The Jungle Reviewed

Some of us colleagues and friends went over to Jungle View once again the other day. The place is so deeply ingrained in our psyche, that it has become effectively a default option any time any of us wants to celebrate. The occasion this time was Ramakrishna Das's wife Ashwathi's first visit to Cuttack. Poor Ram had a tough time arranging the trip, or at least, getting all members of the gang to agree on the date and time. It was not just a matter of prior engagements. In the best Odiya traditions, the more pious among us observe a strict vegetarian diet on certain days of the week, on which days they don't find Jungle View so attractive a proposition. I wonder why.

Winter this year has been unusually warm, but even so, the balmy mid-November weather made lunch a much more interesting option. I noticed several changes this time around. The ghastly cloth awning that covered the central open dining area has been replaced by a smart-looking prefabricated aluminium roof. This time we opted to sit in a airconditioned prefab cabins, more out of a desire for privacy than anything else. In fact, after a point we got them to switch off the a/c even. And I don't know why I never noticed that big signboard up there. Nice of them to also write the name in (slightly inaccurate) Bangla. Or maybe it is because Bengalis frequent the place regularly. Not surprising, given its meat-intensive bill of fare.

I had intended this trip to be a follow-up to my earlier post on the place, that is, to to check out, and photograph, all the stuff I had missed out on the last time. Alas! my grandiose plans were almost completely frustrated. Both Emu and patra poŗā mutton were off that day. I don't know what they have against patra poŗā; it never seems to be available though the people there insist it's still a part of their regular repertoire. The saving grace: they could muster some hāņdī poŗā mutton. But more on that later. First, a brief digression on the Odiya word poŗā. The term literally means 'charred' or 'scorched', a singularly unappetising appellation for one of the most glorious cooking style one can encounter anywhere. Perhaps 'baked on embers' conveys the idea better. Briefly, the idea is that the thing to be cooked is either placed in some sort of receptacle (bamboo logs and earthenware pots constitute popular choices) or wrapped in leaves. Then the receptacle or parcel, as the case may be, is placed directly on smouldering embers, and the stuff inside slow-cooks over some hours. The combination of smoke and direct, yet gentle, heat does all kinds of wonderful things to the thing being cooked. It enhances the natural flavours of meats and imparts a delicious  smokiness to them, a sweeter, much more subtle smokiness than a Tandoor or a brazier's naked flames do. Mutton responds particularly well to this style of cooking. It remains slightly tough, and firmly textured. And its juices intensify to impart a rich gameyness. But this is not to say this method is good only for meats. Chhenā poŗā, to my mind Odisha's single most monumental contribution to the culinary arts, is also prepared in this way.

Bamboo Mutton

Handi Pora Mutton

In contrast to the hoopla Jungle View associates with Bamboo mutton, where the log is brought to the table and the meat ceremoniously extracted in the presence of the customers, they tend to serve hāņdī poŗā mutton in distinctly low-key fashion. hāņdī poŗā literally translates to 'charred (baked, whatever) in an earthenware pot', but you never actually get to see the pot itself. What they serve up on the table is nothing more than a portion of meat on a stain-less steel plate. Even at first glance, though, differences with Bamboo mutton are manifest. Its colour is darker, for one, which indicates they don't add so much turmeric to it. Neither do they seem to use mustard oil, since it lacks the faint pungency of the latter. Which is perhaps just as well: the sharpness of mustard wouldn't have gone well with the deeper, earthier notes of hāņdī poŗā. And it certainly does exude deep, earthy, even gamey notes. It is also smokier, and the meat a shade softer too. Perhaps earthenware pots diffuse heat better than bamboo logs do? Suffice to say that it has become an immense favourite with me, perhaps even more so than Bamboo Mutton has. And that's one massive endorsement.

Chinguri Pora

We tried chinguŗi poŗā too. 'Charred Prawns' it translates to, though it was not clear how exactly the prawns were consigned to such treatment. The stuff was fantastic too, wonderfully smoky and all. But I feel they added too much turmeric; tends to take away something from the seriousness of the eat, if you ask me. But that is probably because I don't like turmeric all that much, maybe a reaction to being brought up in a typically turmeric-intensive Bengali household. Anyway, the rest of the stuff we ordered were interesting but not remarkable. We asked for two types of Dāl, one with scrambled egg stirred in, and the other without. Rajat, the sole vegetarian among us contented himself with egg curry (even his wife Nidhi cheerfully tucked into mutton and prawn). I had a taste of the egg too. Pretty decent, but not exceptional. All in all, a very pleasant experience, as the group selfie I took just before we left suggests. Pleasant enough, but I still wonder: whatever happened to all that Emu and patra poŗā mutton?

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Sucharita, or that Random Road-Trip to Konark

One of the nicest things about my marriage is the ease with which we have been accepted as a couple. Avanthi commands a much higher standing among my relatives than I do. And her relatives have been unstinting in the love and affection they have lavished on me, something I am most thankful about. More to the point, our respective friend circles have not merely accepted but duly absorbed the other into them. And over time we as a couple have befriended other couples. Sucharita Sengupta and Adnan Farooqui are an instance. They both teach political science at the Jamia Millia Islamia - bright, socially motivated, warm-hearted, and generally terrific people to hang around with. Suchi and I share a common interest in photography. She also happens to be distantly related: her first cousin once removed married a first cousin to my grandmother. So going by the nomenclature prevalent in India, that makes her my aunt. Anyways, Auntie and husband had a wedding to attend at a resort just outside Puri. Which was excellent news, because it had been a while since I had met them. Then Adnan welshed out, so that left only Suchi and self, since Avanthi and the little 'un were in Bangalore.

