Bagel’s Café, a cheery café in Gurgaon is a piece of Netherlands in the NCR. Owned by a Dutch lady, the menu features the bagel in its many avatars but doesn’t stop there. There are other dishes as well but it is clear that the star of the show is the bagel. The bagel itself…
As usual, we were having a party in the hotel room of our journalist colleague, Ye Jun. There were, as always, twelve of us. We met every year in the autumn, in various parts of the olive growing world. As guests of the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC), the twelve of us had, over…
It is heartening to see that Baluchi has undergone a total revamp. All too often, makeovers are merely cosmetic. There is path-breaking stuff happening at the restaurant. For one, the menu represents all the properties of the group, no matter in what part of the country they are. Thus, you’ll find a couple of Kashmiri…
I’ve lost count of the number of times I have revisited a favourite restaurant and have been disappointed at falling standards. When I was told that Azzuro has a branch in DLF, I was almost certain I would have to write it off. However, thankfully, that is not the case. The DLF menu is tiny…
One of the stories you’ll read in every account of Lucknow of yore, is the one where its best known nawab, Asaf-ud-Daula, ordered the construction of the city’s most prominent edifice – the Bara Imambara. There was a famine in 1784 and the people of Lucknow faced the danger of starvation. The tens of thousands…
There we were, the three of us: Vera, her daughter and I. The sauna was as unlike anything that you’ll find assembled in India: it looked rough and hand-made, and would have looked completely out of place in a spa at a five star hotel anywhere in our country. It was ten metres from the…
Delhi is, according to those who track such matters, the restaurant capital of the country. There is plenty of choice in every cuisine, including such seemingly obscure ones like Nepalese and Naga. Not only are there restaurants serving Japanese food, there are Japanese nationals who make and sell futomaki rolls and Japanese-style sweets out of…
The best way of starting a war in Sri Lanka, is to ask a group of housewives the exact recipe of curry powder. It’s something that every kitchen on the island contains, because it goes into a wide variety of dishes. But, as I found out soon enough, it’s akin to asking a bunch of…
What does the land of Reggae have to do with a fine cup of coffee? For that matter, how does a weasel-like mammal improve the flavour of coffee? Or is it the musty winds of the south-western monsoon that I’m thinking of? The coffee bean grows in many countries – in fact, ever since a…
On my first visit to the Louvre in Paris, I was determined to look at the Mona Lisa in its original form. I was unprepared for the crowds in the Italian Art section of the museum, which were far greater than in any other part of the Louvre. After attaching myself to the longest line…