Blueberry Donut

Contestant - Kamalika

Contestant - Priya

Contestant - Vasumathi

Cheering the Contestants

Judges looking on!!!

One Donut Ready

Donuts in the making

Ingredients to a Healthy Donut

Contestant Kamalika with her masterpieces!!!

Kamalika's presentation!!!!

Corn Flakes Donut

Strawberry Donuts

The WINNER!!! Zesty Lemon Donuts

Healthy Donut

Contestants explaining their creations to the judges

Judges ready to announce!!!

THE WINNER HARINI with Bhuvanesh

I was present along with the other members of Chennai Food Guide ( CFG ) at the recently concluded Donut Feast at the Donut House. This was a nice event organized by the Donut House to get the people motivated into making donuts and also tickle their creative cells.

More on the event. The contestants where asked to send in an innovative donut recipe, and if the people of Donut House liked it, they got to make it in the kitchen of Donut House on the final day of Donut Feast. Also, It would be named by them. I would have loved to come up with a recipe , but having to make it in the kitchen, along with other people, thats a definite no, no!!. I am very clumsy with stuff and bound to drop things and make a mess of the kitchen. You guys need to ask my mom, as to how the kitchen ends up once I am done using it.

The event was judged by an elite panel of judges with Parvin ( Food Critic ), Nanditha Sasidaran ( Sugar Hut ) and Mohammed Ali ( Chennai Food Guide ). The judges scored the donuts based on :

1. Creativity
2. Presentation &
3.Taste

The contestants were narrowed down to 4 from the various recipes which was sent to the Donut House mail. Each contestant had to make two donuts which had to be unique and creative. The contestants were :

1. Vasumathi
2. Harini
3. Priya &
4. Kamalika

The contestants had a choice of Donut buns which they could work with
1.Regular Center Hole Donuts
2.Shell Donuts - which are hollow on the inside

Contestant Vasumathi was the only contestant who felt and said "why should Donuts be a fatty stuff? "
She had worked up a healthy recipe with a Prunes, Almonds, Figs and also Sesame seeds. Just the healthy stuff which I do not like. All these ingredients were made into a paste like consistency. The paste was applied on the bun and decorated. I took a bite of the donut, and somehow I liked it. This is definitely one donut which stood out in terms of creativity.

Contestant Harini was the youngest of the lot. She gave a very humble request to all the fellow bloggers , not to click a photo of her. Maybe she was superstitious or just camera shy, thats a question which needs to be answered. She had gone in with two different versions. One was made of cream and strawberry and the other was made of cream and lemon zest. When I took a bite of her Lemon Zest Donut, I knew it was a winner because, by the time I had put it in my mouth and turned to grab another piece, it was all over. The strawberry one was also good. But it just could not beat the Zesty Lemon Donut.

Contestant Priya had gone in for kid friendly donuts. She had chosen the shell donut buns over the regular buns. She made a crunchy donut out of cornflakes and also a soft smoothie one based on  banana and custard fill ( Hope I am getting the filling right ). By the time I could get a bite of the cornflakes donut, it was all gone. Guess some people just love cornflakes. I took a bite of Banana topped one. It was nice and soft with a smooth filling inside it. What I had not realized was, I had spilt a little of the filling on the floor ( Sorry Donut House ) and some on my shirt. Her donuts had definitely made me a kid.

Contestant Kamalika had also gone in with the shell donut buns. She made two different variations. One being a Raspberry topping donut and the other having cream and pineapple on top of it. Two of my favorite items, definitely ticks the boxes for me. I had a bit of both and I personally preferred the cream and pineapple variation.

After the Judges and the CFG members had a bit of the donuts, they went into a bit of brain storming and calculation run. This took them quite some time as food in there belly just made them a little slow in doing some math calculations. After tallying the points, the judges announced the results.

The Contestant who did  not want to be photographed, won. Lucky she agreed to pose for the camera after she had won. Congrats to Harini. She was handed over a gift voucher by Mr.Bhuvanesh ( Donut Man ). This was a great initiative by Donut House, Kudos to them.

Donut House is located in Ethiraj Salai, opposite to Ethiraj College. They do have another branch in the Food Court of Express Avenue


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Bakers listening to Nikhil's Introduction

Harried Cook aka Marsha Thompson

Bakers listening!!!

Some more of them listening!!!

All draped and ready

Bakers with the weapons!!!!!

M.Ali with SUPERMAN

Cupcakes Loaded!!!!

