Welcome To Lassi With Lavina

Items in ‘Food’

Simply Dosa-licious!

By Lavina Melwani • Aug 31st, 2010 • Category: Food

Ten years down, who knows what we’ll find. Dosas being served in American schools and college campuses? Dosas in vending machines? Dosas-to-Go at fast food outlets?



Mango Magic -Alphonso, Langra, Chausa

By Lavina Melwani • Aug 4th, 2010 • Category: Food

To bite into a mango and get that sweet, sticky juice squirting all over your chin and clothes is to drift back into blissful childhood, into days that seemed to have no beginning and no end.



Heart Healthy Indian Cuisine

By Lavina Melwani • Jul 11th, 2010 • Category: Food

Two recipes from ‘Amrit: Luscious and Heart Healthy Indian Meals’ by Purnima Nandkishore with nutritional analysis by Karen Yee, MS, RD, LN. Read how the diet brought about dramatic changes in the health of Nanda Nandkishore who was at high risk for heart disease.



Eat Out and Save the Earth

By Lavina Melwani • May 10th, 2010 • Category: Food

New York’s hot new veggie restaurant has a cool concept – eat out and save the earth. It’s the city’s first low-carbon restaurant chain. Opening nights usually mean a red carpet but it was a green carpet which was laid out for celebs like Mary-Kate Olsen, Mark Indelicato and Vanessa Williams for the opening of Radhika Oswal’s Otarian restaurant in Manhattan.
In fact, if Oswal, a billionaire environmentalist (yes, the two words do sound strange together!) has her way, you can enjoy life and yet preserve it. You can paint the town red while going green because Otarian in New York’s Greenwich Village is all about vegetarianism and sustainability, offering fun dishes with a low carbon footprint.



Lachu Moorjani’s Regional Feast

By Lavina Melwani • Apr 7th, 2010 • Category: Food

In ‘Ajanta – Regional Feasts of India’ cookbook author and restaurateur Lachu Moorjani explores the diverse foods of India, with regional feasts from different states. Here he shares some recipes from different regions of India. Come hungry!



India’s New Weapon – Bhut Jalokia

By Lavina Melwani • Apr 2nd, 2010 • Category: Food

I always suspected Indian chili peppers were good for something more earth-shattering than merely spicing up our food. Well now the Indian military has discovered the true value of the formidable Bhut Jalokia pepper from Assam which is 100 times hotter than the Jalapeno. It will be used in smoke grenades to battle unruly mobs and nasty terrorists.



Italian Halal?

By Lavina Melwani • Mar 24th, 2010 • Category: Food

We know about halal chicken and kebabs but halal pasta and salad dressing? Halal Guacamole and halal Swedish Crab Canapés?



New York’s Hottest Indian Chefs

By Lavina Melwani • Mar 17th, 2010 • Category: Food

Meet some of the Big Apple’s hottest and happening Indian chefs…

They are the interpreters of Indian Cuisine, the innovators who aren’t afraid to experiment and create, adding new dimensions to the food they grew up with, giving an exciting buzz to the ho-hum chicken tikka masala and palak paneer which has become the norm of Indian restaurants around the world. Some of them are at the helm of New York’s most noted Indian restaurants and bring in the foodies.



Indian Onion Sutra

By Lavina Melwani • Mar 5th, 2010 • Category: Food

Warning: Do NOT Separate an Indian from his Onions! It’s the one ingredient that no self-respecting desi cook would want to be without; whether you are whipping up a Mughal feast or a poor man’s meal – onions are absolutely necessary. In fact, a shortage of onions can cause a near revolution in India!



Jehangir Mehta – Kitchen Warrior

By Lavina Melwani • Jan 5th, 2010 • Category: Food

Jehangir Mehta’s Graffiti Food and Wine Bar is probably one of the smallest restaurants and its kitchen is just 50 square feet, but Mehta produces some big tastes, using spices from many parts of the world, including India and Persia. Recently Zagat gave it a 26 for food which says a lot about the quality of Graffiti’s food. Mehta is indeed a fearless warrior who is not afraid of strong spices or of blending them in unconventional ways.