Return of Mehrauli"s hip stores & eateries

Three years after Delhi"s high society lost its Mecca in Mehrauli to the municipal corporation"s cranes that razed local landmarks like One Style Mile and Ambavatta to the ground, the laws that brought down those building and dislocated several thriving shops and restaurants suddenly seem to have disappeared.

The Olive Bar and Kitchen, Thai Wok restaurant and designer store Ayamik are all set to reopen at their original locations within the next two months. And with big boys like restaurateur AD Singh going back to Mehrauli, the others are sure to follow.

What is it that suddenly changed things to allow commercial establishments to return to Delhi"s former high street of fashion and fine dining, Kalka Dass Marg? "The MCD had created a policy for villages last year, which has recently included urban villages such as Hauz Khas and Mehrauli. Thanks to this new notification, commercial activity is now allowed in Mehrauli," explains Singh, who"s excited about the reopening of Olive Bar and Kitchen, which had become the watering hole for the Capital"s who"s who.

The policy Singh is referring to is the Special Provisions Act 2009, which allows commercial activities in urban villages at least till the end of this year , by which time the government will come up with a policy for all villages that come under the law.
"The Special Provisions Act only allows commercial establishments in urban villages to be desealed until December 31," says Deep Mathur, director, press and information, MCD. He explains that the policy, which is expected to be announced by the end of December, will determine the fate of MG Road.
"Unless the government decides to pass another Act to protect the status of these commercial ventures, they will be sealed once against early next year," Mathur adds. But the returning restaurateurs and store owners are not fazed by the fact that they could be shut down and evacuated from Mehrauli once more. Sanjeev Batra, director, One Style Mile, is positive the government will not take a random decision against commercial ventures in the area. "They obviously want people to carry on running their businesses," he rationalises. The property he owns, argues Batra, was earlier used as a sarai or inn, so it had always been used for commercial purposes.
The other landmark that used to bring in the swish set to the narrow lanes of Mehrauli was the Ambavatta Complex, which was home to stores, including those of fashion designers Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna and Ritu Beri, home furnishing store Good Earth and Payal Jauhar"s Thai Wok, which took over the top floor By Angad B. Sodhi and Neha Mathur in New Delhi of Ambavatta. The Thai restaurant that has spent the last three years in Rajouri Garden is set to be the first of Ambavatta"s old residents to re-launch.
"Now that this has been declared a commercial property, we just need to pay the commercial charges and carry on with our business as usual," says an excited Jauhar.
Ayamik, the Delhi outlet of the Mumbai-based high fashion store Kimaya, is all set to return to its original location opposite Adham Khan"s tomb. Pradeep Hirani, the store"s owner, is least concerned about what the future may bring and wants to look at the present. "The place has its own charm that no one else can match," says Hirani, who branched out to Select CityWalk Mall in Saket and DLF Emporio in Vasant Kunj after the MCD"s sealing drive in 2006. He plans to relaunch his One Style Mile store by August. "If they shut us down once more, we"ll re-open somewhere else and carry on, for Kimaya is a well-known brand," Hirani says.
In the same complex as Ayamik, once stood the city"s famous eatery, Olive Bar and Kitchen. It is also being refurbished so it can re-open by September. Singh, the man behind the restaurant, is confident that with normality returning to Mehrauli, whatever decision is taken by the government by December will follow the Master Plan, which is conducive to commercial activity in the area.
But could it be that a lot may have changed in the last three years and people will not come back to Mehrauli as these restaurant and shop owners expect? That will remain a matter of speculation till the fashionistas return to Delhi"s old cowbelt that got only a brief moment to savour its shortlived glory.

Look what Delhi is Dancing To...

This one is an insight into the evolution of Delhi's nightlife and the creation of a homegrown music scene.

Look what Delhi is Dancing To...


Delhi"s club scene, throughout its short history, has had its share of fits and bouts of musical love affairs with genres that are making it really big in the West. Bollywood and ( for some time) Indipop numbers have ruled the city"s dance floors for the longest time, but with the emergence of electronic bands like Midival Punditz, Jalebee Cartel and B. L. O. T, who are drawing capacity crowds to the nightclubs week after week, the sound of music is now very different.