Even then we nearly didn't meet. Suchi's hosts had organised a bus for her and other guests directly from Bhubaneswar airport. And another bus to take them straight to the airport once the festivities concluded. Which didn't exactly leave much bandwidth for meeting up. That's when I had this splendid idea of taking a day's leave from the University, borrowing Millan's car, picking up Suchi from the airport, showing her a bit of Bhubaneswar and, eventually, driving her down to Puri. She cheerfully fell in with the idea, Millan readily agreed to part with his car for a day, and the rest of the plan fixed itself up almost by default, as it were.

[A word about Millan's car, now. It's a little Maruti 800, a bit long in the tooth, but well maintained. The engine especially is in good nick, certainly sound enough to sustain a day-long romp to the coast and back. I share an emotional relationship with it. When buying it he took me along; at that time he was not confident of handling the traffic around Badambadi. So I was the first person who drove it after the purchase. And Millan is most generous about lending it out. We have this informal arrangement: whenever I need it I let him know a day or two in advance, and if not inconvenient to him he happily chucks the keys over.]

The day didn't start too auspiciously. I got late reaching Millan's house, not a big surprise. So I was about halfway to Bhubaneswar when Suchi called up to say she was waiting for me, and that too outside the airport building. Damn! I did manage to reach the airport in half an hour. And the revelry started in earnest right away. I suggested getting some mandatory sari-shopping done first. She declared she was most impressed with Avanthi for having me trained so beautifully! To her credit she didn't take a whole lot of time over it. A quick snack later, we were on our way. Actually, no. Suchi said she had never seen Konark, something she badly wanted to do. We didn't have a whole lot of time with us, so that's where we headed directly. In the process forsaking Bhubaneswar's numerous attractions (which for the most part fell within the genre 'touristy', so the loss was not a big one).

The journey was delightful. Beautiful if slightly congested roads, the car behaving beautifully, and the sheer joy of catching up with a valued friend, all added up to yield a most memorable experience. We didn't take too many photographs, we had so much to talk about. Particularly foulmouthing our spouses, who had chosen to miss out on this wonderful experience. And besides I needed to keep an eye on the road and unruly traffic too. One picture I did take was of a minivan laden with bananas. Laden is too mild a term, it had bananas everywhere: crammed full on the inside, and then more on the roof, bunches stacked one on top of the other with long bits of stem curving up and outwards like so many improbably green-coloured flamingoes. It brought back memories of Belafonte's definitive 'Banana Boat Song': "Six-foot, seven-foot, eight-foot bunch!! / Daylight come and me wan' go home".

Konark was another delight. It was well past midday now, and fairly hot, but to the camera-obsessed, such considerations are at best peripheral. We spent the better part of two hours there.

This was followed by the most picturesque part of the journey. The East Coast Road connecting Konark and Puri is a dream. Beautifully maintained, largely bereft of traffic, and replete with interesting twists, it acts as a lure to local hotbloods bent on showing off their driving skills at high speeds, often with tragic consequence. But who would want to drive down such a picturesque road at high speed? And not take in the vast, untidy charm only mangrove patches can claim for their own? Or the pristine deserted stretches of beach interspersed between the mangrove clumps?

These beaches were so beautiful that at one point Suchi insisted we stop and take pictures. A wise choice, and a particularly attractive stretch of beach at that. I was charmed, but then in the last one year or so I had encountered plenty of beaches. The impact it had on Suchi, on the other hand, was nothing short of electrifying. She was thrilled, absorbed, engrossed, and she went beserk with her camera. So much so that she didn't realise she had gained an admirer. Woof! And any time I need to pull her leg, this is the photo I remind her of. It never fails, believe me.

Crab

Prawn

By this time we were quite hungry too. Suchi craved seafood beyond anything else (Adnan's vegetarian, which means she can't make it at home too often either). I had promised to take her to Chung Wah, one of Puri's finest attractions. Which was fine with her; the place is justly famous for its Chinese-style seafood. But as we were bouncing down the East Coast Road, she spotted a signboard advertising fresh seafood. Further signages led us to the Lotus Resort at Ramchandi Beach. By mutual consent we agreed to keep things (very) simple: crab, prawn, and any other species of seafood the place could yield. No rice, chapati, noodles, vegetables, or other inessentials. Perhaps because we had arrived at an odd time, they could offer only a limited selection. We opted for um, don't recall what it was called, but it was in substance crab fried in some sort of spicy chilly sauce. Suchi loved it. So did I, but with some minor reservations: I did think it was a trifle overcooked, and also not as big as I have encountered in so many eateries in Odisha. The prawn, on the other hand, was an unqualified success. At the manager's suggestion we asked for it to be gently fried with a touch of coriander. It did come laced with an incongruous assortment of vegetables, stir-fried and raw, which didn't quite fit in. Then again, they did not succeed in undermining the flavour of the prawn either, so could be happily ignored. The chopped garlic and coriander, on the other hand combined to subtly influence the prawn in the nicest way possible. The prawn itself was fresh, and cooked just right. So it retained its crunchy texture, and its unique flavours. And oozed rich, aromatic, downright intoxicating juices the moment you sank your teeth into it. It revived us no end, we had  become quite tired by then.

