May 2013
13 posts
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Dialect to screen
Every city has a word. A word that might not have resonance or traction in any other place, but in the confines of its home city, is indispensable. In Singapore, it’s “lah”; in Delhi, “oye” and in Mumbai, it’s “boss” – used with multiple inflections, each with its own meaning. As a way to catch a stranger’s attention, perhaps, or as a way to express frustration or even to express specifics like...
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Restaurant Review - Mamagoto
The anticipation around the opening of Mamagoto has grown over the past 12 months. As with most things, Mumbaikars want what is just beyond their reach, and Mamagoto, the pan-Asian eatery that has its origins in Delhi’s Khan Market, was just that. So the city has been buzzing about the openings in quick succession of a first outlet at Ghatkopar’s R City Mall followed by another, the flagship, at...
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Restaurant Review - Trattoria
Over dinner at Trattoria, talk turned to how on weekends, the Vivanta by Taj, President hosts drinkers descending on Wink, the bar alongside, for a night out; followed by revellers looking for a bite after the city’s entertainment options close for the night. Inevitably a pizza is ordered – it’s not messy, it tastes delicious and can be customised. The pizzas on almost every table we walked past...
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Restaurant Review - Royal Sindh
It says a lot about Royal Sindh that even without a functioning air conditioner, the tiny, garagesized restaurant was packed. It also explains the overdose of beverages on our bill. The heat, which has permeated the city, luckily also made it to our satisfying order of aloo tikki that we started our meal with. The plump tikkis were full of big chunks of yellow potato and finely chopped green...
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Fourteen Candles
In February this year, San Pellegrino unveiled its “Top 50 Restaurants in Asia”, causing a fair bit of chatter online owing to it being the first edition of this list. India had seven restaurants on the list; Wasabi by Morimoto (Mumbai) ranked at 20 while Colaba’s Indigo – the only restaurant from India not part of a hotel – was at 28.
The inclusion of Indigo, housed in a colonial villa,...
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Restaurant Review - Pallette
Design blogs and magazines are filled with spaces with impossibly white walls, wood embellishments, shiny polished floors and just the right number of people to make the space look inhabited. When we walked into Pallette one Tuesday afternoon, that’s what we were reminded of. Located in Kamala City, the upscale canteen serves the office crowd in the area. We were taken in by the undulating wood...
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Restaurant Review - Between Breads
Giant leather-and-Rexine sandwiches jut out of the walls on either side of the new eatery Between Breads – but that is just a front for a cosy restaurant, designed by Ayaz Basrai’s Busride Studio. Glossy red tables reflect the condiments arrayed on them – ketchup, mustard, Tabasco and Dettol hand sanitiser – and are set off by the white bar stools, all within easy reach of an Archie comic.
The...
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Restaurant Review - Le 15 Pâtisserie
Take a walk down any Bandra street and you’ll realise that dessert –cupcakes, specifically – are no further than ten minutes away. Which is why we were surprised at Twitterverse’s outpouring of glee following Le 15 Pâtisserie’s announcement of an outlet in the area. Maybe it’s the patisserie’s reputation: their signature macarons and red velvet cupcakes are routinely sold out at their two counters...
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Restaurant Review - Singkong
The woven grey felt that covered the walls around the black wooden staircase immediately caught our attention. Why cover a wall in felt? Why weave it the way Bottega Veneta does with leather? These were the existential design questions circling in our mind as we made our way into the Bandra’s new Asian food eatery Singkong. The restaurant’s moniker is an “imaginative” combination of Hong...
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Restaurant Review - The Pier
Colaba’s newest European eatery is tucked away on the road running behind Radio Club. Open for dinner for now, The Pier plans to start lunch services in the near future. In its earlier avatar as the Japanese restaurant, Tetsuma, it wasn’t uncommon to find revellers from the nightclub Prive drinking at the bar (most of whom had sneaked in through the shared bathroom!). Unfortunately, The Pier still...
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Homebrew
Know your Kopi Luwak from your Monkey Parchment? While these exotic beans, enhanced with bodily fluids from civet cats and primates, may take a while to reach your street, you can just walk down to a neighbourhood café for other imported variants. If your wallet permits and you feel like experimenting, beans from Ethiopia, Guatemala and Kenya can be sampled at Moshe’s and Indigo Deli. Usually...
April 2013
2 posts
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My 10 Best National Songs
Earlier today, Stereogum put out a list of the 10 Best National Songs and it was a travesty. Seven out of the ten songs on the list came from the band’s last two albums, High Violet and Boxer. Barring a single entry from the band’s third album, Boxer, the list leans heavily on material that was put out after 2007 ignoring the output that not only shaped the sound of the outfit, but also the songs...
March 2013
5 posts
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So Many Places, So Little Time - Teaze
So what is bubble tea? Bubble tea originated in Taiwan and is named for the black tapioca “bubbles” that are introduced to a basic iced tea; either milk or water-based. At Teaze, they’ve expanded the range of bubbles from simple tapioca to include flavours like mango and lychee as well as others. Be warned: it’s known to be highly addictive. So it doesn’t taste like gum? Not quite. Our green...
