Egg Noodles

The Ingredients

Ingredients:

Noodles

4 Eggs

3 Onions (diced)

½ Capsicums (diced)

2 Green chilies (fine chopped)

3 teaspoons of Ginger Garlic paste

4 teaspoons of Red Chilly Powder

3 tablespoons of Tomato sauce

2 tablespoons of Chilly sauce

1 tablespoons of Soya sauce

4 teaspoons of Black Pepper powder

1 teaspoon of Turmeric Powder

2 teaspoons of Pepsi (Yes, you read that write.)

3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Salt to taste

How to MAKE:

The Final Thing

                First, cook the noodles and keep it aside. Then scramble the eggs with salt to season and keep it aside. Now, heat the oil in a pan and when hot, add the ginger garlic paste and the green chillies to it. Sauté for a few seconds and then add the onions, and capsicum to it. Sauté this for a while until the onions turn slightly brown and the capsicum starts to sweat. Now, add the scrambled eggs to this a sauté for about a minute. Now, add all the different powders (including salt) and mix everything well. Add the 3 different sauces and sauté for about 2 minutes.

 Now comes the step for which you need to trust me. Not using this ingredient won’t make your noodles tasteless, but using it will make it a hell lot tastier! So it is up to you to use this or not. The ingredient I am talking about is the 2 teaspoons of Pepsi. Add it to the dish, and try to burn it off using the flames (it is ok if you can’t). Sauté for a minute and finally add the noodles to it (make sure the noodles aren’t sticking together when you are adding them).  Now stir the entire thing together until is evenly mixed and then cook it for about 2 minutes. Now turn the flames off and your noodles are now ready. Serve Hot!

Tip: If you find that you have not added enough salt at the end after you have added noodles, instead of adding the salt directly, try and mix that salt with very little water and then add it. This will ensure that it spread evenly. This water will evaporate away quickly.

BBQ Square

It looks pretty awesome at night

Located at Palarivattom, BBQ Square has one of the best locations that any food joint can have in such a crowded city. The restaurant itself looks pretty good. It has a very simple and elegant appearance on the outside while the interiors have a very good aesthetic appeal. The arrangements made for seating are pretty great too. The only problem that I had with the interiors was the lack of ventilation, but it was not that big of a problem because it isn’t that hot inside.

The restaurant is open from 12 in the noon to 12 at night. It offers a variety of dishes in the grill, kebab, and barbeque category. It also serves burgers and salads too. So, I guess the vegetarians won’t be completely left out here. But since I am not one, I won’t go into details about the vegetarian dishes.

The service was excellent here. The waiters were very polite and very attentive too. These guys were well groomed too. So I wasn’t worried of them contaminating my food. They were bringing out food pretty quick.

Now talking about the food, I would rank it over average. I cannot say that it was very excellent though. But the fact that some of the items mentioned in the menu weren’t available was a total disappointment. I visited this place hoping to get some barbecue beef. But this was unavailable since the chef who handles beef was still “sleeping”! The next dish that caught my eye on the menu was barbecued jalapeno wings, but this dish too was unavailable. This was utterly disappointing since the waiter told me that the only dishes that were available at that time were the grilled chicken, barbecue fish, and some kebabs. Since I wasn’t in a mood for seafood, I ordered the grilled chicken. The proper name given to the dish is ‘Turkish Spicy Grill’. I also ordered a drink called the ‘Tongue Twister’, which the waiter said was a drink made with oranges and mint.

The complete order

 The food arrived in about like 10-15 minutes and was pretty warm. I mean, it was neither very hot, nor very cold. It was just the perfect warmth. There were four pieces in total, which was accompanied by 2 pieces of kuboos (which is an Arabian flat bread made of wheat flour and such), and two different kinds of condiments- the usual garlic paste and a kind of spicy paste which they call a ‘Spicy Thoom’ (I am guessing it is made with pickled green chillies and mustard paste and stuff). The garlic paste was good, but my favourite was the Spicy Thoom. The kuboos was just the same as I would be served at any other Arabic restaurant. The grilled chicken was which supposedly called “Spicy” was not at all in agreement with the name. The first serving of these was free, but a second helping would be subject to be charged. 

