Gaurav Jain reviews the popular Moti Mahal restaurant in Nariman Point, Mumbai and comes away with a mixed reaction.

The one interesting thing about MM is that they make their own masalas and spice mixes, so your stomach might feel burdened but will not be upset after a full fledged meal here.

As the Portuguese found increasing resistance at Malabar, they established base at Goa and settled down into creating a little colony. Somehow they seemed to take to the local fruit, the Mango, which is a native to India and was many thousands of years old (it is mentioned from Vedic times). A clever friar who was also an avid gardener started trying out grafting experiments with various varieties and as the Portuguese went back & forth between colonies, took some saplings to Brazil. One of the experimental grafts in Brazil provided a perfect fruit, the variety eventually baptized Affonse. This came back to India in the 16th or 17th century and is the revered version of Alphonso that we know today.

Maddy tells us the story of Alphonso mangoes.

A visit to China gets N talking about her culinary experiences - right from streetfood to barely-cooked seafood.

All the food is placed on a rotating glass top at the centre of the table and everybody gets a set of chopsticks. As the glass top is rotated slowly, you can reach in and pluck out of a bowl whatever you want. Only if the dish absolutely demands it do you serve food in a plate of your own. Otherwise the glass top keeps rotating and you keep picking.

Mother’s Pickle Jar unites pickle-lovers world over in a community site that shares recipes and pickle-making experiences. There are also various ’spicy’ conversations running where you can find the most unusual pickles ever tasted and add some masala‘ to your love-life in ‘On what occasions would you gift your GF/BF pickle‘?’

Adding on to a post linked some hours back, here is one more on how our food habits changed through the ages.Abraham Tharakan writes about adaptability and changes in cuisine.

Talking about adaptability, first we had the simple pancake dosa. Then came the masala dosa filled with potatoes and onions, and sometimes even carrot pieces. Indian Coffee House’s masala dosas have even beetroot. This was followed by cheese dosa, keema dosa, and so on. The Pai brothers of Cochin, I believe, offer about 50 different types of dosas. In Chennai I came across tomato uthappam which resembles a pizza.

I sometimes get these urges to eat sweets like ice creams, pastry, etc and most of the time I just give into it. I have been consciously trying to avoid sweet things the past few days and my suspicions have been confirmed. I am addicted to sugar.

The Big Fat Desi Man tells us about his sugar addiction and how addicting it can be. This is an new and interesting blog written to share personal and social attitudes toward obesity.

“We have limited our growth. We work only between 6.30 and 11.30 in the morning and 2 to 8 in the evening and serve only limited varieties of foodstuff. We have our regular clientele and we are not overtly bothered about the mushrooming of modern hotels on either side. We are particular about the quality of the foodstuff that we serve and are proud to say that almost every celebrity, every politician and every industrialist of Bangalore has visited our hotel”

Sudha talks to the proprietor of Vidyarthi Bhavan, one of the oldest restaurants in Bangalore serving masala dosas [hat tip: Sribharath].

Anyone who has ever had a slim thread of condensed milk poured onto their palms from a heavily pierced tin of Milkmaid would know exactly in their heart what heaven tastes like. It is liquid bliss. And as a child, I would yearn months and months for this all-too-rare treat.

Ammani experiences heavenly bliss with a thimble of Milkmaid.

J. Alfred Prufrock has a great post on the different types of Indian bread. He talks about not just paratha and pesarattu, makki di roti and baati, but also about sheermal and palmia and poie and other breads I had never heard about.  This is a must read with your breakfast!

The most common deep-fried bread is the ubiquitous puri, roundels of wheat flour dough rolled flat, moistened with oil and fried till they swell into spherical puffs. The Bengali version, luchi, is made with refined flour or maida and places an even greater premium on light fluffiness. The most decadent zamindars would eat only the papery top layer as a token of their refinement. I can certify that this evokes a general feeling of well-being which is utterly misleading since it is more likely to lead to heartburn and breathlessness.

Mishmash takes a nostalgic trip and walks us through the not so popular uses of Kanjivellam (Rice Gruel).

Kanjivellam is not just an energy drink or a simple home remedy, it turns out to be our traditional alternative to modern shampoos. Yes, it was also used for hair care!!! I remember, in my early childhood, before I gained the courage to buy that blue bottle of Clinic Plus Shampoo, our hair wash on weekends included ceremonious soaking of a crushed and dried variety of herb called, ‘enja’ in Kanjivellam and later mixed with another leafy herb called, ‘vellilathaali’ as an organic alternative to shampoo. My maternal grandmother soaked ‘Pappadam’, Kerala wafers in ‘Kanjivellam’ to wash her hair…..it was used to make the hair more stronger and shinier… So I would call this as Kerala’s ‘organic shampoo’