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Restaurant Review - Skky
An expertly rolled sushi is one of the few dishes Time Out will hoof the whole city for – and the prawn tempura roll at Skky, the new rooftop restaurant and lounge bar, made the trek to Powai bearable. The densely packed rice gave way to the crunchy prawn and we tasted a hint of the teriyaki glaze the menu had promised. We’d browsed the menu on an interactive Sony tablet, with photographs of each...
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Restaurant Review - Aoi
We nearly thought Aoi (pronounced “aawee”) was a manga café. The handle on the door is an origami crane; the birds nest on the ceiling too. A bookshelf with volumes on ikebana and haiku, as well as green tea guides, can be found next to the kitchen. The à la carte menu (bound on the right, the way Japanese books are) reflects the meticulousness displayed in the interiors. The steamed prawn with...
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Sweets and Meats
Bohri Mohalla, famous for its khau gully, street food options, bakeries and mithai shops, is all set to get a modern makeover. The shops will remain but will over time be rehoused in more contemporary structures. What will vanish forever is the hustle bustle of a much-loved neighbourhood. Time Outnavigates the bylanes to find the dishes most famous for flavour.
1. BAIDA ROTI Indian Hotel is...
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Destiny's Child
The second generation is always looking for ways to expand and develop the family business. Zyros Zend, 44, is no different. This selfstyled cookie man’s family owns the Yazdani Bakery at Fort, so baking was naturally in his blood. A stint roughly 20 years ago, when working on a cruise ship based in Miami with jaunts to Mexico and Jamaica, introduced him to fortune cookies. On returning to the...
February 2013
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Restaurant Review - Seven
In the days before Mumbai’s several reclamations, island-hopping across the seven atolls, used to be a possibility. Seven, a 24-hour eatery at the newly opened Shangri-La hotel, allows Mumbaikars to do just that. Only the well-heeled ones though; the buffet dinner is over Rs1,750 (with taxes), after all. Seven “island-like” kitchen stations, spread throughout the restaurant, serve a buffet that...
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Restaurant Review - Cheval
It isn’t often that you have to respond to a bouncer before being allowed to proceed for dinner, but such are the perils of sharing a stairwell with Kala Ghoda’s Liv, the popular nightclub next door to Cheval. The brief hiccup was magnified at the door, where once again, we had to clarify that we were there for a meal and weren’t trying to sneak in to Liv. Once seated inside the new European...
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Restaurant Review - Dim Sum House
Dim Sum House, the newest addition to the city’s burgeoning dim sum joints, is a quiet oasis in the otherwise noisy VITS hotel. The sound of cutlery and the raucous conversation among guests at the popular poolside buffet spread is, thankfully, muted within the restaurant’s calm, corridor-like confines. Instead of Chinese décor staples like giant Buddha statues and scrolls with Chinese lettering,...
January 2013
2 posts
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Nightlife Review - Irish House
South Mumbai residents can often be heard complaining about the lack of spacious, reasonably priced watering holes in the island city. Aside from hole-in-the wall joints like Alp’s and tourist traps like Café Mondegar and Café Leopolds, they’ve had to contend with drinking at bars like Geoffrey’s and Woodside Inn, which are cheerful but fill up fast. With the opening of Irish House in Kala Ghoda,...
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Restaurant Review - Café Sundance
Expectations have been high for the return of Café Sundance. The old establishment, with its fussfree atmosphere, unpretentious food and turtle-shaped burgers, was one of the first real cafés in the city. A place for college kids to hang out, young professionals to grab a beer after work, and for Parsi families to dine on chicken stroganoff. It is now run by the people behind Worli’s Two One...
December 2012
2 posts
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My top 20 albums of 2012
As someone who listens to a music and a compulsive list maker it seems only right that I end the year with my Albums of the Year. Hope you find your favorites as well as something new to tide you into the new year.
20. Crystal Castles – (III)
Crystal Castles - Plague
19. Liars – WIXIW
Liars - Brats
18. Four Tet - Pink
Four Tet - 128 Harps
17. Andy Stott – Luxury Problems
Andy Stott - Numb
16....
WatchI made a mix of my favorite songs of the year, I hope you like it
Check out this mix on @8tracks: “Top Songs of 2012”
August 2012
1 post
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“Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem...”
– Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine (via pyramidsong)
Get out of my head, Ray.
May 2012
1 post
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Photo Competition
So, I’ve just entered a competition on the Qatar Airways website and would really appreciate your votes. Please do so if you have the time. Thanks
Vote here!
August 2011
10 posts
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Noah and the Whale - Call Your Boyfriend
I seem...
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Robyn - Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall
This is the...
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July 2011
25 posts
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Anthony Bourdain: A BEGINNING. AN END →
Anthony Bourdain on his best meal and the closing of El Bulli
anthonybourdain:
It all began with Ferran Adria in more ways than one. It was because he reached out to me in 2001, invited me to come see him (in spite of the fact that I had written unflatteringly of him in Kitchen Confidential) that my partnership with zero point zero productionbegan. It was because he…
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The Big Pink - Love Song
This song was moody...
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