#The Ganesh# walk# organized by #Pune Expats Club#

 

Expats taking the Ganesh walk on the occasion of Ganesh festival. #Pune Expats club# had organised the Ganesh Walk on the 22nd of September.

India’s First Super Sports Car DC Avanti Officially launched!

India's first Super Sports Car DCAvanti

 DC Avanti, India’s first super sports car was launched in Pune on Wednesday in a grand ceremony. Avanti which is conceptualised and designed by ace designer Dilip Chhabria, the Supercar was  officially launched at the Aadivenoo Motors by Dilip Chhabria, CMD- DC Design and BJP’s Vice President (Maha) Chainsukh Sancheti.

Venugopal Tapadia and Aditya Tapadia Directors of Aadivenoo Motors were also present at the launch. The keys for the car were handed over to Siddharth Bhansali who became the first customer of the DC Avanti. The Aadivenoo motors are the sole dealer for the sale of super car for whole Maharashtra.

DC Avanti is powered by Renault-sourced 2.0-litre turbo Euro 5 compliant petrol engine with 250 BHP of max power and 340 Nm of peak torque. The top speed of DC Avanti is limited electronically to 200 kms and it has acceleration of 0-100 kms per hour in just 6 seconds.

 Chhabria said “DC Avanti is my dream car and we have sold over 300 units already. It took us 33 months to develop this dream car and an investment of Rs 150 crores. This is the first supercar produced in any developing nation“

#Marathi film# Court is #India’s entry for #Oscars#

Critically acclaimed Marathi film Court was selected as India’s official entry in the best foreign language category at the 2016 Academy awards. Court which is directed by Chaitanya Tamhane earlier won for best feature film award at the 62^nd national awards held in March 2015 and 18 awards at the various national and international film festivals. Court  beat  films like PK,Bahubali, Masaan.Mary Kom,  Haider, and Kaaka Muttai in the Oscar race.

The film is based  on an aging folk singer, who is tried for abetment to suicide in a court. The film, inspired by the real life story of folk singer Jiten Marandi, who got embroiled in a criminal case after a bomb blast.

#Stylecracker# Borough#

It was a day full of fashion, shopping and fun for  Puneites  as they got to choose from 60 renowned brands and innovative products in the Stylecracker Borough which was held at Westin on September 13th. There was a wide variety of products available in the borough right from the designer garments by  Ritu Kumar to Kid’s T- shirts which were made from organic cotton ,customised shirts, garments antique to contemporary jewellery ,exotic teas, traditional Punjabi juttis ,cold pressed healthy juices , healthy snacks and much more.

Dhimaan Shah:CEO an managing director of Stylecracker

Elaborating the concept of Stylecracker, Dimaan Shah, Co-founder and Managing director says, “

Considering that fashion is a reflection of who you are, we started style cracker two years ago as a platform we make personalised styling available for everyone. To us curation is most important.”

Stylecracker has been organising boroughs in many cities successfully. “Borough is a one day shopping festival. We have done 5 boroughs in Mumbai, 2 in Pune.While in Mumbai 12,000 people attended the borough in one day. In Pune there were 40 brands last year and 2500 people attended the borough. This year there were 60 brands and 4000 people attended the borough. The uniqueness of style cracker borough is such that the products and brands which are showcased in our borough are exclusive and you won’t get them in pop market. The crowd which attends the borough has the spending power and in fact 60 percent people who visit the borough definitely shop. The borough caters to products for women, men and kids. It is all about experience. We have tied up renowned brands such as Ritu Kumar and Jabong. “

Dhimaan is planning to expand the activities of style cracker on wider scale.” We will be having 8 to 10 events pan India per year.”

Learning #culinary art# from #Kendall# Chef #Christopher Koetke#

Kendall Chef Christopher Koetke preparing roasted tournedos of salmon

When we attended a culinary art master class led by Kendall Chef Christopher Koetke at J W Marriott, Pune it was sheer delight to watch the celebrity chef cooking with such utmost passion and professionalism. Chef Koetke, who has trained thousands of chefs around the world and is a kind of encyclopaedia of cooking and food, was on a week-long visit to India. But what made the class interesting was the chef’s unique teaching style. He was dramatic when he taught them about discipline, he cracked jokes while chopping vegetables and whipping up an Avant-grade meal.

At the beginning of the class Chef pointed out that in order to become a good chef along with passion for food and cooking, having a discipline is very important. “If you have passion but not discipline, then you will not be successful.”Koetke  said.

Kendall College, a leading culinary arts school in Chicago, Illinois, USA held a master class at JW Marriott, Pune on September 12 th, which was hosted by renowned International Chef Christopher Koetke, the Vice President of the School of Culinary Arts at Kendall College. The class was organised in order to generate awareness about culinary arts education and the many career opportunities it presents to students.

Chef Koetke walked the participants through the preparation of roasted tournedos of salmon with red wine sauce, mushroom snail ragout, salmon sausage, and succotash salad.

While preparing the exotic dishes, he revealed his trade secrets and doled out detailed information about various techniques of churning out the perfect dish. He started off with showing the demo of various techniques of holding a knife properly and how to cut vegetables in the exactly same size. He also showed us cooking methods like dry heat cooking method and moist cooking method. Koteke also highlighted the importance of having everything ready before actually starting cooking.

Chef Koetke with exotic spread prepared by himself

When it comes to cooking most of us heavily rely upon recipes, but according to Chef Koetke, it is a strictly no no. “You can get captive by recipes but by using senses you can cook anywhere in the world with whatever ingredients you have. Hence it is essential to cook with all your senses. “He informs.

