Cheese and Chive muffins. I like experimenting in the kitchen, this is the first time I have tried making a savoury muffin, and I must say they were delicious. I used a recipe my mother uses, and it wasn’t too hard to follow.
ingredients: 1 egg ¾ cup water 1 cup self-raising flour ½ tsp salt 125g grated cheddar 1 tbsp fresh chives ½ tsp pepper coarse sea salt (optional)
method: mix all ingredients together until just combined. Spoon into muffin cases and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake at 190 degrees F for 15 minutes.
A late night after movie chocolate craving brought me right in front of Starbucks, one of the only cafe’s open at midnight. After going through the selection of desserts, I decided to devour a Molten Chocolate Cake (who can say no?)
Now before you go all how-can-you-commit-a-sin-against-the-holy-grail-of-molten-chocolate-cakes(Chillis to the non enlightened crowd) I merely wanted to try it. Besides, I didnt have much choice a that time of the night. So how was it? Bad.
Dont get me wrong here. Molten Chocolate cake in my opinion, has to be made in a particular manner- Rich chocolate cake with a soft, liquid chocolate center. Oh, and served hot.
Naturally when a friendly(sarcastic) waiter asked if I would like my cake heated up, I was taken aback.. But of course it needs to be served hot! Cardinal rule in molten goodness isnt it? So it was popped into a microwave and was merrily swirling around while I made myself comfortable, ready to dive into the warmth of molten chocolate heaven, with rich, moist cake and oozing molten center (yes I was dreaming Chillis here)
What I ended up getting was lukewarm cake — I admit it was rich and moist and not crumbly — with a HARD center. You read that right, it was not a liquid center, rather like having a bar of chocolate stuck into your cake. I finished the cake bit and left the center. Sigh.
Apart from bursting my dream sequence bubble, Im sure I could hear a snigger or two from the Chillis.
We took some time out from our busy trip — ok I lie, we had a lot of free time to cook — to put together some Dahi Vada. For the initiated, Dahi Vada are an Indian ‘chaat’ item popular all over India made by first making ‘Vadas’ which are soaked in water, and then served after dipping them in flavored yoghurt, topped with coriander and spices. Wikipedia is kind enough to tell me that it is called as thayir vadai in Tamil and perugu vada in Telugu, mosaru vade in Kannada and Doi Bora in Bengali.
Yup, another one of naihar’s specialties! One of the Vadas looked like a cute little pig. Hence the decoration :)
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has said that Blackberry Messenger, Blackberry E-mail and Blackberry Web-browsing services in the UAE will be suspended as of October 11.
The suspension is a result of the failure of ongoing attempts, dating back to 2007, to bring Blackberry services in the UAE in line with UAE telecommunications regulations.
Oh, brilliant. Coming hot at the heels of this news where they were “clear” that “we don’t have plans to stop them” by the TRA Spokesperson, this is starting to get ridiculous. As such, we have issues with Skype, and restrictions over everything else. All the 20 years of building free zones and all that fun stuff to bring businesses to the UAE comes to nought if you’re not going to let businesses communicate.
Yes yes, they’ll either then announce, “Oh it was a misunderstanding,” or the even better, “Look BlackBerry caved and we found a solution” memo before the deadline. But still, this is a huge issue for businesses. It leaves an unsettling doubt. Not a good sign. The right way would have been to give BlackBerry the deadline, sort out the issue, announce that you’re working with RIM and then announce it when you have a solution. Golly, I don’t even work in PR.
I’m an iPhone lover myself, but one thing’s certain, businesses run on BlackBerry. Plus, after hearing this, the iPhone or the Android are hardly out of danger, are they? I can already see the announcement: “We don’t like their App Store/Marketplace.”
Buca di beppo is one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Philadelphia. I probably couldn’t single out a specific reason, but there’s a lot going on for the place. A nice traditional ambience, really friendly staff and great desserts. Well the food’s good too, but that has to be the case if we’re going to talk about it! A quick mention about the Pope room (pictures of which you can see towards the end). The Pope room is a private seating room that can hold 15–20 people and is decorated with pictures of the Popes through time. It’s even got a nice Pope chair and huge revolving table to pass the food around.