The rest of trip was uneventful. I dropped off Suchi at the wedding venue. We spent some time out there, once again spewing maledictions at our respective spouses for not joining us. I then set off for Cuttack, promising Suchi I'll be ever so careful. Not that she needed a whole lot of reassurance; the day's worth of driving had left her most appreciative of both car's and driver's capabilities. The car's behaviour all through the day was particularly remarkable, and fully justified the confidence reposed in it. At no point did it create the slightest fuss. On the return journey too it behaved magnificently, and ferried me home with aplomb. Which places me in a dilemma: should I let Suchi know it didn't have a spare tyre?

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Jungle View: Bamboo Mutton and Emu in the Odiya Hinterland

Odisha's a strange place when it comes to food. Especially urban centres like Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. Not that they are starved of eateries, far from it: I guess food lies in the second rung among lucrative business ventures, right after clothes. But invariably, the array of preparations they turn out tends to be - call it what you will, homogenised, standardised - I call it boring. The same old stuff: mostly misbegotten "Mughlai" and faux-Chinese, a few hackneyed Odiya dishes like Dalma and Mutton Kassa, perhaps one or two equally hackneyed Bengali fish preparations, and that's it. The State's rich, diverse culinary heritage gets showcased so rarely in these joints that it's futile to expect them to display any true identity or personality. At best they'll have a couple of signature items they do really well, and then beyond that the same old gunk. Even Jungle View, one of the few truly offbeat eateries I've encountered in the vicinity, now stoops to quasi-Chinese preparations. Incipient Kaliyuga, that's what it is.

The place's name is entirely appropriate: it is sandwiched between Nandan Kanan and the adjoining Chandaka Elephant Reserve. You may not get to see (or 'view') much jungle, but that is a minor nit. The point is, it is located miles away from anywhere, literally, even the most recently urbanised parts of Bhubaneswar. So how do they manage to run a prosperous eatery business so far away from cities, that too cities not especially known for offbeat dining? Tourists from Nandan Kanan cannot contribute all that much by way of custom. As a matter of fact, most diners seem to come all the way from Bhubaneswar or Cuttack, or even farther places, just to eat there.

It started out as a nondescript dhābā , then evolved to offer a nice little line in local meaty preparations or, as this blog calls them, 'rustic tribal delicacies'. These include mutton - technically chevon or goat meat - cooked in bamboo logs, in earthenware pots, and wrapped in leaves of some sort. Over time the place's reputation began to spread through word of mouth, it expanded its repertoire to include Japanese quail (locally called gunduri) and emu, apparently sourced from a farm in Ganjam. Also, to accommodate its steadily-growing upmarket clientele, it took over an adjacent tract of land and converted it into an open-air dining space where you get the same food at marginally marked-up prices.

Let's face it, the upmarket side of things is tacky in the extreme. Mainly due to the excessive use of moulded concrete masquerading as unfinished log. Right at the gate you encounter this rude post-and-lintel arrangement made even more hideous by the two concrete birds perched on top and looking slightly bored. Inside, you have a garden with two thatched gazebos, each capable of seating about twelve. Rather pretty, really, and for once the concrete used there looks like concrete. Beyond lies the central dining area. This comprises a vast awning propped up on concrete pillars trying their best to look like bamboo clumps. Beneath the awning lies a marble dining table large enough to seat thirty-five comfortably. Around it are concrete benches looking vaguely like split logs. The backrests are even more strange, featuring moulded concrete trelliswork made to look like er, what? Mangrove roots?

After you cross this you encounter another stretch of garden with more creative landscaping, notably a hill made of concrete and boulders, which reminds me irresistibly of grottoes I have seen at some churches. This stretch also contains cages full of birds, mainly gunduri, which also features prominently in the menu. Along the left edge of the tract run a series of air-conditioned prefab cabins, available to groups at no extra cost. Each can seat about twenty or so. Spartan furnishings notwithstanding, they do provide a modicum of privacy and comfort especially in the summer months.

So much for the decor - it's obvious that's not why we keep going there. We go there for the food and, despite the distance, we've been there so many times I've lost count. Most of the photos posted here are from an impromptu visit last March. There were five of us, including colleagues Bishwa, Millan, Ram, and Sudatta. We had little work that afternoon, the weather was still pleasant, so it was not difficult to persuade the rest of the gang, particularly Millan who readily agreed to get his car along. The drive was most pleasant, two long halts at level crossings notwithstanding. On this occasion the air-conditioned cabins were not available. We sat beneath the central awning instead, and passed time most convivially taking pictures and cracking stupid jokes till the food arrived. Emu was off that day, much to our disappointment. We contented ourselves with Bamboo Mutton, quail, some Dal with egg in it, some Dal without egg. And Naan and rice.

The mutton is clearly the place's signature dish, and also the most expensive at around four hundred a serving. Small chunks of mutton are liberally smeared with spices, ginger, garlic and (very discernibly) mustard oil, and then stuffed into hollow bamboo logs. The logs are then sealed, tossed into smouldering embers, and left there for the meat to cook. Once done, the logs are fished out of the embers and brought directly to the table, where a waiter ceremoniously scoops out the meat onto a plate. Cooked this way, it remains chewy, even tough at times. It absorbs the smokiness of the embers, and the bamboo imbues it with its own subtle grassy fragrance and moistness. The mustard oil's pungency also remains discernible, albeit subdued. The result is surprisingly harmonious, perhaps because the individual notes are all understated. All in all, the preparation as well as the final results are not something one is likely to encounter elsewhere. Definitely a high-point of my stay in Odisha.

