What is better than receiving a surprise? Receiving a surprise at the end of a long, harrowing, tired day where you want nothing more to curl up in front of the television with a bottle of beer. The wonderful folks at Peroni, India made that come true. I came home to find the most wonderful parcel waiting for me.
Mid-week spontaneous plans involving alcohol are always the best. One such plan happened recently where a bunch of us bloggers met up to review the Invincible Vodka Festival. Invincible Vodka is an Indian brand making their presence felt in the market. They recently launched a vodka festival at Ground Zero which is Bandra based club C’est La Vie’s bar. As a part of the festival one can try out some signature cocktails and a few savory items created specially with Invincible Vodka.
Indian based brand- Invincible sources the finest grains from the Himalayas and passes it through an 8 step distillation process to acquire the vodka. It recently bagged two awards at Spirits International Prestige (SIP) awards. The brand received Gold medal for slick packaging design and Silver medal in vodka tasting. (Source: www.invinciblevodka.com).
Being so used to writing about food, and enjoying sharing what’s on my plate I decided to do a separate blog post on my dining experience at The Deltin, Daman. Read on for a foodie journey across The Deltin’s three functional restaurants, and see what all we stuffed our mouths with.
Aptly named and aptly situated at the hotel’s casino entrance, Vegas Cafe is a multi-cuisine restaurant. They serve a la carte and buffet meals, and are open 24 hours daily. We had two lunches and breakfast at our stay there.
In lieu of our arrival they had prepared an extensive set lunch menu for us. The food was average and nothing exceptional to write home about. Multi-cuisine restaurants fall into the ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ trap in my opinion. They try to do too much, and end up not excelling at any specific thing.
I enjoyed the succulent and Masaledar Gosht Seekh. The Chicken Hariyali Kabab had a moist chicken filling and went well with the green chutney. The Kandahari Paneer Tikka needed more seasoning. Garlic, Pepper & Butter Tossed Potatoes made for a decent snack which I would want to eat at a bar with my beer.
(Harry Potter inspired title for this post. Yay!)
Talk about malls and shopping in Mumbai and one name comes to mind: Phoenix! The one at Lower Parel and the younger sibling who resides at Kurla are both landmark shopping and most importantly food destinations.
With our emphasis to explore the food options that Phoenix Marketcity, Kurla has to offer the food bloggers set out on a Food Crawl. We were looking forward to this fun evening that the guys at Phoenix Marketcity in collaboration with Food Bloggers Association of India (FBAI) had organized for us. Well I’ve done food crawls and bar hops before, but nothing inside a mall. So this was going to be different indeed.
I love The Irish House having been to the other outlet at Lower Parel before. It’s such a fun place to chill with friends and grab a drink.
Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Maroosh. Famous for their wraps, rolls and shawarmas, in addition to their Mughlai fare, Maroosh is a popular post-partying-drinking haunt. Ideal for grabbing a roll on the move, they have established themselves as a popular Lebanese fast food chain across the city. In fact the owner of Maroosh, Ketan Kadam, decided to launch Maroosh because people were looking for a place to grab a quick bite after a night of partying at his famous night club.
The popularity of Maroosh over the years has recently led to them revamping the brand as MM! Maroosh. Mumbai Food Lovers were invited to the recent opening of their reinvented Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) at Bandra Reclamation. In addition they launch a take away at Shivaji Park, Dadar and kiosks at PVR Cinemas across the city, planning to have 30 revamped MM! Maroosh outlets by the end of this year.
The menu includes Lebanese food like shawarmas, falafel, hummus with pita bread, and Lebanese salads. Indian fare such as wraps, starters and a few mains are on the menu too. The restaurant is brightly done up in cheery yellow and white. I loved the fun vibe to the entire place. Even the food is served in kitschy wrapping paper, interesting take away containers and trays. They even have yellow Vespas to home deliver your orders. I loved the new feel to the place. This new look and feel is intended keeping in mind their idea for Pan-Asian expansion.
They’ve launched three new dishes to the menu, out of which, the Baked Falafel Wrap was my favourite dish of the night. Succulent falafel pieces, crunchy vegetables, and hummus that were enveloped in a wrap. Go try this new addition to the menu!
However, the Falafel Salad we tasted was not as good. It contained falafel, veggies, and hummus. I found the falafel a bit crumbly, and not as good as the ones I tasted in the wrap. The Paneer Shawarma was average. I wish the paneer pieces were a bit spicier. Overall the shawarma was slightly bland.
The Paneer Tikka Roll however compensated for this. Succulent, spicy paneer tikka pieces wrapped in a roomali roti and this was served with lovely, mint chutney on the side. I also loved the hummus platter with pita bread. Three hummus types: Garlic, Sundried Tomato, and Jalapeno were served in containers, which makes it perfect to eat on the go. All three went perfectly with the toasted Pita bread. The Sundried Tomato Hummus was exceptionally good, and we scooped off the entire dish.
The other new dish of the night was the Chicken Tikka Shawarma. I’m replacing my regular shawarma with this one. Perfect combination of two popular favourites: Chicken Tikka and Shawarma. The chicken in this was the perfect spicy, tikka flavour.
The Chicken Hummus Salad was all that is contained in a shawarma, without the outer pita wrap. So if you want to do the healthier version of a shawarma, this is for you. Not that this is too healthy, but still. (On a random thought I wonder if we get whole wheat shawarmas anywhere. Anyone knows?)
Another favourite dish of mine that night was the Chicken Bhuna roll. The chicken stuffing was similar to chicken makhanwala. So this roll was basically a portable Butter Chicken- Roomali Roti. Absolutely yummy, despite the excess oil.
Overall MM!Maroosh retains the qualities it was known for: easy, take-away, delicious, filling, Lebanese food. All of this in a revamped avatar! Sometimes, the sequel can be better than the original, as proved in this case. Maroosh or MM!Maroosh , we know where to get our fill of shawarmas and rolls late at night!
Bandra: (Sit-Down)
Address: mm! maroosh (Reclamation) – Shop No. 14, Ground Floor, Building No. c3 (Kosamba), ONGC Residential Complex, Bandra Reclamation, Bandra (W) – 50Restaurant Contact Details: 9819844933
Dadar: (Take-Away)
Address:mm! maroosh (Shivaji Park) – Plot No. 120, Shop No. 7, Shakuntal Building, Keluskar Road, Shivaji Park, Dadar (W), Mumbai – 28
PS: Sincere apologies for lack of photos in this post. Lost phone, no backup, long story! Promise to make it up with excessive photographs in the next. Cheers!