If you’ve never been there before ??? something they ask you ??? they’ll walk to you to the table via the kitchen, which is a fun part of the experience considering you’re greeted by smiling chefs and waiters as you walk through.??
Buca is considered a family style restaurant, meaning that ??? contrary to normal places where each person gets their own plate ??? everything is served in huge sharing portions, and comes in 2 “sizes”: for 2, and for 4. Their Caesar Salads are among the best, their garlic bread is amazing and all the food is very fresh. But most of all, I *love* their tiramisu. Just like everything else, this comes in a huge portion that you need at least two die-hard tiramisu fans to finish, but it’s such a delicious and cold blend, it leaves you wanting more, and more. Thank goodness it comes in a size that’s capable of being a one person meal all by itself!
All in all, my experience was the same as it had been when I last visited the place over three years ago ??? great atmosphere, amazing food & desserts and great company!
A recent addition to the restaurant galores of Philadelphia, Chocolate by the Bald Man is a neat little outlet with an absolutely amazing chocolate feel. That’s right. Chocolate lovers, the time has finally arrived!
With 100% pure chocolate pipes running throughout the outlet, big drums stirring live chocolate all around and canisters of chocolate all around, the instant smell of pure chocolate hits you as soon as you set foot into Max Brenner.
You get a 10% discount for correctly guessing the number of times I’ve said the word ‘Chocolate’ in this post, by the way.
We started off with a milkshake and a hot chocolate. I’m mentioning these in particular because I loved the mugs it came in. The hot chocolate came in a ‘hug mug’ ??? no handles ??? so you literally had to hug it with your hands to drink, which is perfect for hot chocolate! The milkshake arrived in a nice tall glass with Drink Me written all over. What was really cool is the spurts of chocolate all around the glass.
Overall, the food was quite delicious. Since we went as a group, we attempted a pizza, a burger and a panini. They all came out delicious, and considering their specialty is chocolate, that’s rather amazing. Oh, and that first picture ??? none of us had that, so I’m not really sure what it is. But it looked so good, we snapped it off someone’s plate 0:)
The money for life, chocolate for the soul box was what they served the bill in. Very nice touch.
Definitely recommend a visit to anyone that’s in town. And don’t forget to walk around and see their chocolate selection, particularly their chocolate syringes. As Barney Stinson would say, Dee-lightful!
Take two tea lovers with a passion for food (actually they were just hungry), breakfast moving into brunch time, and one of the best tea cafe’s in Dubai and what do you get? Whittard of Chelsea!
This quaint little tea cafe(they do have coffee) is a delight to the eyes and photographers. All the wonderful blue, and quirky tea paraphelania on sale will make a girl go awww!
My companion, Chirag and I settled on the vegetarian omlette and iced teas. The omlettes were just perfect- juicy yet not runny, fluffy and light yet it qualified for a good breakfast. Served with four toasted bread slices which were not overdone. The only gripe- they need to give more butter!
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Oh, and this is what happens to a glass of chilled, refreshingly delicious iced tea from Whittard. Dont say we didnt warn you!
Question: How can you follow so many people? Answer: I don’t read the timelines of all the people that I follow. Instead, I only deal with @s, Directs, and tweets that contain “guykawasaki” and “alltop.” I am not reading everything everyone I follow tweets, but I answer almost every @ and Direct.
Question: Then why do you follow everyone? Answer: I follow everyone for two reasons: first, common courtesy; second, so that anyone can send a Direct to me. I like Direct messages because they are so much more efficient than email.
He pretended to read the paper, all the while staring at the escalators to see if she was coming down. He tried not looking too eager.
They drove back, him in silence, her chatting away about recent occurrences with the friend she just met. He liked listening to her. Besides, he was too excited and jumpy deep down — he didn’t know why — and he didn’t want to show it.