The chicken was nice and crispy on the outside, which is one of my most favourite things I like in grilled chicken. But as I kept eating and went deeper into the meat, I found that the insides weren’t as tasty as the outside. The inside of the meat was dry and not very flavoured. The Spicy Thoom actually helped a lot in masking this flavourlessness and simply made the chicken taste more incredible than it actually was. 

The drink that stole my heart

Now coming to the drink, I was a little extra curious to how good the drink would taste, because after the experience with the chicken, I didn’t expect something miraculous. But, I have to say, the drink was more than what I expected it to be. It was simply beautiful. The appearance itself made me like the drink a lot! The mix of oranges and mint was simply awesome!! It was pulpy and thick, and was just not some watery orange juice. They had used the pulpy orange juice and blended the mint into the drink. I loved the drink the most out of all the other food that I had ordered.

Concluding, I would say that this restaurant is pretty nice. Even though the chicken was a little dry, I loved the entire ambience of the place. Also, since the drink stole my heart, I cannot say that this place wasn’t good. I will surely visit the place again and review it again after I get a taste of the barbecue beef that they serve and the Tongue Twister will surely be ordered once more! The prices here are not too bad, since anywhere outside too I would have to pay around the same amount to get grilled chicken. So in short, even though it was a turn down initially, it was actually pretty good in the end!

Flakes Bake House

       Flakes is a bake house near Chottanikkara, on the Tripunithura-Chottanikkara road. My visit there was purely not planned. I was on my way back from an exam, with my friends, when one of them suggested this place.

                The place has average look on the outside, while the interior was a little better. Personally, I have been to better bake houses. The main part of the building was the bakery, and there was a partition that separated the bakery from the larger dining area. I found it a little uncomfortable that all tables could seat only around 6 people. There weren’t tables for smaller groups and since we were a group of about 10-11, about 3 of us had to sit separately on this huge table. But the tables and the dining area in general was pretty clean. The washroom however was an entirely different story. The water flowed in a very thin and weak stream and the basins were not cleaned well. This was the only problem with the cleanliness.

                Coming to service, the waiters were quite polite, but that is not all that matters at the end of the day. Our order took about half an hour to arrive. We had ordered food that would usually be ready made at any hotel and yet the delay. But I have to say, the bills arrived pretty fast.

Chicken Biryani

               

      Now coming to the main part, the Food! I had ordered a plate of Chicken Biryani. I have had different types of biryani, and I can assure you that the biryani I ate here was nowhere near even half of the best biryanis that I have ever eaten. The biryani was not at all hot to point out the first problem (considering that they took half an hour to bring it out!), but I wouldn’t mind overlooking that fact. Firstly, the rice used was the ordinary raw rice, rather than the usual basmati rice that I have seen being used in every other biryani. This rice was well cooked, but was a little on the dry side. Secondly, the masala, which is one of the best parts of a biryani, totally lacked the spiciness and flavor that clearly differentiates a biryani from its look-alike, ‘The Kabsa’. The masala was so less in quantity when compared to the rice and had not mixed well with the rice. Finally, the chicken pieces in the biryani, the most important part, weren’t cooked properly at all. They were fully cooked, but they weren’t allowed to absorb any of the masala that is present in the biryani. They basically were a bunch of cooked chicken pieces (2 to be exact) in the biryani. I am more used to chicken pieces that have been initially fried a little before being added to the biryani. If not it is supposed to be a ‘Kabsa’. But this dish was nowhere near that either. Now speaking of the condiments served along with the biryani, the curd salad served was too runny and was low on salt. There was this thick chutney (I am guessing it was mango based), that accompanied it. I loved this chutney and it was the one thing that helped in flavoring the biryani actually. After a biryani, I also ordered a Chocolate Swiss roll for dessert. It was a little dry, but then the filling was very creamy. So I actually liked the Swiss roll. Putting it simply, the dessert was much better than the main course itself!

                Concluding, I would say that the Flakes, is a better bakery than a restaurant. Also, it is a little overpriced, because the food doesn’t actually stand up to the quality that can be availed at such a price. My friends had the same opinions since the order they had placed too, were a little off on the quality side. The service could be made faster because slowing the service down and yet serving cold food is seriously annoying! If you w are hungry and have no other option, you could go here. But, otherwise I would seriously not recommend this place to anybody, because much better food and service can be obtain for almost the same rates, elsewhere.