Candies, Pali Hill. A Review

Everyone who is a student in Bombay, knows about Candies or has been there. We (myself and my group of friends) went there yesterday to celebrate a friend's 21st.

The first thing that strikes you about the place is the ambiance. It is apt for people who want sit outside, in the Bombay sun and not feel hot, there are shades and trees you see. You have to climb a many short stairs to get to the various levels. It has a an old Bombay Villa feel. There are Beatles tile mosaics, brightly coloured doors, quirky lanters and secluded seating areas.

Cozy location and quirky wall fixtures

There are also these hidden tables for two, which are ideal for dates. I know I want to go there.

Table for two

Now about the Food. I had the Salad Bar (Rs.120) which is a selection of salads and you can load as much onto one plate.

They give you only one serving, so make the most of it

The salad bar has the usual macaroni, potato, corn, green salads. There was also the waldorf salad. What they could have done was provide more salad dressings and also stand alone salad vegetables. 

The pre-cooked mini meals at Candies are a complete disaster. They pre-cook them, so I guess you get the picture. They cost Rs.150 each and come with a serving of salad and tiny pieces of Garlic Bread. We had the Spinach and Mushroom Canneloni, Macaroni and Veg Bake and American Chopsuey. The first two Italian meals were terrible. Made with white sauce that had kind of split and re-heating it just pisses you off. 

I reccomend the salad bar and the sandwiches, which they have to freshly prepare. 

We had a few coolers there. 

Clockwise from top left: greengrass cooler, Pink lemonade and Bombay Blue

They were priced at Rs.50 each. the Pink Lemonade was too sweet with strawberry jelly in it. The Bombay Blue and Greengrass cooler were nice and refreshing.

The desserts! 

They have an extensive menu. And they are very cheap and taste amazing. 

Top to bottom: the array of small choclates and tarts. The Red Velvet cupcake. The chocolate eclair with custard.

We had the Red Velvet cupcakes (small for Rs.20 and the medium one for Rs.30), the Chocolate Eclair with custard (Rs.40) and the mini tarts (Rs.6 each). The cupcakes are divine. The Eclair was nice as well. Though i though the custard could have been better. The jam tartlets are tiny and so cute! They were so small that I felt bad asking my friend for a bite, as they are smaller than a bite.

The red velvet bouquet

Now the best thing about the dessert display were the cupcake bouquets. Anyone who wants to woo me ditch the flower bouquets, get me one of these.

So if you love to hang out and have ample time, not an ample budget, this is the place for you. Also it is so pretty that if you are a sucker to facebook, then you can take millions of pictures here.

So the final Ratings:

Ambience: 5/5

Variety: 3/5

Taste: 2/5 (we only had the mini meals)

Dessert: 4/5

Value for money: 4/5

This blogger is not paid to review and reviews anonymously.

I got Featured!!

Simple Indian Food : An Easy Cooking Blog has been around for years now.

EC is a stalwart in the tasty world of Food Bloggers. Check out her blog here. 

She has an ongoing feature called "Budding Bloggers" where she features upcoming bloggers. So it is like a society debut. 

And I got featured today! Check out the link here. 

And pardon the title of this post. I am just so very excited! 

"life needs frosting" - Cinnabon

I love Cinnamon. I love the texture of the bark, the colour, the smell and spicy after-taste, in short everything.

I secretly wish my future boyfriend smells of cinnamon, because the last time I baked a Cinnamon cake, I didn't wash my hands well because I loved the lingering smell of Cinnamon. So one can only imagine what will happen if I come across someone who actually does smell of cinnamon.

So now that everyone knows how loco I am about Cinnamon, I just lost it when I saw Cinnabon on the way to our PUKAR meeting. On our way back I made the autowallah stop while I went in and bought my very first Cinnamon roll from the very famous Cinnabon. 


I have had Cinnamon buns before. But at Theos (Theobroma) there wasn't any frosting (I know!) and I had heard so much about Cinnabon. So, I was very excited when she went all happy on the frosting.

Source: internet. For representational purposes only.

I wasn't let down at all. It wasn't overtly sweet. It was very spicy at times. So yes, it was perfect!

Now all I need is that cinnamon perfume I have been looking for and a guy who smells of Cinnamon.

So what spice or smell of food turns you on the most?

Stir Fried Veggies

I love stir fried vegetables. It makes me feel like very nice and healthy. So when I felt like having something nice and not the regular lunch, I checked the fridge and decided to make a stir fry.

If you are a vegetable cutting nerd like me, who loves cutting veggies and actually finds it soothing, go ahead chop away. But, if you hate the thought of cutting everything into juliennes then head to the high-fi supermarts who sell cut vegetables. You even get whole sets of vegetables in a cover which says "stir fry". Talk about laziness!

So I chose ginger, onions, carrots, beans, cabbage and capsicum. Cut them nice and thin, so they cook faster. They go in the wok in the order mentioned above. Also the vegetable that takes the longest to cook, put it in first.

