sweat it out outside the restaurant with the ballonwallahs and the magazine sellers. The place takes no reservations and need never worry about empty tables, for someone in some part of the city always has a craving for a Peter Cat meal.
The restaurant has its own mythology with little anecdotes and fictional characters who have lent their names and stories to the food and drinks.
Then there are the lamps that remind one of a torture chamber spotlight and are perfectly placed at a height best suited for a midget.
Ironically, they are also among the best things about the place. This is the original multi-cuisine restaurant with faded roses on the carpet, a low hum of voices, pickled pink onions in stainless steel bowls and a constant flow of people and waiters.
The waiters can ignore you or give you their undivided attention, depending upon their personal whims.
You can escape to Peter Cat for a quick lunch from work, you can escape to Peter Cat for a quick drink or many...
to escape the world. You can come here as a raucous gang of girls on a night out on town.
And you can come here when you are older to simply relive all that is past and marvel at how the food and the prices have remained unchanged.
And then there are the chelo kebabs...While I could write an ode to the buttery rice, sing a paean to the succulent kebabs, still remember the flavour of the slightly charred fresh vegetables and the freshly fried egg oozing its delicious yolk over my plate...I shall restrain myself...
I could tell you Peter Cat is where I went for my first date like many young girls with stars in their eyes.
Peter Cat is where I returned to as a married woman indulging in my favourite foods on a sunny winter afternoon.
Peter Cat is where I came with my mum and granddad to enjoy a leisurely meal and compared notes on the chicken cutlets and caramel custard.
My list could extend like a never-ending roll of toilet paper...
A devastating fire nearly gutted the top floors of the historic Stephen’s Court, an old building from the Raj at the corner of Park Street. The selfsame building that is home to both Peter Cat and the legendary Flury’s Tea Room. Thankfully these establishments remained untouched and even bounced back to life soon after.
They say a cat has nine lives and Peter Cat has barely lived out one.