Braised Emu

I am not so fond of quail. It is a bony bird, with not all that much meat on it. Its flavour is interesting but not remarkable, at least not to my palate. The chefs at Jungle View coat it in a spicy paste, and then cook the bird whole in loads of oil (not mustard oil, though). The spice levels do little to help matters; for one, they tend to block out much of the meat's intrinsic flavour. Still, an interesting preparation, and justifies an occasional foray if only for novelty value.

On subsequent visits I had occasion to sample the other stuff on the menu. The Emu wins hands down, beautiful stuff it is. They serve it boneless, braised in much the same spices as go into the quail. But the meat's darker, discernibly more gamey flavour goes well with the spices. It is pricey at about 260 Rupees for a small plate, but more than worth the spend. The mutton cooked in earthenware pots is also excellent. Once we tried some prawn. It turned out to be so spectacular we promptly ordered another plate. I don't know how they cook it, but it was soft, not over-spiced, and had this distinctive smoky flavour. I have not managed to try the leaf-wrapped mutton yet. Certainly the next time I go across I shall make it a point to try it out, and also renew my acquaintance with all the stuff I have only mentioned in passing here. Do stay tuned for an update.

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Cafe Thulp, Bangalore

Let me end the year with a long-overdue post, about a place I've wanted to write about for quite some time. Bangalore's Cafe Thulp chain specialises in hamburgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, pastas, mammoth breakfasts and the like. It is predominantly meat-oriented; it draws inspiration from a vast swathe of culinary traditions - Malayali, Goan, Italian, American, and South-East-Asian included; and its Koramangala branch remains one of my most favourite eateries in Bangalore. This might sound like an extravagant claim. Bangalore is home to numerous restaurants, which vary considerably in cuisines offered, prices, quality, and magnitudes of pretentiousness. And this place appears plenty pretentious at first glance. Its menucards and interiors are done up in a cheesy comic-strip style. The preparations are given strange names intended to convey informality and hip-ness simultaneously (try Sheikh Yerbooty, or what we'd normally call milkshakes). And the so many cuisines contributing to the menu raises apprehensions of bog-standard Indian-Chinese-Tandoori-Mughlai-Continental mishmashes you find in street corners all over India.

Two factors save the place from collapsing under the weight of its own over-the-top-ness. First, their food is excellent, (barring a few disasters now and then). And secondly, they understand cooking, including the nuances of each cuisine they have sourced their dishes from. So even if they deviate from 'authenticity' (whatever that be) and modify a preparation, they do so intelligently and not merely because, say, some ingredient is inconvenient to procure. This intelligence, and commitment to quality, is what makes their food truly eclectic and not simply uninformed.

I confess I am touchy about southeast-Asian cuisine. Nasi Goreng and Phở are not exactly haute cuisine. I wouldn't go about, like Wodehouse's Bingo Little, 'telling the head-waiter at Claridge's exactly how he wanted the chef to prepare the sole frite au gourmet aux champignons, and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn't just right.' Yet I would want Nasi Goreng to taste like Nasi Goreng and not some ersatz watered-down substitute. If you replace kecap manis with local variants of soya sauce, and altogether omit oyster sauce or fish sauce, what you end up with is not Nasi Goreng but something indistinguishable from your roadside Indian-Chinese fried rice. I have no problems with Indian-Chinese food. Where I draw the line at is seeing it palmed off as authentic Malaysian/Indonesian cuisine, and its inevitable corollary, having to pay the premium prices such 'exotic', 'foreign' preparations command. Low-cost eateries tend to massacre the cuisine too, like the paneer-studded 'Singapore Cheese Noodles' I once encountered in Delhi, but at least they are not hypocritical about it.

Thulp does not serve Nasi Goreng, or Phở. Nor does it make pretentious claims to authenticity. But it sure does a mean ASEAN-inspired 'slow-braised pork belly with mushroom, bok choy and oyster sauce'. It is so good that as far as I am concerned, all the other things the place is supposed to be famous for - hamburgers, Sheikh Yerbooty, the lot - simply fade into insignificance. The menucard calls it 'signature', and it used to rank among their most expensive preparations. I say 'used to' because inexplicably, they have pulled it off their regular menu. It makes occasional guest appearances on their 'daily specials' chalkboard, which is not nearly the same thing. Back in the days it was a regular cast member, I ordered it on numerous occasions, and each time it much more than lived up to my expectations.

[Update: Regular reader and (so far the only) guest-blogger here on FoodScapes Anita Dixit points out in her first comment that they do slip up now and then on the satisfaction front. I had taken her there once when she was visiting Bangalore. Her (beef) steak was disappointing.  And worse, by the following morning she had developed a bad tummy upset, in all likelihood caused by the steak. As for me, that was the first time I had tried the pork belly. A thumping success all the way through, and my stomach behaved with admirable meekness the next day.]

The last time I had the pork belly was when some five of us went there for lunch. The group included sister-in-law Adithi, cousins Sayan and Swati, and Swati's husband Arnab. In celebration of their brotherhood-in-law, comedians Arnab and Sayan both landed up in Superman t-shirts.  Their appetites were sadly underwhelming, though. Arnab's in particular undid much justice to his apparel. He opted for about the smallest hamburger on the menucard. It was wider in circumference than the ones you get at fast-food outlets, and its patty, while not particularly thick, was certainly juicier and more flavourful. Not surprising, because fast-food chains in India ply only chicken burgers, while this was made of stuff pious Hindus tend to avoid. It came with a scoop of cole slaw that would barely cover a playing card, and a similarly austere helping of french fries. Beautifully cooked stuff, whatever little of it there was. Arnab had asked for a small burger, so the limited portions were entirely acceptable. It was his insistence he was full up that had me worried.