When he gave her the tour, she kept looking out the window. He kept trying to get her attention back, even using orange juice as an excuse.
When he sat down, the only thought in his mind was to have her sit next to him.
When she did, his brain was pounding. Oddly enough, his heart wasn’t stressed at all. It knew exactly where it wanted to be — there.
He couldn’t focus on what she was saying. He had no idea what he was thinking or wanted to do, but at the same time, he knew. She reminded him, days later, that she was telling him how she wakes up every morning at 7 a.m. The only thing he remembers is swooping in. And the look in her gorgeous eyes — before and forever after.
Yesterday, it was three.
Dedicated to a certain reader who likes posts with the ‘musings’ tag.
Issac Newton contributed three laws to Physics, Orion’s belt is made up of three stars, Hinduism believes in a Trinity (creator, preserver & destroyer, called the Trimurti).
Yup, everything from science to religion, and astronomy in between likes the number three.
Interesting (and rather valid) point of view on startups, on why it’s possible for startups that later in the game are more successful because they execute better.
Suppose you have an idea for a startup, and then do some research only to discover there are already similar products on the market. You become disheartened and wonder if you should abandon your idea.
In fact, the existence of competing products is a meaningful signal, but not necessarily a negative one.
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1) Almost every good idea has already been built. Sometimes new ideas are just ahead of their time. There were probably 50 companies that tried to do viral video sharing before YouTube.
Other times existing companies simply didn’t execute well. Google and Facebook launched long after their competitors, but executed incredibly well and focused on the right things. When Google launched, other search engines like Yahoo, Excite, and Lycos were focused on becoming multipurpose “portals” and had de-prioritized search (Yahoo even outsourced their search technology).
2) The fact that other entrepreneurs thought the idea was good enough to build can be a positive signal. They probably went through some kind of vetting process like talking to target users and doing some market research. By launching later, you can piggyback off the work they’ve already done.
3) That other people tried your idea without success could imply it’s a bad idea or simply that the timing or execution was wrong. Distinguishing between these cases is hard and where you should apply serious thought.
Day 2 in Philadelphia, and a visit to Reading Terminal Market was in order. To the uninitiated, Reading Terminal Market is best described as a farmer’s market with an awesome hotchpotch of options. True to its style, and enclosed in a just-right closed space within Center City Philadelphia — 12th and Arch to be precise — Reading Terminal offers a wide variety of foods, from baked goods to flowers, meats & seafood to produce and a number of eateries.
Due to my intense desire to fill as many attractions as I could in my short stay, we hit RTM (sorry, I can’t be expected to type out the entire name each time, and copy-paste stops my smooth flow of typing, but I digress) rather early in the morning, but the place was quite bustling for 8.30 a.m. on a weekday. Since it’s right of Philly’s Market East station, it’s got a perfect location for a quick breakfast, a drop by for lunch during a busy day, or a stopover for supplies to take home at the end of the day. They also offer student discounts on Sundays & Tuesdays, so if you are one, or know one, that’d be the day to go.
The market is a delight to the retina, and ??I’ve tried to capture as many of the colors as I could.
We stocked up on some basic supplies comprising organic vegetables, and attempted a place called the Basic Vegetarian Snack Bar for a quick bite. Our reason for picking them — they had every conceivable dish you could think of, from the chili burger to the traditional Philadelphia Cheesestake — but made with organic vegetarian ingredients. The best description on their menu was for the Soy Chicken Salad (paraphrased) — if we didn’t tell you it was soy, you would never know. We have a confession to make — they were 100% right. It was so good, we took a pound of it back home for a later snack. I’ll drop another confession: along with the garlic and olive bread we picked up, this quantity did not last beyond lunchtime.
To begin with, this post is dedicated to a certain reader of the blog who, when asked for suggestions for improvement, complained that all our reviews are way to positive. Well, here we are, you pessimistic person you, our first negative review.
