Across my Table
Foodie adventures
Lunch with Rocky and Mayur (HOMP) at Bak Bak Bar
Tuesday, February 05, 2013Me! In words
I know I put up just one photo on FB with hardly any details of the where, what, when. Its just that it was quite exciting to have spent the afternoon with Rocky and Mayur that I needed some time to get my thoughts together. So here is how it went. On February 1st, Zomato held their Restaurant Summit at Sheraton, Bangalore. There were several interesting talks and debates on topics related to the restaurant business and a lot of meaningful insights came out of this interaction. The summit preceded the inauguration of Zomato's
"Connoisseur's Guide to Eating Out in Bangalore" ( a review of the book another day). Rocky and Mayur are the brand ambassadors for Zomato and it was natural to have them there to inaugurate the book, along with several of the big names in the Bangalore food industry.
Rocky and Mayur doing what they do best. They conducted this little pop quiz on food (I managed to get one answer right :P)
The duo brought on a slide show of some photos of their journeys and likened it to various situations while weaving in a pop quiz. They also shared an anecdote of the time Rocky was offered a plate of fried woodworms, which he polished clean through while talking on the phone. He comes back in to their hosts' home and requests a refill of the delicious "kurkure" that he had much to the chagrin of the hosts for whom the woodworms are a local delicacy!
L to R - Mayur, Rocky, Prem Koshy, Abhijit Saha, Manu Chandra, Hema Malini Maiya, Chef Bela (Sheraton), Ashish Kothare (LoR, Le Rock, Moscow Mule), Pankaj Chaddah, Co-founder, COO Zomato)
The next day, a Saturday, a few of us ardent lovers of food in Bangalore were invited (thank you Karthik) to a lunch with the HOMP guys Rocky and Mayur. Our corner of the table (and I still think it was the loudest corner) had Rocky settling down with us. One thing I must say here, Rocky and Mayur are no different from what you see on the show. They are fun, they verbally joust with each other and they love their food.
Rocky is a photography buff and especially loves clicking birds. Our corner had all the food bloggers in it - Monika, Swapna and I, and he was so helping in arranging the plates to get the right light and even wrapping a tissue around the flash of his phone to provide a soft light on a dish. In fact, he keeps a small square of butter paper with sticky tape around it handy so that he can instantly create a soft light with his phone! Now there's a tip we can use.
Though we were there for Rocky and Mayur, we were also there for the food and it was free flowing. Here is a look at what we had.
Cajun Spiced potatoes - be careful, it packs quite a wallop in the spice department and though we loved it, we were not ready for that first whack.
Beef kheema with buttered pav - Life can't not get better when you are served this dish, it was fabulous.
This was a sausage based dish, though am not sure of what it was exactly (I was talking to celebrities after all). It was a sweet and sour mix though and was nice.
There were vegetarian rolls - spinach and corn - Crisp on the outside and well stuffed on the inside.
On Monika's recommendation I had the Gabbar Singh - a Vodka based drink with a rim of chilli and salt. Oh! Mama, I need to whip me up this drink on the weekend (on a regular basis)
A vegetarian pizza, which in comparison to the other dishes was so-so
And back to the boys of the day! - Yes! Mayur is a vegetarian on and off screen. He has tried non-vegetarian food but has never really enjoyed it and hence the decision to stick with the "ghas phoos". He says that by far the most adventurous thing he has had as a vegetarian is the Akhuni (fermented soya bean) from Nagaland. Adventurous, not so much for the taste, because it can bring some brilliant flavors to food, but for the smell, and that too when it is just being taken out post fermentation.
Rocky, Mayur let on, was a stickler for cleanliness. So much so that on a shoot at Mahabaleshwar where unfortunately the accommodation was not what was advertised, Rocky spent 40 minutes cleaning the bathroom before having a bath. Kudos! I say, I think I would have done the same.
This was another pork dish served, didn't catch the name, but it was a very homely in its preparation and went perfectly with the KF I was having at the time.
Rocky signing my copy of HOMP
Rocky and Mayur love to pull tricks and they spoke of this one time on the show when they were going back and forth on what a vegetarian has and what a non-vegetarian doesn't and such. After a while, Rocky went on to say that he had a size 38 D, actions et al (you should picture them saying this, we literally had tears in our eyes laughing). You would think that the part would be edited out, but the producer decided to go with it and the episode aired. And Rocky ended up watching that particular episode with his mother and son with him. Awkward!
Pulling stunts is part of their repertoire and they told us of how they, or more rather Mayur let a young couple who asked them - believe that they were gay. Now not only do they have this couple convinced that they are gay, but they also believe that the entire crew swings that way as well!!! At Bak Bak Bar, Mayur went up to the bar tender and asked him to fix him a drink that would help him score with the girl sitting next to him. Only a few minutes later did Mayur realize he was sitting next to a guy!.
There are so many more stories that would take me an eternity to get down here. It was a lunch meeting that was fun of whole different kind. Back to some food now
Flambe Chicken (someone mentioned it was Old Monk Rum on the spoon)
Since we didn't capture the flame the first time, we asked for the process to be repeated. We got our photos and a very "happy" chicken as well.
Chicken wings
Jalapenos stuffed with yogurt and chilli. This takes a while to truly appreciate. You need to try and get all three textures - the outer coating, the chilli and the yogurt filling in one bite to go from spicy to tangy to crispy
Wasabi coated prawns - Found it tough to pry the prawns out of the shell and the wasabi was not as potent as it looks here.
Though I did photograph dessert (cheesecake of some sort), I did not taste it (what was I thinking!!)
And there you have us - a photo to remember this meeting by!
And can we not have a photo of this kind!
It was a wonderful three hours with the duo. The food at Bak Bak Bar too did really well on almost all counts. Rocky and Mayur headed straight for the airport and I was quite tempted to jump into one of their duffel bags. I mean, guys, you've seen me, am small enough for the duffel bag, no suitcase required, and I love to eat and travel! Am sure you can take me on one schedule of HOMP... prettyyy pleaaaseee....
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