Sayan and Adithi ordered something called El Pollo Loco, in substance crumb-fried chicken strips. Adithi's not a big eater and doesn't touch pork or beef, so her choices were predictably constrained. On the other hand, Sayan I felt was being distinctly unadventurous. Still, there it was, and the chicken was good too. Really good. It was soft, juicy, neither rare nor overcooked. The crumbed coating was particularly delectable, crispy without having soaked up too much oil. It came with a big chunk of cheesy mashed potato, and a bowl of what they called 'creamed spinach'. Much more cream than spinach if you ask me, in fact I first thought it was a dip or sauce of some sort. But none the worse for that; it was exceedingly good. I know because I helped myself to a forkful of chicken slathered with it.

Swati started out with a coke float. A strange way to begin a meal, but she enjoyed it. Her entrée was one of the few true, full-blown disasters I have encountered at Thulp. It was called The Clucky [sic] Luciano, or 'breaded escalope of chicken parmigiana with marinara sauce and mozzarella - served with garlic mashed potato and salad.' She got all that, and also a bit of pasta tossed in the same marinara sauce. This sauce was the problem. I have encountered very few Indian cooks who can handle tomatoes. Even the best and wisest lose their sense of restraint confronted with them. And the serving was a very painful reminder of this. It was sour through and through, blotting out all the garlic and the delicate herbs that must have gone into the dish. The pasta proved inedible beyond a few forkfuls, and Swati was reduced to scraping sauce off the chicken with a spoon.

The menu, usually so voluble about its preparations' provenance, is uncharacteristically silent about the cooking styles that inspired the braised pork belly.  It is generally associated with various cuisines of south-east Asia, and arguably more popular in that part of the world than anywhere else. The oyster sauce reinforces this suggestion, as does the Bok Choy, a variety of Chinese cabbage. China boasts a profusion of green leafy vegetables, which includes apart from Bok Choy also Kai Lan, Choy Sum, and Sui Choy. Spoilt for Choyce? Certainly, and all the more so because they are all delectable. Incidentally, this site here claims Choi Sum or Chye Sim are nothing but mustard greens. Eh? So many years I spent exploring Singapore food, and all this while they fed me Sarson da Saag?

The pork belly came a goodish bit later than the other main courses. It did say slow-braised, so I cannot complain, really. It was an elaborate affair. So elaborate that it needed two separate plates to hold everything together. A conventional plate housed the accoutrements - a helping of fried rice, a bowl of light soya sauce with shredded chilli, and some salad largely made up of carrot, white radish and cilantro. The pork itself came in a sort of soup plate lined with three or four Bok Choy leaves. That was the only role Bok Choy played in the entire affair, I don't know why the menucard gave it star billing. The mushroom and oyster sauce had a more central function. They combined with the meat juices and the braising liquid to form a thin but intensely flavoured gravy, which alone was worth the price of the dish. But all this paled before the pork. Superb it was, no other word for it. The meat was chewy in a good way, firm and with a strong flavour of its own. More delectable were the fatty bits. Now these days I find I cannot eat too much fat: one small chunk and I start feeling queasy. But this fat was light on palate and stomach alike. It did not taste very oily or greasy, neither did it clog my appetite. I was confident I could polish off another helping without much discomfort, something I cannot trust myself to do after say, three slices of bacon.

Dessert was a surprisingly drab affair. Thulp sources cupcakes from neighbours who like to bake on the side, gifted amateurs mostly, or at least those who think they are. Arnab and I decided to split one; the others were too full to join us. That day the suppliers' confidence exceeded their capabilities. The cake was dry, chewy and a little over-sweet. Apart from this hiccup, and the bigger one involving the Clucky Luciano, the meal was very, very enjoyable. Maybe a time will come when I tire of their food, or when their cooking deteriorates beyond tolerance levels. Maybe, but I don't think it's going to happen any time soon.

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Dracula Romanian Food

Hungrygowhere reports the demise of the improbably-named 'Dracula Romanian Food', a hawker-centre stall at Singapore's Alexandra Village neighbourhood. The title on the page is now prefaced with a curt 'closed', and any time you try to access a review you're festooned with annoying popups screaming at you, in case you missed the point, that 'This establishment is no longer in operation'. One review, dated just a month after my last visit there, indicates some reasons why: a tedious story involving cost-cutting; substituting experienced staff with cheaper (and correspondingly less competent) replacements; and (horrors!) so steep a drop in food quality the reviewer actually contracted food poisoning. A sad way to go for an eatery I used to be rather fond of.

I came across the place towards the end of my stay in Singapore. At that time I was staying at a condo called Gillman Heights, one block of which NUS used as a graduate students' residence. (Gillman Heights is also history now. Thanks to an en-bloc sale, we had to vacate the place within weeks of my last visit to Dracula. The old flats have been pulled down now, with something called 'The Interlace', which looks like a tribute to disjointedness, coming up in its place.) Dracula was walking distance from Gillman, just across the Ayer Rajah Expressway. But because it was tucked away behind an HDB block, it took me till June 2009 to discover the place, almost a year since I had shifted to Gillman.