Copycats of cool
Back in the 1950s and 60s, when nightclubs were not the same as they are today, Delhi"s groovy set would go to fashionable nightspots such as Gaylord restaurant next to the Regal Building, Connaught Place, which had the only wooden dance floor besides the members- only Gymkhana Club.

And the music they grooved to comprised covers of Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra numbers.

The scene then moved to Tabela at The Oberoi and later to Cellar, again in the Regal Building, where couples stole kisses, men wore long hair and bell- bottoms, and the air was thick with smoke from questionable sources. These were the happy hippie days of the " 70s, when the Woodstock generation rocked to The Doors, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix. The "80s brought in the disco revolution, led by the Bee Gees and John Travolta, whose Saturday Night Fever became a huge hit around the world. And obviously this trend found its way into the nightlife of the city.

At no point thus far had Delhi"s clubbing scene shown even a glimmer of originality, not even the odd exception to prove the rule. Every new wave of music making it big in other parts of the word would seep into the local clubs, only to make way for whatever came along next.

The "80s and early " 90s saw a change in scenery, when clubs began to play the odd few Indipop numbers, which were seriously promoted by the king of deejays, Sunny Sarid of Ghungroo, who made ethnic music respectable among those with money to spare. He was fortunate to have come up at a time when Bally Sagoo was pioneering a new wave of fusion music and Alisha Chinai was crooning Made in India .

Cocaine nightsThe "90s were also the time when the world discovered Goa as the rave destination.

And electronic music finally arrived in India via Israelis dodging the draft back home. By the end of the decade psychedelic trance was the biggest thing going on the Delhi party circuit, which had incidentally discovered cocaine around the same time.

DJs such as Rummy, who now runs Kuki in Masjid Moth, began travelling around and brought back trance and techno music from Europe.

It wasn"t long before expat DJs arrived on the Delhi club circuit, starting with Namito from Berlin. They brought with them new sounds that aspiring local DJs began to use in their own sets.

The trance dance
Once people mastered these new genres, the evolution of an underground music scene began at the end of the " 90s. " We wanted an original sound that we could call our own," says Ashvin Mani Sharma of Jalebee Cartel, who recalls going to Goa on many occasions as a student in Bombay, just looking for new trance and techno sounds to work with.

"We were heavily influenced by Goa trance when we started," Sharma says, explaining that even before they had begun creating their sound, Midival Punditz, formed in 1997, were experimenting with drum " n" bass. " The Asian Underground movement was finally born in India at that time," remembers Sharma. In those days, they had a small but committed audience. " It gave us hope even though we were making Hindi remixes for Bollywood to make ends meet," he says.

The Midival Punditz duo, Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj, started experimenting with sound because they believed that the western dance music, which was popular at the time, was not really connecting with the Indian audience. So they decided to introduce Indian influences into their sound. " This was the time when we had an underground scene in the city," remembers San Bindra, aka DJ San, from the New Delhi Project, who recalls getting hold of unreleased music of the Punditz at Palika Bazaar.

This was also the time when the Punditz came in contact with people like Talvin Singh and Karsh Kale, some of the pioneers of the UK Asian Underground scene. Singh signed the two Delhi boys onto his label Six Degrees Records. And for the first time in its history, Delhi"s nightlife scene had an original sound.

Others, such as Delhi- based DJ Jayant, Jalebee Cartel and Basic Love of Thing ( B. L. O. T.), have all created new sounds that they can now call their own.

Underground rises
But there was a lot more that went into the making of what had started out as an underground movement into a mainstream phenomenon that is slowly becoming the mainstay of Delhi"s nightlife circuit ( despite some clubbers sticking to their staple diet of Bollywood remixes and bhangra music), with the most happening venues like The Love Hotel and Shalom making electronic music their genre of choice.

For a long time the only time electronic music was played was when "50 of us would meet on a friend"s terrace lugging our speakers and equipment up six flights of stairs," reminisces Jalebee Cartel"s Sharma about his Bombay days.

Delhi, fortunately, had people like San, who started Threshold, by inviting some of the most talented electronic musicians and opening up his own home in Jangpura to provide DJs a forum where they could experiment with their original sounds in front of an audience that understood the genre.

