Coast to Coast - Mangalore Food Festival

Mangalore cuisine is heavily influenced by south indian cuisine. A majority of dishes has seafood in it, owing to the proximity to thw coasts on both the sides of mangalore. 

The vegetarian dishes are however influenced from Udipi cuisine. I was very curious on what would be on the vegetarian platter. The Coast to Coast food festival happening at The Raintree, Mount Road is best place to check it out. 

A quick chat with Chef Prabakar who is the brain child behind the festival got us some interesting facts like how the spices of Mangalorean cuisine is blended with a chilli called Begdi. It is a spicy chilli which is also used to give color to dish to which it is added. The use of coconut milk and coconut oil gave a hint of the influence from

Kerala cusine. 

 

To start off we were served sweet and savory snacks. A sweet maida biscuit along with rice flour murukus

The soup was a mildly tempered tomato soup along with some Mangalore bonda and Masala vada

The condiments was a wonderful combination of color and taste. Coconut chutney white in color , beetroot chutney dark pink in color , pineapple chutney yellow is color 

When deciding on a spread for lunch or dinner, I usually give equal importance to the  colorfulness of the dishes and their taste. Should say I was pretty impressed with the condiments part

On the non vegetarian starters we had lady fish fry and a mildly spiced south indian chicken fry. Every dish did have a taste of the Mangolorean chilli in it. It blended well with the mildly spiced mutton soup

Neer dosa was so light and soft. You can just about cut it with two fingers. Appam was mildly sweet and tasted awesome with vegetable stew

Thalis are famous in this food festival. The vegetarian thali has two stir fries typical of manglorean style of uppukari and spicy fry. A vegetable briyani which is made with coconut milk and spices sauted in mild coconut oil. Also was a sambhar and spicy eggpant tamarind gravy to go with red rice.  

Non vegetarian thali had gravies of mutton, chicken and fish. Along side with some briyani and curd rice. Both the thalis had dal tempered with ghee and roasted baby potato

Dessert platter had my favorite elaneer payasam. Vannila icecream and a Goan pancake Bibinca. The blend of flavors in bibinca was very nice.  It had egg, butter, coconut milk and little flour along with sugar. It was kind of a layered crepes cut into small pieces. 

The Raintree mount road is having this food festival till 28th of this month.  If you are a foodie this is a definite place to explore and enjoy your food 

Salades santé from Park Hyatt

Its the "Healthy Week" at The Dining Area in Park Hyatt, Velachery. They bring on to the plate, five healthy salads, made from seasonal produce, minimal dressing and in a deconstructed format.

In the sense that they are served in the regular salad bowls, instead in plates in which you can actually see what are the ingredients in each salad.

Each salad has a different method in which they are made. Each salad is cooked in a particular way. Tossed, Blanched, Grilled, Mashed and Roasted.

These salads are the brainchild of Chef Megha, who comes up with very unique and beautiful plating for the salads as well as yummy purees ( fruit and vegetable )

First to be served was nice bread, crusty on the outside and soft on the inside. Tasted good along with butter.

Roasted Salad : Baby Beetroot, with fennel, stripes of apple, wedges of juicy orange, celery, roasted walnuts and goat cheese melt. Walnuts were mounted on a tasty beetroot puree. What I liked about this salad was the blend of flavors along with the puree and the walnut of course.

For the meat lovers, meat is served on the side, you have choice of Smoked Salmon, Seered Japanese Tuna, Poached Egg and Chicken Breast to choose

Tossed Salad : Quinoa along with cherry tomatoes, avocado, parsley , mint and sunflower crese.

This salad has a generous portion of toasted Pumpkin seeds.

Smashed Salad : A salad which had Edamame, Broccoli, Pumpernickel toast, along with cucumber and a garlic lemon ricotta. The presentation was very tempting with long strips of cucumber on a bed of lemon ricotta. The Rye bread garnish was very crispy and added color to the whole salad.

Blanched Salad: Springs of Carrot, along with big slices of seasonal mangoes, asparagus, snow peas and toasted hazelnuts were layered over passion fruit dressing, which is sweet and sour. It was a vibrant salad, with lovely colors and tasted yummy. The dressing especially was too good.

Grilled Salad: A spicy combination of Grilled eggplant, chickpeas, glazed dates, with pearls of pomegranate, cubes of feta cheese along with roasted pine nuts and fresh herbs. This is a very different combination that reminded me of baba ganoush.

One distinct factor across their salads was the addition of nuts in all of them. Nuts is a very important part of nutrition, which many of us tend to ignore. And yes, there is a myth that they are fattening. Taken in the right quantities and in the right way, they give you great energy levels and feeds your body with the essential proteins. If you notice, all the nuts are toasted or roasted not deep fried.

Watermelon Smoothie: Made from fresh deseeded watermelon, honey and yogurt.

Energiser: A refreshing combo of Kiwi, Apple, Spinach, Lime , Celery and honey.

Skin Tonic: Refreshing one again . Good for the skin, made from Romaine Lettuce, Cilantro, Lime and Pineapple.

Bello: A whole meal in itself made from banana, coconut cream, cashew and spinach

Spark : Banana, Vanilla, Spinach smoothie in Almond Milk.

The Healthy Week is on from April 24th 2015 to April 28th 2015 at Park Hyatt

A meal for two would cost approximately Rs 1600/-