Browsing: Restaurants

Foodies, there’s yet another new Indian restaurant in Manhattan – Benares, a cool, contemporary space where you can indulge in regional specialties from many parts of India. In a preview peek at the new eatery which seats 89 diners, one is struck by the sleek, haldi-yellow interiors highlighted by multicolored lamps and beautiful old Benarsi saris framed on the walls.

Peter Beck, who’s previously cooked up a storm in the kitchens of New York restaurants Chola and Tamarind, is the chef at Benares. The name Benares gets you slightly off-kilter – isn’t that city supposed to be a vegetarian paradise? This Benares has everything from seafood to Cornish hens to red meat in abundance, besides meatless fare.

“The Nowruz dinner is especially meaningful to me, as I am a practicing Zoroastrian and grew up relishing this fare. Today, my love for ingredients and spices is largely influenced by this cuisine, and I look forward to sharing these wonderful gastronomic delights,” says Jehangir Mehta, chef at Mehtaphor and Graffiti, who is recreating those tastes for New Yorkers with a celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year tomorrow.

If someone had told me that by lunch time I’d be sitting in a houseboat on the backwaters of Kerala, eating from a banana leaf, I’d have been highly skeptical. After all, I was right in the middle of Delhi’s buzzing mall culture. Well, that’s where Zambar is located, landlocked in the middle of retail heaven. It is one of the fun and innovative eating spots in the burgeoning mall culture of Indian cities.

And if you thought that food from the South means just dosa, idli, and sambar, Zambar is a delicious eye-opener. This fine dining spot celebrates the Southern coastal cuisine of four states – Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka.

Zambar, a restaurant in Vasant Kunj in New Delhi, is an exploration into South Indian coastal cuisine, highlighting the catch of the seas – prawns, fish and crab with authentic recipes from the four southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka. The dishes are a union between fresh seafood and pungent spices and ingredients including lime, tamarind, chilies, peppers and coconut milk. So till you can get to go and try Zambar yourself, here are two recipes for you from the chef to try at home.

Inundated with new cuisines, new restaurants and new foods? Then you need an antidote to the craziness of the Delhi food scene where new eateries crop up all the time. You need to take a walk back into time. You need to visit Embassy, around since 1948.

Haven’t heard of it? Well, if you are a Delhite, you surely know it. It’s the ancient gastronomic heaven where you go to binge on food that is delicious, is reasonably priced – and also invokes memories with each spoonful. After all, the restaurant has been around for six decades with its curious blend of dishes. Where else would you get Bomb de Moscova, Amritsari Macchi, Chicken Strognoff and unmatchable chole bhature and chicken chaat – all on the same table?

This is the tale of The Three Chocolatiers. Once upon a time there was a hotshot financial wiz, a smart biochemist who loved to bake, and a savvy chef who had sailed the high seas on the Q E 2, each going their own way.

A steamy passion for chocolate brought the three together to create Co Co Sala, a foodie kingdom dripping in high-end chocolate, coffee and cocktails. This attracted legions of chocoholics, made the fortunes of the Three Chocolatiers, and they all lived happily ever after.

Now isn’t that a sweet ending?

The story, however, is fact and not fiction. Co Co Sala is a hot and happening chocolate lounge, bar, restaurant, pastry shop and boutique on F Street in Washington DC, and three young Indian-American entrepreneurs are behind its big success – Bharet Malhotra, Nisha Sidhu and Santosh Tiptur.

12 Things You Didn’t Know About Tulsi

What strikes you on entering Tulsi is the sheer lightness of being – floating white shamianas, basil green accents and mirrored walls. It’s not your traditional Indian restaurant with the elephants, silk curtains and ornate touches – this is India dealt out with a showering can rather than a shovel, and the food is just as subtle, with a melange of regional dishes and a touch of fusion.

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.

Curry Hill’s new eatery is such a guilt-free space it doesn’t even have a deep fryer! ”Even our papads are roasted,” says Mamta Mulloi, who owns this brand new little restaurant in Manhattan with her husband Dinu. Indeed, ancient Ayurvedic seers would have given their stamp of approval to the pristine menu at Yogi’s Kitchen and so will modern day vegetarians, healthy eaters, and those watching their wallets. For starters, the food is wholesome, based on India’s 5000 year old Ayurveda, the science of life-balance.

Then there’s the visual pleasure of eating from steel thalis, with little katoris encircling the thali with a touch of all the ingredients necessary for a nutritious meal. Says Mamta, “We don’t do a la carte because people will order one dish – and that will not have all the elements to make it a balanced meal.”

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.

If you’re a Mumbaikar cut adrift from all your soul-satisfying street foods, fret no more. Pasta Lane has come to Bleecker Street in New York, and at Aamchi Pao you can get all the spice and heat your heart desires. The tiny eatery is the creation of Nandini Mukherjee who earlier ran The Indian Bread Co, and Surabhi Sahni, the pastry chef of Devi.

A rustic Gujarati meal; a perfect lacy masala dosa; a Jain meal without a hint of onions or garlic; a…