Day 2: I am a freaky eater

I am obsessed with pudi/podi. I am the only person in my house to buy and finish these spicy podis. Since J won't take any spice, my cooking is bland and I douse my food (from sambhar to palak paneer) in these podis (now you believe me when I say- I'm a freaky eater :D). I've tried quite a few podis, mum's, my aunt's and mil's (my aunt's garlic podi and curry leaf podi ranks supreme, absolutely delish. Mental note- get recipe from her, note 2- why is all this in brackets? whatever). Ah so, in the US I loved MTR the aroma of hing was hmmmm... zzzoooo good. I don't know why the same MTR podi here is so crap. Among the commercial varieties I rank Shakti idly podi as #1, aachi and MTR blegh. I'm yet to try Grand sweets/ Adyar ananda bhavan (if you know any Iyer maamis selling podi do let me know). I also tried some Chettinad podi I picked up form Singapore Shoppe (the store doesn't even have a Merlion statue, God knows why it's called Singapore shoppe) that was spicy and yum. Sri Krishna idly podi is good, their curry leaf podi is bad.

Without further delay I present to thee... The Podis :D

From L to R: Sri Krishna idly podi-yum, bought MTR hated it so decided to mix Shakti idl podi to salvage it, don't think it worked it still tastes meh, SK curry leave powder-bought it 2 months ago and must have eaten only 2 spoons didn't like, Chettinad idli podi- got it 2 weeks ago almost over yum.

Anyone else freaky podi eater like moi?

Day 1- The Beginning

Ah so people did write on FB that they missed reading my educative posts. So I have decided to blog daily (except weekends) for a month, so get ready for your daily dose of nonsense till Sept. 26th. The posts will be super educative and informative- NOT it will absolute rubbish :D And I did wonder if I could really post daily but hey I lived without sugar/dairy for a whole month, this is nothing compared to that, nonsense is my middle name :D just will have to find some time to write it here (I will, promise).

So for the 1st post I wanted to do a classy restaurant review about Tuscana , the pizzeria everyone was raving about. We were there today, we sat, ordered food, prayed the boy should behave and let us eat at least half our meal in peace, the food came and I reached inside my bag to get my camera."'ah? where camera?" "aioo its in the car ya" There was no way I was going to walk 20 steps and get the camera just so that I could write a review(like as if I work for The Hindu!). So then the food came, we had ordered onion-garlic focaccia, midi pizza and fusilli with alfredo for my boy. OK everything was just mediocre because we cannot stop our stupid selves from comparing everything to the ones we used to eat in the US. The pizza was much better than Papa jones or pizza hut or the crap called pizza that they served in Adyar ananda bhavan (now don't ask why on earth we ordered pizza in adyar ananada bhavan). But it was not like California pizza kitchen. The pasta was just meh, but I had told them to make it bland for my kiddo so I really shouldn't be commenting on it. Now, focaccia was a different story-we have no eaten it in the US so no chance of us comparing. The focaccia that arrived was a 8' round bread with some sauteed onions/ garlic on top- no aroma of the olive oil at all. I took one bite and thought "rubbish, what I made was so much better", J took a bite and said "what you make is SO much better' (man we compare so much, horrid people we both are!). I immediately sms-d Sara "v having focaccia in tuscana, j said wat i made was much better, thanks 4d recipe' she replied "wow he complimented you, now go write in masala vade'. That is how this post came to be (you really thought I would write a restaurant review without pictures?!).

So now you guys go make this focaccia. Why? 3 reasons:
1) It is a super recipe.
2) To celebrate the revival of masala vade and the induction of nonsense back into your mundane life.
3) The last and most important one-because I said so.

I really should stop here but I might as well give you a review of the desserts we ordered- panna cotta and tiramisu. Panna cotta was good, tiramisu sorry epic fail- our stupid selves again: it was nothing like the tiramisu in Whole Foods (we have eaten a lot of tiramisu but nothing beats the one sold in whole foods, just the right amount of coffee/cocoa and that cheese just delish!). This was just too strong for us, it didn't smell of kahlua  but some other liquor and the mascarpone tasted so un-mascarpone ugh.

And yo Sara, thanks for being my friend babes- now if you can give me the recipe for tiramisu and panna cotta Jay and I can save 1400Rps (ya thats how much we spent in Tuscana).

Thank You for reading and please visit again...tomorrow :D