"We can"t ever play what we really want in clubs," says Brin from East India Company, who DJs under the name of Khirki Gharana, so such forums really helped the genre evolve. And then there was No Escape, the nightclub where Midival Punditz and most other acts started out in Delhi.

Are we there yet?
Today you can catch an electronic music gig on almost every night of the week. People recognise the sounds of bigger artistes and every club promoter wants a piece of the action. " We have realised that over the last year or so that no other genre of music sells out as fast as electronica, not even Bollywood," says Saarthak Gupta, head of the nightlife promotion consultancy, My Purple Martini.

Young people are looking at the success of people like Jalebee Cartel and Midival Punditz as inspiration and going down the electronica route. And their audience is expanding also because of the growing expat community of the city, whose average age has dipped in the past five years.

But are we really there yet? DJ San, who has worked on the music of films like New York , says there is still a long way to go.

"People say Delhi has its own sound, but only four or five people making a particular type of music does not constitute a Delhi sound," says San, who adds that even the audience in the city is very restricted and limited. " We will have arrived when, like Bollywood, our sound reaches out and appeals to the masses." But the day that happens will be the day Delhi"s underground scene will die and every sound will be commercial.

Master Barista Tells How To Make A Good Coffee

Master Barista Tells How To Make A Good Coffee

Who really needs a barista if you have a good coffee machine to deliver the goods? You wouldn't ask this question after a session with Master Barista Fritz Storm, who was in the city brewing up (I want to say a storm!) brilliant cups of coffee at Le Meridien on Wednesday evening. He'll convince you that making a great cup of coffee isn't as easy as pressing a button.


To explain the nuances of good coffee, Storm took us right to the beginning of the coffee-making process. "As many as 5,000 beans make a kilo of coffee," revealed the former world champion. "This means that someone needs to physically handpick 2,500 ripe beans just to make that one pack of coffee."

The most important part of making good coffee is sourcing the right beans or the right blend of beans. This is something you can pick up at a good store. But Storm has a few guidelines on picking up the right coffee. "Make sure it has been packed as recently as possible," he said. This is because the longer the beans lie in a packet or tin the more flavour they start to lose. And anything that has been packaged more than three months ago is a no-no.

Once you've brought your "good" coffee home, don't labour under the illusion that you'll open it and then save it for special occasions. Once the packet is open, the coffee will slowly but steadily lose its flavour. So make sure you consume the coffee as soon as possible. It is probably also a good idea to start purchasing smaller packs.

And definitely invest in a good coffee grinder when you get yourself a fancy coffee machine. Storm believes that people usually scrounge on the grinder, but that, he said, is probably more important than even the coffee machine.

"I want my cappuccino steaming hot" is what you probably tell the barista at your local coffee spot. And with that stinging hot liquid that is almost at a boil, you've just managed to ruin your coffee. "A cup of cappuccino should only be around 60 degrees," explained Storm.

Heating the milk too much, he added, kills a lot of essential proteins in it and also alters its taste, which could further kill some of the subtler flavours of the coffee beans. He also recommends the use of whole milk to get a nice creamy cappuccino.

"Even the water you use to brew your coffee is very important," Storm said, "Your espresso, after all, does mainly consist of water." He warned against the use of hard water, especially tap water, because the minerals in it may not only affect how your coffee tastes, but also eventually ruin your machine.

What, then, is the point of having a barista? Let's just put it in Storm's words and say, "A good barista can make the coffee taste only as good as it is and no better, but a bad barista can ruin a great coffee in under a couple of minutes."

A white beer titillates the palate of thirsty Delhiites

Wrote this for Mail Today, but found it on thefreelibrary.com.

A white beer titillates the palate of thirsty Delhiites


ON A VISIT to Stone Lounge & Bar at Moet's in Defence Colony last week, I was introduced to Schneider Weisse, the newest entrant in the city's wheat beer market. Our table had a colourful flyer bang in the centre that caught everyone's eye as soon as we walked in, offering a buy two- and- get- the- third- free deal for Rs 295 a beer. 

Not only is this Weissbier ( white beer) delicious -- it is cloudy in its appearance and has a smooth and fruity palate with traces of mild banana and cloves -- it also has a fascinating story behind its origins. 