Chocoooooooooooooolate!!!!!!

Heart Attack Stuff (Butter)

Sugaaaar!!!!

Cupcakes before they hit the oven

Crimson Foods Boxes for all

The only GUY baker (Praveen)

Sneak Peak on Cupcakes!!!!

Harried Cook throwing in some tips

Bakers hard at work

Cupcakes!!!!! Yummmm!!!!

Chocolate Moosseeeeeee!!!!!

Oatmeal Cookies!!!!

Bakers loading Cupcakes

High Tea!!!

Cookies ready for Baking

Cupcakes ready for ICING

Harried Cook showing an example

Cupcakes ready...Yummmm!!!!

Oatmeal Cookies Ready!!!

Men behind the event

Lovely Jammuns

Cutlet!!!!!

1st Batch of Bakers

Its nice to see experts in their fields trying to give back something to society. I was at one such event. "The Introduction to Baking 101" was a great initiative brought about by The Harried Cook ( Marsha Thompson ), CFG King ( Mohammed Ali ) and The SUPERMAN ( Nikhil Moturi of Crimson Chakra who allowed them to hold the event in his premises ). This was one of the 1st such events done on a large scale, comprising of 22 Bakers, which was conducted by the Harried Cook and CFG. For an event which was solely promoted on Facebook it was really quick to see how the slots got filled up within a matter of minutes.

It was nice closely packed 3hrs baking session which gave the bakers the hands on training in making :
1. Cupcakes
2. Chocolate Mousse
3. Oatmeal Cookies
4. Icing for the Cupcakes

To me, just to stand around such rich food made me really hungry.  It was nice to see the team spirit when participants got knocked down to two members per team. It was awesome to see the way the cupcakes, the cookies and the mousses were made. It gives you an idea of how much work is put into it, before we consume it. Average time to gobble down a cupcake 30seconds even if you are the slowest of the eaters. Average time to make a cupcake 1hour after having the ingredients pre-weighed.

It was also nice to see how the harried cook gave a few tips and shortcuts for the recipes and ingredients. Since this is the 1st of such initiatives there where a few teething problems. Definitely these problems looked like they could be sorted out easily and the 2nd Batch of Bakers will have a trouble free baking time. I was told that the next batch will be held in a couple of weeks time. I wish the Harried Cook, the best in the coming times.

The hospitality was taken care by Nikhil Moturi of Crimson Chakra. He served us with awesome Cutlets and Jammuns!!!!! .The Jammuns where the most softest I have ever had from a restaurant. He also supported the initiative in a great way with his team constantly helping the event with all the work which needed to be done. Kudos to him!!

Also at the end of the session, the bakers got to carry home 6 Cupcakes and a couple of Cookies and Chocolate mousse. They seemed a happy lot as they posed for the keepsake photograph.And with Marsha aka Harried Cook, giving them all full fledged permission to contact her with any queries and doubts, what more would a novice baker want, except maybe a second advanced level baking class.

A verdict on the Cupcakes..... I just loved it... Super soft and super awesome!!!!! I have not had the Chocolate Mousse yet, its still safe in the refrigerator. The cookies? Thats been gobbled down.  It's rocking in my belly even as I type this one.

You can follow THE HARRIED COOK at her blog
http://www.theharriedcook.com/
or you can reach her in Facebook as well

This was a great initiative brought about by Chennai Food Guide. Kudos to them as well.
You can look up for Chennai Food Guide on Facebook

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On a lazy Thursday evening, some of my friends decided we should meet up. So I suggested we meet  in the evening at a coffee shop. My nice friends said we should meet up by 6pm, but whenever I rang them up and asked if they were ready, they kept postponing the time from 6pm ( Coffee ) to 8:30pm ( Dinner ). So we ended up meeting for dinner. The place we landed up was Yoko Sizzlers.

The name can be pretty confusing, Yoko. One would wonder it to be a chinese restaurant, nope it's a sizzler joint. We entered Yoko after walking around a bit in KNK Road at around 8:45pm. We placed our order and sat back.

We had placed an order of Yoko Drumstick chicken as starters. It came in real quick. We took a bite and it was very salty. We called the waiter and asked him to replace it. He took the dish back and came immediately asking if he could replace it with something else. Within few minutes we got batter fried chicken. The chicken had a crispy outer covering made of egg and nice soft chicken center. It tasted nice, cant say anything more about it.