The chef was very excited about his trip to India. “I am thrilled to be back to India. As a Chef I find it very amazing country. It is a pleasure and a privilege to spend time in India and to have the opportunity to engage with the people of this country.”

We asked him whether he has tasted any Indian food and his take on it. “When I was taken to a restaurant in Mumbai, there was a Kebab festival going on and just gorged on various types of Kebabs and biryani. Later when I was staying in a hotel in Bengaluru, I was famished and asked for a breakfast. They served me two laccha parathas and they were so yummy that I polished off both the parathas and complained to the chefs that why did they gave me only two laccha parathas?”He smiles.

While Indian food is perceived as too spicy, Chef Koetke feels the perception about Indian food being spicy is completely wrong. “Indian food has many flavours and it’s wrong to label it as spicy.”he explains.

#121 Kitchen#: BarBQ #food review#

A tad disappointing!

When I got the invite for the 121 Kitchen : BarBQ, a mutlicuisine restaurant located at Wakad Chowk, my main concern was the distance as it is really far from the city and finding out the place at night was a big task. But once you reach Dange Chowk, most of the people in the area know the restaurant and finding the place was not that difficult.

121 Kitchen : BarBQ has an advantage as it is located at a prime locale like Wakad Chowk, which is part of the IT hub. But this also means that expectations are high. While the restaurant was launched in July 2012, they launched a new menu on September 1. They also offer a Sunday brunch with live performances and game stalls.

121 Kitchen : BarBQ has both indoor and outdoor sitting areas. But the ambience needs to be made more visually appealing and welcoming. It was a Bollywood night when I visited the place and it was impossible for patrons to hold a conversation with the young singer loudly churning out Bollywood numbers.

The outdoor area of 121 Kitchen

Among the drinks, the Dirty Mary, which was a combination of Bloody Mary with Dirty Martini didn’t look very appealing and lacked the right flavour, besides being  high on alcohol.

Dirty Mary

The menu of the 121 Kitchen : BarBQ is big and it boasts of a wide variety of dishes. The appetisers Flaming Chickpea Pellets which is boiled Kabuli Channa seasoned with chat masala and garlic was good. The Corn Crispy Chilli was really crispy and chatpata. It is a perfect accompaniment with drinks.

Flaming Chickpea Pellets

Corn Crispy Chilli

However, the tangy onion rings were too oily. Also, the mushroom tikka was average and a little sweet.

The Tandoori Chooza is the smaller version of Tandoori Chicken and had smaller pieces of chicken. The Chooza was well marinated and soft.

While the Green Mango Paneer Tikka was said to be marinated in raw mango paste, the dish didn’t have the slightest flavour of raw mango. They should marinate it for a longer period or just add raw mango slices to the paneer chunks.

For starters, the Murg Sharabi Kebab were an instant hit and was the best dish among all. They were well marinated in rum and served with a rum shot, which added to the flavour.

Murg Sharabi

Basa fish wrapped in banana leaves

Then it was time for a basa fish wrapped in banana leaves. The fish was marinated in paan leaves and other spices, which gives it a unique paan flavour. The concept is  innovative and tasted good...

In the main course, Murg Adraki, as the name suggests, has a strong flavour of adrak and tastes good.

Thai veg red curry ,Burnt garlic rice with oriental curry

For the oriental cuisine, we tried the Burnt Garlic Rice with Oriental Curry. The rice had very inviting flavour of burnt garlic and tasted delicious, the oriental curry was good too.but the veg thai red curry was disappointing. Since Thai Red Curry is a classic dish, it was important to get it right. But unfortunately, it lacked most of the key ingredients such as basil leaves, Galangal and Kafir lime. Instead, we just got the overwhelming taste of coconut paste which overpowered all other flavours.

However, the broccoli with black bean sauce was rather good.

Though we were already full, the captain persuaded us to taste the vegetarian biryani, but it was a little sweet compared to the regular biryani.

In the desert section, there were some innovative dishes created by 121 Kitchen :BarBQ. The Mughal–e-azam was a blend of malai kulfi, rabadi and ice cream. The rabadi overpowers the taste of kulfi in the dish. The dish is a hotchpotch of three deserts and is too sweet as it carries the sweetness of all three deserts. I would personally prefer to eat these deserts separately, rather than having them together. The nuts over chocolate had a chocolate cake in it instead of chocolate brownies.

Deserts:Mughal-e-Azam

Nuts Over Chocolate

Then it was time for a paan shot, which is a drink made from fresh betel leaf paste. Though paan shots are supposed to be chilled, they were served warm and lacked the strong flavour of paan.

After dinner, I had an interesting interaction with the owner of the food joint, Anish Banawade, who is enthusiastic about the food. Anish has personally set the new menu after many experiments and discussed it with me. Anish was a good host and the service was good too.

Though the food trip wasn’t at par with what we expected, we hope that the next visit to 121 kitchen will be more exciting!            

                                                                                                                  

121 Kitchen : BarbBQ

Where: Thergaon Road, next to Parkwayz Society, near Hinjewadi flyover, Wakad.

Phone:020-4670 0121

Hours:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, 7:00 – 11:30 pm

Rating: All in all, despite the hospitality of the staff, taking into account the food and all other factors given above, the experience of dining at 121 Kitchen :BarBQ was just average. I can only give a rating of average at present. There is a lot of scope for improvement, which is within reach.  I certainly hope that my next food trip there will be more satiating and exciting.

Rating: **

Key:

*:Bad

**: Average

***: Above Average

**** Good

*****: Excellent