My first impressions were not particularly favourable. Invoking the Dracula name smacked of blatant attention-grabbing (but then this was before I found out several other joints exist all over the world both named and themed after that (blood)sucker). The faux-ness was underscored by a tacky plywood cutout of a castle stuck in front of the counter. Or to be strictly accurate, one half of the counter; the other half was given over to an Italian joint called 'Funny Lasagna by Peter Bontoi'. A menucard was stuck onto the quasi-drawbridge, you gave your order through this large slot masquerading as the castle entrance, and then collected your food through the same aperture.

A copy of a newspaper report framed and displayed prominent gave me some background info. Bontoi was born in Romania and worked as a chef in Turin for many years. He then shifted to Singapore and got into the restaurant business, but after facing partner troubles he decided he was better off running hawker centre stalls instead. So he set up Funny Lasagna, specialising in Lasagne, Pasta and Pizza. The article does not mention when the Draculanian side of things was started. But I presume at some time he must have realised there was a market for Romanian food too, so he partitioned off his stall into two halves, and so forth.

The first time I went there I ordered Cirnati de Pork, or handmade Romanian pork sausage. Somewhat expensive at S$8 for one large sausage on a flatbread, a small portion of salad, two slices of tomato, a few scraps of leafy veg, and also a complimentary bread basket containing about four slices of good multigrain. The flatbread was the most intriguing. Its name was not mentioned, but in all likelihood it was an unstuffed Placinta (nowhere near as gross as it sounds like). It looked very much like a Paratha, if a bit more severely circular in shape, but its taste was different, denser and fattier, presumably because they used refined flour and also greater amounts of shortening. The salad was excellent. The sausage left me marginally let-down; maybe the exotic surroundings and the Romanian antecedents had goaded my expections to unduly high levels. It was certainly good, no doubt. Just that it didn't taste very different from any other well-made sausage. The portions also generally tended to be on the smaller side, especially given the price. Apart from these nits, I enjoyed myself enough to go back three days later.

On this occasion I opted for a Friptura de Pork, or Romanian pork chop. They took some time to prepare it, time I spent most enjoyably chatting with the manageress and the lady who ran the drinks stall next door. I got a little more bang for my buck (ok ten bucks) this time round: two generous pieces of pork smothered in mushroom sauce, a roll, a helping of salad, and again those bits of tomato and leafy veg. Three bucks extra fetched me a potato salad, which was nothing short of excellent, but then I've always had a weakness for potato and sour cream. The pork chops were excellent too, very soft, excellent meat, well cooked. As was the gravy rich and flavourful. But once again, not much different from any other decent chop anywhere else.

That was my last visit to Dracula. In less than two weeks Gillman Heights shut down for good, and we all had to relocate. I left Singapore in end-August. These last few weeks were extremely hectic, so I couldn't go back for another visit. It remains one of my most vivid memories of Singapore, and I wonder why. The food was certainly good, but not wildly exciting. I guess it was the fun of the whole thing, the quirky name, the gimmicky castle, and the very nice people running the show. Yes, an easy conviviality, an informality, that you don't often come across in Singapore. I shall miss it.

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Hotel Subhalaxmi, Naraj

Hotel Subhalaxmi is a small, unpretentious dhābā tucked away in a village just beyond the farthest reaches of Cuttack.  It is not a particularly well-known place, nor is it given to offering exotic one-off preparations. But over time it has built up a local reputation for hearty everyday fare at reasonable prices. Denizens tend to speak highly of its mutton curry and fried fish. It is only a couple of kilometres away from our University campus, and some colleagues are regular lunchtime visitors. We'd been hearing about it for quite some time. So the other day we three of us - Bishwa Kallyan, Ramakrishna, and self - decided on a whim to check it out.

Ram had in fact finished a substantial lunch by then. He came along mainly for the good-humoured conviviality and camaraderie that make our little jaunts so memorable. That and a little fried fish on the side - he ordered um, four of them. Bishwa and I were fortunate he didn't want anything more. They had nearly run out of mutton by the time we arrived (at about 2.30) and could scrape together only two servings. To this Bishwa and I helped ourselves with an easy conscience since Ram was, of course, too full for another meal!

The place is typical of dhabas in Odisha. It is housed in a small single-storied cemented building, one among a row of shops. In front of the entrance is a kind of porch made of concrete columns topped by a canopy of corrugated iron. This serves to stave off the heat, and also provided some shade for regulars who sit there for a chat. What really caught the eye was the shop's startling colour-scheme. The columns are painted a bright lime green with a blue and, now much faded, at the bottom. Inside the green gives way to an equally vivid mustard yellow. Here the blue borders and edges are much more prominent. The sides of the cashier's desk, and the iron door at the back, also flaunt similar shades of blue. As is common practice among dhabas, the kitchen is situated right in front, with tables laid out for diners towards the back. The inside is spartan, with the furniture tending to granite-topped iron tables and backless wooden benches. The ceiling has begun to look a little sooty. That said, it is reasonably clean throughout, even the kitchen is respectably tidy. The benches are not too uncomfortable either, a sentiment evidently shared by the group at the next table who had sneaked in some (very strong) beer and were surreptitously doling it out amongst themselves.