Wheat beer ( and not fancy wine) was once the drink of kings in Germany. Almost 500 years back, in the year 1520, King Ludwig X had granted his official steward, Hans Sigmund of Degenberg, the right to brew all the wheat beer in Bavaria. Even when the brewing of this beer was prohibited in 1567, the Degenbergs retained the exclusive permission of the monarch to carry on brewing the beer.


Once the line of the Dregenbergs died out, Duke Maximilian I, the reigning prince of Bavaria at the time, took over the exclusive brewing rights for wheat beer, which was very fashionable among the nobility. Even though the 1567 ban on brewing the beer was still in effect, it did not apply to royalty, so the prince milked his cash cow to its fullest, thanks to his monopoly. 

All this time the demand for white beer was on the rise, making the house of Wittelsbach, from which the duke hailed, so much money that it was the only reason the family could afford to raise an army during the Thirty Year War. 

But towards the end of the 18th century, the barley- based Bavarian lager began regaining its popularity and Weissbier breweries started making losses. In 1798 the Wittelsbachs decided to permit any nobleman or monastery to brew the beer, but it was losing popularity so fast that by 1812 there were only two breweries producing Weissbier. Eventually, in 1856, the royal house sold the rights for Weissbier to a brewer called George Schneider I, who gave birth to Schneider Weisse, making it the oldest brand of Weissbier still around. 

Store wheat beers standing vertically, for if you keep them lying flat, the yeast particles can slide down when you open the bottle, causing a sudden release of carbon dioxide, which causes too much froth, ruining your drink. 

MASTER BARISTA, HOW DOES YOUR COFFEE BREW BEST?

It's always flattering having one's work written about, especially if you're a writer yourself.
Online coffee journal http://www.roaste.com picked up my story and gave it a little writeup

MASTER BARISTA, HOW DOES YOUR COFFEE BREW BEST?

Posted by ROASTeCoffeeBuzz

It seems as if in every continent, we see interviews with baristas in which each is asked his or her secrets of good coffee. This week, India Today wants to know, so writer Angad B. Sodhi asked Master Barista Fritz Storm for his coffee brewing advice. In short, the barista stresses that making a great cup of coffee is more involved than just pressing a button.

He starts at the very beginning, with the fact that 2500 ripe beans give their all to make up a kilo pack of coffee. The beginning is also the most important step on the way to a perfect cup; the right beans set the foundation. To be the most right, they should have been packed very recently; anything over three months in the bag has lost too much flavor. He recommends using the coffee and not saving it for occasions. It’s better to buy it in small lots than to let it age too much.

To Storm, the coffee grinder is very important (It’s assumed we are grinding the whole beans ourselves.) He does not agree that one should buy a cheap grinder in order to have more to spend on the coffeemaker, but feels just the opposite.

Temperature is another important factor. Almost boiling water can ruin coffee, and extremely hot milk for your cappuccino is another no-no. It should be at about 60 degrees, because too much heat kills the essential proteins in milk and changes the taste, while possibly destroying some of the subtler flavors of the beans. Of course, since most milk, except the hard–to-get raw variety, has already been heated during the pasteurization process, it basically has already been ruined. If you’ve ever tasted raw milk, you know how it’s supposed to taste, and how much better such a cappuccino could be….but we digress.

Water is another very critical factor in good coffee. If at all possible, don’t use tap water, especially if your local water is hard. Hard water includes more minerals, which, while being more healthful, are harmful to coffee because they affect taste while potentially ruining the coffeemaker. That’s why the best coffee makers come with their own built-in water filter.

What Storm didn’t say was that it’s still even better to filter your own water from the tap. Aside from minerals, chlorine in the water can greatly affect taste in the cup. While most simple water filters take care of the chlorine, fluoride is a harder culprit to filter out, requiring more pricey filters. But if in general your filtered tap water tastes good by itself, the coffee will greatly benefit.

Storm was asked why anyone needs a barista at all if they can get good fresh coffee beans and use good water. But he maintains there is a need, because a good barista can make the coffee taste the best with what he has, but a bad barista can take good ingredients and ruin a great coffee within a few minutes.

Wine and food pairing made easy

White wine with white meat. Red with red meat. Indian wines don't go with European food, and vice versa. The rules keep popping out of thin air.

