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?

“And then there was the rainy season, and the accompanying sounds of the flirty breeze playing with the leaves of the mango tree in our backyard, the rustic smell of wet earth, and the thud of mangoes falling to the ground,” recalls chef Hari Nayak in his new book ‘My Indian Kitchen’. “We kids often dashed out to pick them up before the sky broke loose! This priceless robbery of ours would mean that soon spicy green mango chutney would be on our dining table!”

Enticing tales such as this, traditional home recipes explained lucidly and photography that’s luscious enough to eat make this a welcome addition to the books on Indian cooking.

In a bad economy such as here and now, it helps to have always been creative with very little. Every day at lunch break at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School in Delhi, India, hordes of ink-stained white-uniformed schoolgirls would surround me, salivating for a taste of my home-made lunch: aam ke achaar ke sandwiches.

Ah, foodies! When we’re not eating or cooking or fantasizing about food, we’re shopping for eats, obscure and exotic spices and the latest cooking contraptions. And when we are not doing all of that, we’re watching cooking shows on the Food Network or salivating over food blogs on the Internet. And forget about casting our votes for the president, we can now actually have a say in who becomes America’s Hottest Chef! Now that’s powerful – and universe changing!

Eater, the popular foodie website, has anointed Vikas Khanna of Junoon the hottest chef in New York, based on voting by its readers. That’s really a delicious choice because Vikas is a creative chef with some wonderful dishes to his credit.

If you’ve been enjoying Lassi with Lavina, now it’s time to make some of your own too!

If you have insights, ideas, thoughts – provocative, funny or plain offbeat – you are welcome to be a guest blogger at the ol’ Lassi Guesthouse. We’d love to hear your perspectives on India and all things Indian or South Asian. Take an Indian thread and spin a silken tapestry!

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.

In a time of Tweets, frenetic commutes and mountains of stress, imagine slooow cooking, food which cooks itself, slowly, deliberately throughout the day while you’re out earning a living or are just immersed in the latest best-seller. It’s almost like having one of the legendary ‘bhaiyas’ of India doing your cooking for you, and quite welcome in the US.

“This is one of our most beloved family dishes. It is very much in the Hyderabadi style, where North Indian and South Indian seasonings are combined” – Madhur Jaffrey.

GUEST BLOG: “I do believe that trying for matrimonial bliss is a vital part of growing up. I mean, who doesn’t want a family? However, when you find yourself 35 and single, desperation and pity may begin to set in. At 35, you could be stuck in the middle of a rock and a hard place. You still haven’t found the one, however you know that the avenues you tried in your 20’s and 30’s are a waste of time and you can’t bear the thought of putting yourself through that again.”

Aasif Mandvi’s ‘Today’s Special’, which premiered at MIACC Film Festival last year, is now showing at the Tribeca Film Festival and getting a theatrical release on November 19. It is a fun and funny movie which gets you involved in the travails of Samir, a sous cook in New York, who has to find himself and his culinary soul. He is helped in the journey of self discovery by a mystical taxi driver who treats cooking like a beautiful, complex raga. (Naseeruddin Shah digs into this meaty role with relish – he’s utterly believable as the charismatic cabbie, a part of the magic of New York).