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At the behest of a close friend who had also never tried the place, my first lunch in Philadelphia after three years was at a place creatively called Currito Burrito, right on the??Drexel University??campus by the residence halls. This was housed in a new food court structure that had come up after I left the city. Oh, the excitement.
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Curbing my natural instincts to go to Subway — primarily because Subway in the US kicks Subway in the UAE’s behind by a mile and a half — I went for the “new Burrito place that is really good.”
Some considerations later, I went for what they called a Mediterranean Burrito, comprising rice, a Black Bean hummus and some other condiments. I wasn’t overtly impressed with the look and feel, or the way he was actually making my burrito at all. And the burrito, right, let me say it was the worst burrito I’ve had, and that graciously includes??my own home-made version.??
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I don’t really know what else to say except to avoid the place, and particularly the Mediterranean option. The burrito was dry, the rice was…is stuffy an appropriate word? And the flavors just did not work.
Father’s Day celebrations found me at a family favourite one Sunday evening. Bukhara in Samlesbury is commonly known as having ‘authentic’ Indian cuisine, though I have never figured out if the attributes of being ‘authentic’ referred to the chefs being south Asian, or the food being truly Indian inspired? Needless to say, we all have our favourites, and this is particularly busy haunt for the Asian communities in the North West.
For starters we ordered a meat feast of mixed grill, which consisted of lamb and chicken kebabs, tandoori chicken, lamb chops. This was accompanied by one of their signature dishes and a particular favourite of mine, as I have made it many a time at home, Thai mango salad. This salad is not as authentically Indian as it is Thai, but nonetheless a great accompaniment to the starters. The salad consisted of a carrots, peppers, onions and mangoes topped of with coriander, and a honey mustard dressing with red chili and pepper.
For mains we ordered Akbari chicken Masala which was extra hot, far too hot for my liking, but my father loved it; and Lahori ghost which was delicious, the lamb was perfectly cooked and the spices perfectly chosen to compliment this dish. the balance was just right. This was all served with fresh nan bread which was soft and brushed with butter. The new desserts menu was the highlight of my evening, I opted for the Apple tarte, another special on the menu, however it was a big letdown, as fussy me could tell that the apples were pre-prepared and had gone slightly brown. The family ordered traditional Indian falooda (a milk based dessert, with sago, rose water, and dumplings of kulfi ice cream inside it), the chocolate waffle meltdown which was amazing and probably one of the best things on the menu, and a mint parfait which was as standard as prepackaged ice cream desserts can get. The biggest fail on the menu I felt was the lack of locally sourced produce, mainly in the form of Huntley’s Ice cream, whose farm is a mere 1 mile up the road.
The ambiance was great, with a family oriented atmosphere, to a restaurant which is always busy and very lively of a weekend. If you’re in the North West of England, why not try this countryside gem, nestled in between dairy and sheep farms midway between Preston and Blackburn. It promises to be a find, and will not disappoint.
Guilty pleasures are a must for all. Mine is the humble cheesecake.??Whether it is shop bought or home made is always a sticking point for me. The love and care??I put into making cheesecakes at home, is what makes the end result worth the time I painstakingly spend in the kitchen. Here is a little something??I rumbled up today, with some Indian Alphonso mangoes, and??all the other everyday ingredients I found in my fridge or larder cupboard at home. With one exception, the first time??I had used fresh Vanilla pods, and??I must tell you my hands smelt amazing after de-seeding the pods.
A late night decision while skimming through a recipe got our family interested in making graduation cupcakes for the sibling marking his entry into the working world. Recession be damned, these chocolate goodys are topped with a nice slice of After Eight, and twizzlers matching the school colors.
(We went with ready cupcakes and toppings, but at least they do look like the convocation cap :P)
The best description I found for Mohanthal is gram-flour fudge. A traditional Gujarati sweet, Mohanthal is a soft, melt-in-your-mouth type of delicacy, very popular during certain Gujarati festivals like Navratri. This recipe is another??naihar specialty, made and distributed to perfection.