Then we had ordered Sizzlers, I had gone with the T-bone Sizzler and my friends had ordered for a Chicken Exotica and Chicken Shashlik. Sorry for the bad footage I really did not want to spoil my camera's lens. Coming back to the food. The T-bone sizzler was well done and throughly cooked, and had a peppery hit to it. T-bone is supposed to be the most prized cut of beef with the Short Loin and Tenderloin. I loved the consistency and the softness of the meat. Then I took a bit of the Chicken Exotica. It was a little less peppery than mine and again a well done steak. But somehow I felt both the steaks had a similar sauce in it. Then tried a little of Chicken Shashlik again felt the similar taste. Nothing personally wrong with the steaks, but could have exhibited a variety. The steaks here are huge with large portions of meat and veggies and huge helpings of fries. So it's a bit large to consume and definitely bound to be wasted. On the whole I felt the food was average and nothing great to rave about. The service is really good and the waiters being mostly north eastern people did not find it difficult to communicate which seems to be happening in most places.  This is just my thought, it could be different for others.

Food - 6/10
Service - 8/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Price - 7/10

Yoko Sizzlers is located in Khader Nawaz Khan Road opposite to Currents (Apple Store) in the same building as 3 Kingdoms and Kebabs.

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On a day when most of my friends turned out to be vegetarians, we were in a dilemma as we did not know much about vegetarian food. We ruled out Saravana Bhavan and the likes. We settled on Kailash Parbat. We even made comments like Kailaaah enn kaailaa nee ash :P ( A Tamil Movie Dialogue - Thennali ).

So we guys met up at around 9:30pm. Thats pretty late I know, for dinner because one of them was busy with his work and finished late. We got placed pretty quickly. I ordered myself a nice glass of Lassi with the company saying they are not interested in a drink. I also verified that none of the company will touch my glass of lassi. But once the lassi was on the table, it was with everyone else's hands except mine. I hardly got to relish my drink. I loved the lassi or the small sip that was left for me. It was nice and thick and sweet. We were all smacking our lips in appreciation.

My brother was the brilliant person behind the order. He had ordered for a Nachos. When he ordered it I was like, why did you order a mexican dish in a North Indian Restaurant. But when the dish arrived I shut my mouth. It looked brilliant with loads of cheese topped on it, with olives. It had jalapeno dressing which tasted lite and nice. So a big tick for the nachos. I loved it, would not mind ordering it the next time. By this time my lassi was done, all thanks to the company. Then we had Okra Chat ( I hope I got the spelling right ). It was a nice chat item made with Bindi ( Ladysfinger ). It tasted awesome. Never had a chat like this before. The bindi was fried really well, not the crispy fry but a soft fry. It tasted like bliss. The company of friends also agreed so, with none of them ever having  had a proper full fledged North Indian Vegetarian food.  After the awesome okra chat we ordered for Pani Puri. The pani puri was fantastic, the puri was crispy, it broke in your mouth evenly unlike in some places where the puri becomes soggy or breaks unevenly. I just loved the sweet sauce which came with it. My pani puri turned out to be solely sweet puri's while others had a mixture of sweet and spicy sauce.

After these starters we decided we hit on the main course. Again the order was placed by my brother. Apparently he seems to have fallen in love North Indian food after his marriage. He had ordered for an Jaipuri special briyani. I just loved the taste of the biriyani. The biriyani was nicely prepared with a heavy dose of butter or ghee with nice helpings of Paneer and Bindi. It was rich and yummy. Some of the friends even said we order this and take it home and have it with chicken on a later date ( They are vegetarians because of the day and lent ).  The smell of the biriyani just lasted in your hand even after we got home. After the brilliant biriyani we had ordered for some Puthina Parotta and Paneer Tikka Masala and Corn Tomatar Bartha. Both the gravies tasted brilliant with the parotta. The gravies had a heavy dose of ghee in it. This made it really rich and nicely heavy on our stomach. I personally loved corn tomatar, since it was different.

Once we were all done with the main course and none of us having space in our stomach we asked the bill. The bill to our surprise was only Rs1500/-, which is pretty good for the amount of food in our belly. I felt the food was divine. Now I do know a place if I want really great quality North Indian food or if I am in a mood for chat. On a note, the chat items are slightly priced higher than normal. But I felt its okay for them to do so since they had the ambiance to go with it.

Food - 8.5/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 8/10
Price - 9/10

Kailash Parbat is located in Harrington Road, in the same building as French Loaf.

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