Heat your wok and add oil (I chose olive oil) and heat till it smokes.
Lower the heat and add the ginger and the onions and fry till the onions turn translucent. Add the carrots and beans and about 2 tablespoons of water and cover and cook on a medium flame till the carrots are halfway done.
Add the capsicum and cabbage and close and cook some more.
In a cup mix soya sauce, chilli sauce and some water. add this to the pan and mix fast. Add salt according o taste.

To go with the stir-fry I made some burnt garlic fried rice.
If you live in a family like mine, you will always have left over rice. Just take it and loosen it up a little.
In a non-stick pan add olive oil and wait for it to smoke. Cut the garlic into small pieces. (I had about 1 1/2 cups of cooked rice and added 3 cloves of garlic). fry the garlic in the oil till it is golden brown.
Add the rice and fry again for about a minute. Then add salt.

That's it. Your stir-fry with rice is done!

You can also add babycorn, mushrooms, zucchini and egg. Another thing which would be divine is a sunny side up egg on top of the stir fry.

I must apologise for my not so great picture. My friend, Shreyas has promised to help me. You can check out his work here.

Let me know if you like stir fry and what you think about chopping veggies? I would be nice to hear about fellow nerds. 

Sunday Sandwich!

Sunday's dawn nice and bright, and in my house it usually means a big egg-y breakfast. It is my job every Sunday to ensure that every member of my family has had a hearty breakfast, made to suit their tastes.

I prefer to start every Sunday (or any other holiday for that matter) with my "Sunday Sandwich".

It is basically an egg sandwich but spruced up with some veggies and coriander (dhaniya) chutney. 


First off, cut the vegetables you would like in your sandwich. I prefer Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Capsicum (green peppers).

Next toast bread, I prefer brown bread, because the slices are bigger and it is apparently healthier. 

Fry an egg. You can have it sunny side up, or sunny side down. I like mine to be done on both side but when you cut into it it should be nice and gooey. 

To assemble your sandwich, just butter the slices, layer your veggies and then add chutney on the veggies. I prefer not spreading chutney  on toast as it makes it soggy. Then put your egg fry on top. 

The sandwich is pretty big. You have to open your mouth fully and then try to take a bite.

Optional: you can add chaat masala on top of the veggies. I add salt and pepper to the egg while cooking it.

This sandwich is very filling. I can easily go without food for three hours after having this for breakfast.

So would you try my sunday sandwich? What are your favourite breakfast foods?

Not a Food Snob

I am a student, living with my parents in Bombay (ok, New Bombay). I have an allowance and all the produce at home is from the local vegetable guy. I don't have the luxury of buying organic foodstuffs because their price is just sky-high. I have to make do with the resources available to me.

In short, I guess what I am trying to say is that, I cannot afford to be a food snob. I use perfectly normal veggies and flour. So any kind of recipe which requires me to use blue-berries or any other berries, to pay for which I may have to sacrifice an arm and a leg, just gets adapted to fit what I have at home. 

So instead of golden syrup, which Nigella uses all the time. I just use honey and sugar syrup. I suspect it is something which tastes like a mixture of the two. 

No pecans? Use walnuts. 

Of course in India we don't get a million varieties of apples. Just two, red and green. So while baking anything which asks you to use smith apples, just use ones which a hard. The results will not be the same but close. 

Living on a budget also puts constraints on where I eat out. I mean I would love to frequent amazing restaurants which use A-grade ingredients, but I can't. Not all the time. So I like places which offer good food at a decent price. Though food is one thing I don't mind spending on, but Bombay can get extremely expensive and till I start earning such luxuries can wait. 

Where do you all eat? Any place you would like me to review or eat at?  

I read, I bake!

I am a recipe book whore! There I said it.

I know that someday, when I have the money, I will own a huge recipe book collection. I cook from them often. There is no denying that, but some of them just speak to you. Some appeal to you with their pictures and some with some never-fail recipes.

These are my go-to for when I bake:

The first from L-R is Great Cakes by Womans day and White wings. The book starts with familiarising you with the equipment, then teaching you how to do make some frosting and cake decorations. The cakes are divided by category into classic, seasonal, novelty etc. Most of the recipes call for the use of White Wings self raising flour, but the regular ones you get at any store would do. I must confess I have never used any recipes from this book, no particular reason, but it has the prettiest pictures. No book with pretty picture of cakes can be bad right?

The next sans it's red cover is Favourite Cake Recipes by Family Circle. I couldn't find this book for over two years and I thought I had lost it forever. The first cake I baked was from this, chocolate fudge cake, I remember how sinfully awesome it was and how Aditi and I had distributed it to everyone in the society for Christmas. Sigh!

The third and a birthday gift is Sanjeev Kapoor's Cakes and Bakes everyone in India knows of this always smiling and amazing chef who taught India how to cook with Khana Khazana. His recipes are fail-proof! Just follow them to the T and even if you think you have screwed up (unless you have forgotten to add something crucial like flour) his cakes will always, always turn out to be amazing. It also helps that there is a smiley at the bottom of every recipe stating the difficulty level - Easy, Moderate and Hard.

I do have a list of book I would love to have. Nigella tops the list. Her book is like a person, breathing, alive and even though a lot of her recipes have meat, I love the way she writes.