Month: December 2004

hot breads



mmmmmm, we found a good one. In Woburn there’s a new store called Hot Breads that sells Indian pastries and sandwiches, along with some standard breads and cakes. What could be better on a cold drizzly Saturday than a buttery croissant filled with keema (spiced minced meat) or an open-face “danish” filled with chicken tikka? The answer is either vada pav or dabeli. Vada pav is a spicy savory mashed potato patty, fried & served on a small soft bun spread with spicy mint chutney & run under a sandwich press to toast, with raw onions & a wedge of lime on the side, both of which are worthy additions. Dabeli is a mixture of chickpeas, tomatoes, potato, spices and wee crunchy noodles, served in the same fashion. Holy mackerel, these sammies are good! Yum! For dessert, there are regular sweet cakes & cookies, but also slightly salty masala cookies and cumin seed cookies (my favorite). And everything is very reasonably priced ($1.75 for the croissants, $3 for a single order of two vada pav). Too bad my office isn’t in Woburn anymore. Sigh.

damn, why didn’t I think of that?

As soon as this is typed, I am getting up from the chair to make one of these.
from davesbeer.com:

Italian (-American) Soda

  • sugar, 1-2 T
  • flavor, e.g., vanilla extract, 1 t
  • water, flat, ca. 1 oz
  • water, fizzy, ca. 11 oz

Add sugar to your favorite glass. Add about an ounce of tap water and swirl to dissolve the sugar. Add the flavor extract to the sugar solution. Then, fill with cold fizzy water. I like mine without ice.
I usually don’t care about health or diet, but this drink is quite a bit lighter than a typical soft drink. For instance, when Coke finally oozes out of the can, it has a sugar content around 10% by weight. This version is about 3%.

aha! london indian treasure, retrieved

When in London last November, we ate in a really stupendous Indian restaurant in a northern suburb with a friend, but by the time we got home, we’d lost track of the name of both the restaurant and the suburb. Now maybe we’re easily impressed Americans dulled by the sad state of Indian cookery on our shores, but I was licking plates. This place was so much better than the trendy Pakistani place recommended by droves of people on chowhound.com, which was downright disappointing. I could probably dig up the name of that place, but why would I ever bother, when I have found a little paper wrapper in amongst some really tragically overdue paperwork and now can tell you that we got the *real* eats at Raaz Brasserie in Muswell Hill? 176-178 Fortis Green Road, Muswell Hill, London N10 3DU. 020-8442-1320 or 020 8444 8322. Yay!