Our Own Food Festival Part 1

While the country celebrates the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, we have been celebrating our own food festival which is totally in sync with the Ganpati festival as the elephant god also loved food & sweets!!! So since last week, there have been multiple places visited & also loads of great food cooked at home by the lovely Mrs. (Rachita). Do continue reading for the details of the same its yummylicious!!!

Best Cheesecake Ever!!!

Yummyyy!!!

Cinnamon Rolls to Die For…

Last week, we were working from our fort office & right next to the same is a quaint eatery called Lalit Refreshments which serves fabulous value for money food. We ordered some awesome rotis, paneer in a red gravy, papads, pickle and dosas from there for lunch! As you can see in the picture, the food was pretty damn awesome!!! The next day was a holiday, as it was the start of the Ganpati festival. For the same, Rachita baked an awesome cheesecake with cinnamon dusting on it…. matlab post eating that we are totally clear about our patisserie business 🙂 The next day we decided to make Cinnamon rolls. Please note I was there helping Rachita a.k.a. The Food Magician in making this piece of awesomeness; for a 1st attempt, the rolls were delicious & we made a lot of them & kept aside and ate them regularly till end of the week. For dinner that night, was Samosa Chaat which was courtesy my very lovely mother; needless to say it was totally killer… In this whole thing, I forgot to mention that the Bike Rides were also happening regularly considering the weather has been super awesome, I mean no rains. How awesome is that!

My Prized Possession!!!

Hand Tossed Home Made Pizzas!!!

Then came the weekend & full-on party mode was in progress as Ekta was back from Baroda so Beers, Rum, etc. flowed like the Nile… In the morning, Rachita & me had made preparations for hand tossed Pizzas. Do check the pictures in the gallery below. Also then there was some super sensational chocolate cake with yellow butter icing which was in the shape of modak (ladoos) ha ha ha ha! Our tribute to Ganpati 🙂 Next day post morning bike ride & general chilling, Rachita & I decided to go & check some speakers at Phoneix Mills. Visited JBL, Croma & also Bose, the experience at the Bose showroom was the best! They showcased  a demo of the crazy Video Wave Experience which was the greatest sound experience of a television ever!!! If you guys are around a Bose showroom, do walk in and check out the demo its sensational.

You have to taste it to believe it…

Delicious!!!

Droooooooooooooooollllllllll!!!

Post the retail therapy session, we decided to go to Cafe Zoe as we had never been there with Analushka / Anus who’s picture is also featured in the slide show below. The place has a nice decor – is very spacious. Post being seated, we checked the menu. Immediately I ordered the steak burger which was extremely inviting also added some bacon to it, Rachita ordered a basket of breads, fries and also some vegetables with red and white quinoa, also ordered some Hoegaarden. Post a leisurely lunch and a gossip session, we decided to head home and crash for a bit. In the evening, I decided to go out for the bike ride. While riding, figured it’s Gauri day which is part of the Ganpati festival where in a statues of the Goddess Gauri are also bought home & immersed in to the water in a day’s time. There was crazy traffic across the roads but on the bike it was totally a breeze, en-route also visited the in-laws house which I was stalking through the day as it was my random activity of the day (stalking the in-laws building). Ekta rode the bike home with me after the in-laws meet & greet. For dinner there was some crazy super awesome Enchiladas. You have to check the pictures of the same in the slide show. All in all, we been eating awesomeness and just thought the same needed to be posted on the blog. Hope you have had fun reading this post as much as we have had eating the food 🙂 Don’t miss the Slide show below it has some delicious & yummy pictures!!!

Heaven!!!

Follow @badbikegang

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

The Ganpati Photowalk

It’s that time of the year when everyone in India welcomes the Elephant God into their house, fondly known as Ganpati. 10 days of every Indian’s life revolve around the worship of the God.  Ganesh has been an annual feature in our house for as long as I can remember, we don’t get in the clay idol, we have an idol made of silver which we offer prayers to. As kids, mom would make us clean the idol and also decorate temples made of cardboard or Styrofoam. We would also get a whole lot of guests who came to our house during these 10 days to offer prayers and generally socialize with the family.  Over the years our beliefs have changed, we are no longer actively involved in the ceremonies pretty much Mom, Dad, Uncle and Aunty who manage the same. We on the other hand definitely go to see the awesome idols around where we live and take pictures creating our very own unique Ganpati Photowalk.

The biggest challenge with the photowalk is the crazy and erratic Mumbai rains, I personally don’t like my camera and gear getting wet and hence have to wait for the right time to get out there. Saturday began with crazy rains in the morning but eventually the day turned out to be sunny, at about 4:00pm I decided to head out for the photowalk, please note the objective was clear take pictures of Idols, a few minutes away from our house is Grant Road vegetable market, this also houses the biggest Ganesh idol in our area – I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was no security in and around the Pandal (temporary temple), people moved in an out easily and it was not mad crowded, I quickly setup my camera and started taking shots, to my surprise nobody disturbed me or said not to take pictures, instead they were more than happy to let me keep shooting, the kids there also volunteered to look after my bag so I could move around easily -Absolutely awesome

From there on every pandal I went to I was extended the same courtesy, my next destination was Grant road station, the Ganpati there was lit up, so time to crank ISO and shoot, note I hate using flash, I think it takes away from the reality of the image. I retraced my steps from the station towards the BMC station at D-Ward, this area has always had very creative idols, I was surprised this time around instead of going creative, the committee there had gone for a simpler much larger idol, it was very impressive. This pandal also had some kids playing carom; they were very excited when I took their picture. Next destination Papanas Wadi, this is a small lane next to my house, their theme eco friendly Ganesh, I did not realise I had friends here, these were kids who I had grown up with, in turn I was treated like a star, they cleared the floor and let me take pictures and fed me a whole lot of sweet meats. Next I moved onto a lesser known destination, this is a small bylane near Nana Chowk, they generally get a small idol but it is always very unique, this time around was exactly the same. Moving uphill I got to Kemps Corner, the Pan Gali idol was a black and gold idol and was huge, post taking pictures I moved towards my final 3 destinations August Kranti Maidan (Tejpal)  and Geeta building and old Gamdevi.

The final destinations are also the oldest as far as we are concerned, they have been housing idols long before it was fashionable to host them. The Tejpal idol was simple but they had surrounded it by envelopes of Ganpati, to my suprise there was nobody around the mini pandal, forgot to mention, I missed the Ganpati which use to be there at the Kharegat intersection, don’t know why it was not there. Anyways moving on the Geeta building Ganesh, was mounted on the shoulders of Hanuman, very different from anything I had seen so far. The volunteers there let me get close to the idol and take pictures, by now I was losing light so cranked up the ISO even more. From here I quickly rushed to Old Gamdevi, this idol was surrounded by women who were waiting for the evening Aarti, I did not waste time here, moved quickly and shot a few images and headed home. All in all the photowalk was an amazing experience the pandals are amazingly peaceful and people don’t bother you, also there are no annoying kids going ‘uncle take photo, my photo please’ and so on.  Really enjoyed this walk, and will definitely do this again on the day of immersion, this time around with my zoom lens.

Do check out our awesome Slideshow of Ganesh Pics below – Shot using a Nikon D5100 with a 18-55mm lens

This slideshow requires JavaScript.