I have the auspicious honor of putting together post number 100.

I can’t give you the cliched it’s been a long journey, because it hasn’t. But it has been a fantastic ride. The naihar food blog started with a simple concept — I wanted to take my family-derived love for food (and the fact that we ran a little catering gig on the side) and share it with the online world. But as is always the case, you want to break the mould.

What naihar has turned into today is a fantastic collaboration of people who love their food — and therefore, people who write with a passion — which has brought out a unique blend to this blog.

I can’t seem to put naihar in a category of a review blog, an out-and-out food blog or even a recipe blog. It’s a fun mashup of all three. We’ve covered restaurants in the US, UK, UAE and India thus far. We’ve concocted recipes of our own that look as amazing as they taste. And we’ve focused on single food items at times not just entire menus, so you know where to satisfy those cravings (or where *not* to). Oh, and the cake extravaganza!

What’s up ahead? Well, obviously more coverage of places to eat, things to make and cravings to satisfy. Better pictures. Author profiles. And some interesting changes. We’re working on collaborating with some brilliant foodies out there who could bring an interesting spin to the blog, some food outings and more.

To our followers, we hope you enjoy what we have in store. If you’ve got a moment, do drop us a comment and let us know if there are things you like (and what you don’t really like) and it’ll help our amazing authors cater their posts a little.

Finally, a gracious nod to our unrelenting contributors. I’m committing to the one cliche for the post here: Guys, we could NOT have this without you. Keep the food and, almost as importantly, the pictures coming.

Happy Fooding!

I know *exactly* what they mean…

Today we celebrate five, a whole, complete number and a stepping stone to many more.

Five is…for fighting. For the British Security Service. For those individual fingers that make a solid hand.

What I did to my tyre this fine morning.

Put together some onions, garlic, red and yellow peppers and corn and you get delicious home made style pasta! All in our secret tomato sauce- a secret because of its secretive ingredients.

Want a taste? Let me know, Ill make some for you. Even the garlic bread!

For now, enjoy the photos from my kitchen.

I have now taken my infatuation with the creation of the perfect cheesecake to the next level. Trying to figure out different ways to make the cheesecake set is an interesting if difficult feat. I trawl through cookbooks religiously on a regular basis, for a little light reading of course, as any aspiring cook would do.

Though some would bake the humble cheesecake for the new york style, others put gelatine in to set the cream cheese. I have found the perfect alternative, inspired by the bite sized demonstration, using white chocolate in the cream cheese helps it to set firm. Whats more, it actually tastes of that creamy velvety chocolate and adds a new level of richness to the cheesecake, as opposed to the tasteless nature of gelatine or agar agar.

Whatever the event, try this cheesecake on for size, you will not be disappointed. Different variations of the fruit coulis can be tailored to your own tastes, as per my previous mango cheesecake, but remember not to overdo the sugar content. A cheesecake should be sweet and I prefer the coulis a little tart to offset the balance of sweet cream cheese and crunchy nutty biscuits with sharp fresh fruit. Remember folks practice makes perfect, keep experimenting and find the balance that suits you, if mascarpone (which is amazing by the way) is too cheesy for you, stick to Philadelphia. If you would like a baked cheesecake, experiment with the recipe that uses eggs, but always follow these simple rules.

1. Biscuits: usually a biscuit with a crunch, digestive biscuits, hobnobs, shortbread.

2. Cream Cheese: Philadelphia, mascarpone, cottage cheese, low fat cream cheese is all fine.

3. Toppings: I love berries on cheesecakes, and most recipes point you in this direction, but look at the fruit you have in your fruit bowl, I found a mango and tested out my hypotheses; largely being that cheesecakes are amazing with most fruits, as long as you consider the sharpness and sweetness of each fruit on its own and alter the sugar content of your cheesecake to match. Chocolate is also a great topping. Use your imagination.

4. Have fun. There is no point of being in a kitchen if you are not going to have a little fun, a little drama when the utensils crash and the blenders hum, is what makes the cheesecake or any other dessert turn out beautiful.

With regards to the title ‘How to cure a cheesecake infatutation’: if any of you ever figure this out, please do not contact me. I like to be blissfully unaware of the fat and calorie content of my cheesecakes, for what is a dessert if not a little indulgence every now and then.

I have three words for you. White chocolate clusters. Little bites of heaven. Indulgence at its best. There are no rules, so go crazy. You need good quality White Chocolate, Brazil nuts, (sultanas or raisins if you fancy) and some biscuits. The biscuits need to be crushed, the white chocolate melted, and Brazil nuts chopped. Mix together to form a gooey white chocolaty mess. Spoon into bite-size clusters on baking paper (or as per picture into mini cup cases), leave to cool, and then decorate with milk/dark chocolate.

It’s a winner every time. Its uncomplicated, fun to try with children, and requires very little effort or fuss. So get chocolaty, I promise you these little bites of heaven are as scrumptious as they look.

12 oz white chocolate

10 oz dark/milk chocolate (for decorating)

7 oz Brazil Nuts (chopped)

7 oz Biscuits (crushed up)

note: raisins, sultanas, cereal, sweets, chocolate chips can also be used, be inventive and have fun.

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.

Lesson: Never mess with Chillis.

PS: I was so disappointed, I only took one photo.

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 National:

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.”

How does one explain an erroneous successful transaction?

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!

PS I was kidding about the discount.

Who can say no to chocolate. I can’t say no to bread. What happens when you put the two together?

…Sorry, I was busy finishing the loaf. What were we talking about?

??

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!

??

Oh, and this is what happens to a glass of chilled, refreshingly delicious iced tea from Whittard. Dont say we didnt warn you!

??

I think I’m mildly disappointed they didn’t make a vuvuzela shaped cake :)

• 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.
• Update: no change.

How @guykawasaki tweets

Foodscapes-english.pps

Recieved this mouthwatering presentation. Superb photography, but it did get me hungry for bread and cheese :)

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.

This point comprises three lines, yup, 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.

…

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.

Good read: competition is overrated by @cdixon

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.