And true or false, these can never factor in the many variables that could leave you with serious doubts about that 'white' wine you just paired up with that spice-laden Chettinad chicken.

But what better way to make sense of these intricacies of food and wine pairing than to enjoy a few glasses of vino over a lazy lunch in the sun at Olive Bar & Kitchen, Mehrauli, as a leading winemaker and chef talk you through things?

And so it was, when the chief winemaker of Four Seasons, Abhay Kewadkar, and Olive's corporate chef, Sabyasachi 'Saby' Gorai, hosted a pairing, er, masterclass (lately, one can't help but to throw in a Masterchef reference).

"Wine making is a science," declared Kewadkar, "but making great wines is an art." On the whole the red with red and white with white rule is not altogether wrong, explained the vintner. "The only problem is that this rule doesn't factor in cooking methods or the accompanying sauces and spices," he said.

To pair a wine well with food one needs to look at a number of factors, the most important of which are the weight and intensity of both the food and the wine. Heavy foods such as red meats usually go better with a full-bodied wine like a Cabernet Sauvignon. Pair a delicately flavoured fish with the same wine and you'll be courting disaster.

"The best wines to get started off on and to pair with a fair number of Indian dishes would be ones that are neither too sweet nor too dry," Kewadkar said, explaining why he had made the Four Seasons Chenin Blanc and Rose both "off dry".

Chef Saby, who succesfully pulled off a well-paired lunch, gave a little cooking class where he prepared filo-wrapped portobello mushrooms with a side of smoked scarmoza ratatouille and a wild mushroom salsa. A robust and flavoursome dish, it deserved the Four Seasons Barrique Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon.

To accompany a dessert, Kewadkar suggested a good rose in absence of a dessert wine. The desserts - spiced chocolate cake and tiramisu - showed up accompanied by glasses of the Four Seasons Blush. They did work together, though I would have preferred the cake with one of the reds.

But then again, there's only one rule that should matter when you're pairing food and drink. If it works for you, it works for you, so chuck that rule book out of the window.

A Fortune A Night

A Fortune A Night

By Angad B. Sodhi

Most people in the world are crying recession, but there are obviously a select few who don't feel the need to cut down on their holiday budgets, which is why the world's most exclusive and expensive hotels are laughing all the way to the bank.

According to Wealth Bulletin's annual survey of the world's most expensive hotels, these vacation dwellings seem to have no problem filling up their uber expensive suites, and in some cases, even doubling their room prices to cope with the high demand.

The survey lists the Royal Penthouse Suite at the President Wilson Hotel in Geneva as being the most expensive room in the world, at $65,000 (Rs 31.78 lakh) a night.

This four-bedroom suite with bullet proof walls and windows covers the entire top floor of the hotel and is almost twice as expensive as the nine-room Ty Warner Penthouse at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, last year's winner, which comes in No. 2 with a tag of $35,000 (Rs 17 lakh) a night.

And with the incredible demand for the suite that offers stunning views of Mount Blanc and Lake Geneva, the Wilson has doubled the penthouse's tariff from last year's level. The suite is so exclusive that the only way you can book it is if you directly call the hotel's chairman.

Vivian Deuschl, Ritz-Carlton Hotels spokeswoman, said in an interview to Wealth Bulletin, that rich leisure travellers were playing a big role in upping the demand.

"Last year they might have taken three or four cheaper holidays. This year they are taking one big vacation, but pulling out all the stops," Deuschl said.

The Presidential Suite at the Hotel Cala di Volpe in Sardinia, which is at No. 3, is a new entrant to the list at $34,000 (Rs 16.66 lakh).

Joining the Cala di Volpe at the fourth and fifth places, respectively, are two new entrants, Villa La Cupola at Rome's Westin Excelsior and The Presidential Suite at Tokyo's Ritz-Carlton, where guests can order a Diamonds Are Forever Martini, which costs $ 18,000 (Rs 8.79 lakh), and is served with a one-carat diamond at the bottom of the glass.

But not every hotel seems to be moving up on the tariff scale. The Bridge Suite at The Atlantis in the Bahamas has cut down its nightly rate from $25,000 (Rs 12.22 lakh) to $22,000 (Rs 10.75 lakh) and even this price is negotiable.