Even though we had come for the first time, the manager sized us up as favoured customers. This favour was bestowed in curious fashion. Perhaps overly cautious of hygiene levels, he came and spread newspapers on our table before setting down the plates. The full thalis (plated meals) for Bishwa and self arrived first. And a good thing too. We were starving by then; the freshly-lunched Ram was, well, not starving. The trays contained rice, some mixed veg, dry stir-fried potato and parwal, and that famed mutton. The rice was the inexpensive, thick-grained variety served in cheap eateries all over Odisha and known simply by the generic name usna chaula (pronounced 'usnā cāulô') or 'parboiled rice'. Sophisticates disparage it as coarse, hard to chew, and heavy on the stomach (hence lethargy-inducing). I tend to differ. It has a robust flavour and texture I love, which you simply don't find in the more refined varieties. If made properly it is not very chewy either. And in this place it was made most properly too, cooked just right. I used up all the rice finishing off the veggies, and had to ask for a second helping to have the mutton with.

The mixed veg was tasty enough, if not particularly interesting. I liked the potato and parwal much more. It was well cooked, not oily at all, and I have a weakness for parwal. I would have asked for seconds had it not been for the mutton waiting patiently across the rice. Ah! the mutton. Lived up to expectation in every way. The gravy was excellently made. It was browned evenly, replete with meaty juices and flavours, and without the slightest hint of scorching even though what they served us must have been the dregs from the day's cooking. The meat was well-cooked, succulent, soft, neither chewy nor mushy, and fell off the bone at the slightest touch. Humble surroundings be damned, it compared handsomely with the finest mutton I've had anywhere in Odisha.

I had just started on the mutton when the fish arrived. By the time I remembered to take pictures, and also get myself a taste, Ram had polished off two of them. They were locally procured small fish, possibly caught that morning off the nearby Kathajodi, and then fried whole. I confess I am not much of a fish eater. Still I helped myself to a couple of chunks just to get a taste. It was not bad, but not very juicy either, and a bit on the bland side. Ram enjoyed it thoroughly, though.

They charged us about Rs 120 per mutton thali. (Or at least that's what Bishwa told me later. While Ram and I were busy with fish and camera respectively, he had sneaked out and quietly settled the bill.) While not cheap, it was certainly reasonable considering the price of mutton these days. And certainly well worth the money. The fish sold for about Rs 30 each, which I thought was on the steeper side. But this is a minor nit. We had a wonderful time, no doubt about it. I certainly intend to be back soon.

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Istanbul for Beginners 01: Getting There

[NB: This is part of a series on my visit to Istanbul. For other posts, please see the prefatory note.]

I was not meant to go to Istanbul. Not originally, that is. Back then I was a grad student at NUS. Their research scholars policy extended to funding one international conference a year. The SLS Conference, certainly one of the more prestigious events for law scholars, had accepted my abstract. It was to be held in London that year, which is where I thought I was headed. But then I got into a little problem with my supervisor, and the wonderful lady decided send me, and CC to the Vice-Dean, a mail containing some highly suggestive and misleading remarks about a dissertation chapter I was supposed to complete. As a matter of fact I had completed that chapter, and to the supervisor's satisfaction at that. I was the one who felt there was something vital I had missed out conceptually.  So I withdrew what I had turned in, and asked for a little time to revise it. It took me fifteen days of tense, chaotic brooding, but I did managed to crack the puzzle in the end, and the insights so gained proved pretty fundamental. By that time, though, the damage was done, and my funding application duly turned down. Ironically, these new ideas were what I wanted to present at SLS.

Even though I managed to set the record straight with the Vice-Dean the next time I met him in person, the episode left me absolutely livid. So much so that I vowed not to apply for conference funding ever again as long as I remained in Singapore. My friend Saiful thought it was a silly thing to do. He empathised with my feelings, yes, but why not avail of something that was mine by right? So what should I do, I asked, go ahead and present at a top-tier international conference insights I know are substantial, but which the supervisor can only scoff at? That's when he had a most interesting idea: why don't I seek out some conference, any obscure conference, being held at a place I've always wanted to visit? A little googling revealed a conference on terrorism to be held at one of Istanbul's lesser universities. I was reading Orhan Pamuk's book on the city at that time. Moreover, terrorism law had been one of my optional courses, and the term paper I had written for it could be comfortably recycled for this conference. Things began to fall into place automatically. This time my application sailed through most smoothly: I have no idea what the Vice-Dean told her, but my supervisor gave her consent in record time.

(Not entirely, though. She did one more little dirty on me. I had applied for three days' extra leave. She chose not to respond to the request one way or the other, which meant, thanks to the applicable rules, that I forfeited those three leaves without ever getting to know if they had been approved or not. I smelt a rat somewhere. My instincts told me extending the trip might not be a good idea. So I decided to return on the originally scheduled date. Sure enough, within hours of my landing I got a mail from her about something or the other. I responded within minutes, making it a point to say I was heavily jetlagged, which is why I couldn't come down to the campus. I don't know if she ran my mail through a reverse-DNS checkup. I sure hope she did; it would have reassured her no end.)

