Last week was quite a boozy hustle. We tried out quite a few combinations and went around the city, from 15th July to 21st July and these are the results.
Bubbly Bawa Breakfast at Soda Bottle Openerwala
One of the better ways to celebrate a weekend. The Bubbly Bawa Breakfast which is going to be launched soon at all the Soda Bottle Openerwala outlets is a Sunday Brunch priced at INR 500 inclusive of two glasses of Sparkling wine. Now this alone should make your mouth water but the range of Parsi and Irani breakfast dishes that you can try out at this is quite immense.
The Bubbly Bawa Breakfast consists of the quintessential Bun Maska to start off. Layered with a load of creamy butter, the sweet Bun has been a favourite of mine since my undergraduate days. There’s a fruit platter along with one Sandwich based Mumbaiyya dish and one which is Pav based. While the vegetarians can try out the Chilli Cheese Pav, there’s the Chicken Chilli Cheese Pav. Both of them are creations of Mumbai’s streets which combines Conti, Chinese and Indian all in one dish.
The main dish on both the sides are quite interesting too. You can either order the Pancham Puriwala ki Puri Bhaji or any Egg Dish from the humongous breakfast menu. We order ourselves the Meaty Poro (Poro is the Parsi style omelette) and it’s loaded with ham and sausages. Accompanying the Poro is a Pao and a side of baked beans and a potato salad.
A scrumptious, filling breakfast which is accompanied with two glasses of sparkling wine from Grover Zampa and also an opportunity to try out their Nitro Cold Coffee Brews. Using coffee beans from Karnataka, these cold brews retain the better flavours of the coffee without giving it the requisite bitteriness. There are available in Lime & Cinnamon and Star Anise flavours and something that you must give a shot at.
Lucaris Wine Glasses at Triple 8, Ansal Plaza
Wine Glasses are one of the most important elements of a how a wine tastes. Our friend Magandeep invited us over for a tasting at the newly opened Triple 8 at Ansal Plaza where he told us about Lucaris crystal ware and how switching glasses for wine actually works. The Lucaris is a premium glassware that offers a superlative wine drinking experience, as Snigdha experienced.
We tried out the d’Arenberg Laughing Magpies Shiraz-Viognier 2012 in a Robust Red glass. The name has quite an interesting twist to it. The area around the d’Arenberg winery has a bushland surrounding it where Kookaburras abound. Chester Osborn, the owner of the vineyard has two daughters who have named their Kookaburras as Laughing Magpies and that is where the name stuck on from. The 93% Shiraz and 7% Viognier blend is a bouquet of dark fruits along with spicy and earthy overtones along with well rounded medium bodied tannins. These tannins were aptly made prominent by the oversized bowl and bottom curls which helps in the micro-oxygenation of the wine. But the moment this same wine is poured into any of the white wine glasses, it loses its complexity along with its tannins.
The Crios Torrontes ’17 from Mendoza, Argentina is a sprightly wine with a typical yellowish green colour accentuated with a fruity and floral nose and a major hit of apricots on the palate. This wine has plentiful of acidity which can be properly assessed in a Crisp White glass. The larger bowled reds flatten out this wine while taking away its acidity.
Cheese and Wine pairing at IAH Bar, The Roseate
The IAH Bar is one of my favourite places to go to and when it did a Wine and Cheese pairing event, I headed on there. We tried out the Baron Phillipe de Rothschild Mas Andes Sauvignon Blanc’17, an excellent delicate wine with a floral and fruity bouquet of flavours including Pear which I combined with the fresh Mozzarella. For the Cheddar, we combined it with the Cadet D’Oc Merlot which I had previously tried aboard the Air France. The wine tastes quite different terra firma. Although the wine doesn’t have many complexities, but there are a few red fruits which combines well with the Cheddar.
Blind Wine Tasting at Rick’s, Taj Mahal Hotel
Although we are writing about wine and wine destinations for more than three years now, there’s nothing better than doing a blind wine tasting to do a refresher course on your wine knowledge. My Beverage editor from Food & Wine India in Mumbai, Nikhil Aggarwal took us through a flight of wines at the majestic Rick’s, the bar at the Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi.
Most of the wine tastings I have been to usually starts off with a light white wine like a Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc but Nikhil starts us up with a Reisling ’12 from Dr. Burklin-Wolf as a surprise. While it doesn’t have the floral and fruity notes that you would associate with a classic Reisling, it definitely does impress with its balance and flavours of citrus. Two of the other wines that quite impressed me in the line up were the Montes Carmenere ’16 and the Kendall Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Zinfandel ’12. We were trying out the Carmenere for the first time and it impressed us quite a bit with its red berries and chocolate character. This medium-bodied wine has medium well-rounded tannins that sits quite well on the Indian palate. Although we had tried out the Kendall Jackson wines from California for the first time at the Vancouver International Wine Festival, the Vintner’s Reserve Zifandel has sweet fruit flavours wrapped up in velvety tannins. There were also quite a few Indian wines on display including the Fratelli Sette which we had even enjoyed at our stay at Fratelli Vineyards.
Story Club at The Westin Gurgaon is back with a bang
Story Club, The Westin Gurgaon’s chic nightclub is back with a brand new licence and a heady list of artistes and DJs that’s going to be keeping this club alive till dawn. With an enviable lineup that’s also going to involve DJ Suketu to Story Club might soon be the hottest night club in the city.
As it had been quite some time since we had tried out the cocktails at the Story club, we decided to try out the new ones. Tanqeuray Gin has a very botanical flavour to it and adding a sprig of Rosemary along with a twist of Orange Peel adds a whole new range of flavours to it. We also tried out the Twisted Old Fashioned where a single malt Glen of the Ord 12 yr was used instead of the classic Bourbon along with some coffee and bitters. You should definitely try out some of these cocktails while listening to the retro beats till 4 AM in the morning. There’s also some scrumptious bites from the kitchens that is perfect for your night out.