Anyways, once the approval came through the rest was easy. The only catch was, I had to arrange (and pay for) my own accommodation. This I managed online at minimum expense; I opted for a dormitory bed for fifteen Euros a night. Slightly steep, this Istanbul Paris Hotel and Hostel, but located in the heart of the Old City, extended walking distance from the conference venue, pretty close to the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar, and they threw in a buffet breakfast for free. The University took care of the conference fees and, most crucially, the airfare. NUS had a delightful policy of reimbursing only SQ (i.e. Singapore Airlines) flights. Given that it was and remains one of the best airlines around, I certainly didn't have any problem with that. I did face a minor hiccup over my blazer, which I had outgrown by several inches around the midriff. Buying a new one from Singapore was never an option: the readymades were badly cut and ill-fitting, and bespoke tailoring was too expensive to contemplate. So one Saturday I went over to Johor Baru in Malaysia, located a tailor there, struck a deal with him, and returned the following Saturday to pick it up. I goofed a little on the material: in my haste I chose some sort of polyesterish stuff; when I went to pick it up I learnt I could have got Italian lambswool for just a hundred Ringgit more. That apart, my preparations proceeded with the utmost smoothness. Even the Turkish visa was processed in about three days.

Since this was an SQ flight, I got to experience at first hand the swanky new Terminal 3 at Changi. I loved the whole experience, couldn't get enough of it. Especially the planes parked right outside the departure lounge, across the plate-glass windows. In the plane another surprise awaited me. Though the flight was reasonably full, the other two seats on my row remained unoccupied, at least till the stopover at Dubai. Which meant I could simply lift up the armrests and stretch out across all three seats. I still didn't get much sleep, though. Even after about six or seven assorted drinks, I could only manage a thin, intermittent snooze in the last two hours of the Singapore-Dubai leg. Maybe the drinks they serve on planes are smaller than regular ones. That's the only explanation I have for remaining awake, and stone cold sober, even with all that beer, wine, Campari, Irish Cream, and indifferent Cognac sloshing about inside me. I did say assorted, right? I meant it.

Given SQ's reputation, I expected the food to be several notches above the sludge they serve on other airlines. In this I was not disappointed exactly, but that's about all that can be said for it. They served us grilled chicken, sauteed veg, mash, a dinner roll, some salad - standard stuff, mostly nourishing, reasonably tasty and, well, humdrum. Breakfast the next morning was nicer, if equally conventional. I got some sort of sausage (lamb, most likely), a couple of bull's eye eggs, apart from the usual accoutrements like baked beans, a roll, coffee, orange juice and all.

Dubai Airport was much as I had expected it - opulent, at times to the point of garishness. I tried to get myself some food, but then they told me even if I paid in Euros they will return the change in their local currency. One more incident: I was taking some pictures of a watch outlet displaying a huge poster of Aishwarya Rai (which suggested where a significant chunk of the shop's clientele came from). This officious security guard immediately stalked up to me and told me not to take pictures. I was drowsy and tired for lack of sleep, which is why I decided not to create a shindig. Otherwise I'd have cheerfully asked to see the manager and, if it came to that, even file a complaint.

I did manage some sleep after Dubai, even though the seats next to mine were occupied. I woke up to a most spectacular dawn, which slowly gave way to the loveliest cloudscaped morning. In the brilliant sunshine, and against the deep mystic blue sky you get only at high altitudes, the vista was nothing short of magical. I could spot plains, forested clumps, rocky outcrops, windswept dunes. An enchanted land, a secret land, real, manifest, but which we humans were condemned to view only at a distance, from behind plate glass. And if by some stratagem, say a parachute, we contrived to reach out to the land, the closer we came to it the more the magic would dispel, the more porous, flawed, insubstantial our senses would perceive it to be. And then the land would shroud us in thick, sticky, opaque, white blindness and, before we knew what was happening, summarily eject us from its domain. After that of course the magic would reassert itself. Again the land would appear solid, real, but this time above us, unattainable because we cannot fly up.

Arrival at Istanbul was very smooth. I found myself outside the airport almost before I knew it. The weather was surprisingly chilly and drizzly, especially for late April. I was glad I had invested in a warm jacket before coming here; it stood me in good stead throughout my trip, and continues to do so even today, five years on. Getting to my hotel didn't pose much of a problem either. Some helpful soul advised me to take the Havaş bus to Aksaray (good value for money at five Euros), then take the tram to Çemberlitaş. I enjoyed the drive to Aksaray, very picturesque it was, with the city ramparts on my left and the Sea of Marmara to my right.

Akasaray was a learning experience. About currency rates, particularly. Now that Italy had joined the Euro, Turkey must be the only country whose currency is called Lira. Some time ago, the government decided to revamp the heavily devalued Lira. They created a new currency called YTL or Yeni Türk Lirasi (New Turkish Lira), each one of them worth 100,000 old ones. This brought about some sort 1:2 parity with the Euro. So when the Havaş guy glibly asked me for either ten Liras or five Euros, I thought this was the exchange rate generally. Ah, but then at Aksaray I found several foreign exchange shops offering as much as YTL 2.20 a Euro. (Later on, when I went to the more touristy places, I found rates there did not exceed 2.14. A useful trick, this: to figure out tourist-traps, keep a lookout for what currency traders offer.)

By this time the weather had got to me. I darted into a joint called Arjantin Piliç. As is now common the world over, the placemats had some popular items listed out, replete with pictures. That is how I figured out all steaks are called Biftek in Turkey: chicken steak is called Piliç Biftek, for example. (So chicken is called Piliç, except when it is called Tavuk. Go figure.) I wasn't interested in steaks. Nor in the chicken, lamb, quail and other meats set up for roasting on a variety of horizontal and vertical spits. What I wanted was soup, lots of soup, çorba they called it. And what wonderful soup it was! - thick, creamy, and flavoursome. It came with a basket of Turkish bread, warm, soft, and encrusted with sunflower seeds.  A hearty welcome to the loveliest city ever.

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