The Boiling Crab - a must visit restaurant in Los Angeles

Food takes me to places, directly or indirectly. When I travelled to Los Angeles, USA this year for MTV Video Music Awards 2017, I grabbed an opportunity to explore the place and also the food.

I will write another post about my LA experience but this one is dedicated to my food experience. LA has too many places to eat, food trucks, fine dine restaurants, junk food too but what you choose to eat will define you. I have always enjoyed hot dogs or even a burrito at food trucks which is a quick grab on the go.

On this trip, I explored a new place to eat which gave me a different experience too and the food was mind blowingly delicious. The place is called THE BOILING CRAB, they have 2 outlets in LA -Wilshire Blvd and Kinross Avenue and total 7 outlets in California. This is a must visit place for all sea food lovers. When i visited the restaurant for the first time, I had no idea what I was in for. The server asked me if I had visited the place before and explained me the menu and the way food will be served. With many seafood options, I opted for shrimps with Whole Sha-bang sauce which was recommended by the uber driver. The sauce is a mix of all sauces, masaledaar and little spicy, suits perfectly to Indian taste buds. Whole shrimps, with head, tail and legs, no part of the shrimp is removed, is mixed well with the sauce and served a plastic bag. The table is covered with fresh plastic on which you will be eating. Some dips are also served along with lemons which you can squeeze into salt & pepper and enjoyed with the food. None of this will be required as the whole sha-bang sauce is good enough and everything else will ruin it. I actually got grossed out with the look of the shrimps as I dont like the look of raw meat or any sea food. But once I started eating the shrimps, I thoroughly enjoyed it to the extent of eating my fingers too. I also loved corn on the cobs along with the same sauce. They also have some good appetizers and drinks to savor along with. This place impressed me so much that I visited the place twice in the same trip and will surely go there every time I visit LA. Shrimps have been my favorite as it is my favorite sea food and also easy to eat compared to crabs and lobsters when served in this fashion.

The experience at The Boiling Crab will take you back to basics, eating with hands without cutlery or plates and licking your fingers till you eat them.

Night Market at The Fatty Bao

2016 is coming to end and with this festival season, The Fatty Bao brings to you Night Market, the year-end, big, bang festival inspired by the diverse street food grills and night market delicacies from across East Asia. While I have been planning to visit different countries of Asia for my travel, it just did not materialise so this food festival gave me an option to enjoy the region's food in Bengaluru.

The place is lit up with fairy lights and acoustic music played throughout while one enjoy hot sizzling grills to magical drinks. Chef Prashant and his team will leave you spell-bound with some amazing flavours from the streets of Asia. A meal with delicious Asian street food and the coolest cocktails, you will experience the diverse styles, flavours and food traditions of the region. 

While I sipped on mocktails from their regular menu sushi's had arrived. Veggies can enjoy Vegetarian Temari Sushi, a thread ball shaped sushi with seasonal vegetables while tuna lovers like me can enjoy Tuna Oshizushi, pressed Sushi with soy caviar. I had started enjoying Sushi from The Fatty bao so this place will always remain close to my heart and tummy.

From the grills, quick bites were served, started with Grilled Quail Eggs with sambal oelek which I enjoyed from the skewer, next was Fire Cracker Chicken Wings stuffed with basil jasmine rice which had a burst of flavors in my mouth. Fried Stinky Tofu with scallion & chilli sauce did not stand out much for me as I am not fond of tofu. Lastly, Chicken Gochi, fried chicken topped with chilli garlic sauce and cheese was a decent quick bite.

They also had Mu Ping- Thai grilled marinated pork tenderloin served with papaya salad and Hashimaki which is a Japanese omelette on chopstick with shredded cabbage and bacon which I did not try as it had pork.

From the Fatty Platters, I tried the seafood platter - Kushikatsu Seafood Platter which had a selection of bite-sized pieces of fish, prawn, squid and oysters, deep-fried and served with a sweet-chilli sauce. This did not suit my taste buds as I do not like deep-fried dishes. There is a Kushikatsu Veg Platter for veggies too which has Lotus stem, eggplant, mushrooms and potatoes.

My favorite from the menu was Mindanao Beef Skewer, char grilled filipino-style marinated beef cubes had the perfect blend of flavors which complimented the meat giving a satisfactory meal. Those who do not beef can try Malay spicy coconut lamb served in a skewer with coriander and peanut sauce. 

No meal is complete without desserts, so for Banana lovers like me, Tokyo Banana is a treat, an airy sponge cake filled with Banana Custard and served with caramelized banana ice cream. Another dessert which is on offer is the Filipino Lokot Lokot, Crispy rice net filled with  jaggery custard served with a lemon ice cream.

Special thanks to the Team of The Fatty Bao to celebrate my win for Best Lifestyle Blog 2016 at Indian Food Bloggers Awards 2016 :)

Some green tea to end the meal

You can enjoy the street food from the East till 1st January 2017, so this festival season if you are not holidaying anywhere and staying in the city like me, head to The Fatty Bao for a night market experience with a meal having flavors of Asia.

Goan food festival at The Chancery Pavilion

I usually travel to Goa when I crave for some good Goan food. Not many know that there is more to Goan food apart from Goan fish curry rice or Goan prawn curry rice. The Chancery Pavilion invited Chef Martina Fernandes from Goa for a 10 day festival at 'Itaca'. Chef Martina is self leant chef and masters Goan cuisine. She is usually invited by different cities to conduct Goan festivals. She is very passionate about her cooking and takes minimal help in the kitchen as she believes in providing authentic Goan taste to her customers.

The lobby of the restaurant shows the way to reach Ithaca with sign boards having names of the places from Goa.

Ithaca

The entire restaurant has Goan theme and feel of Goa. As I sipped on some Kokum juice, a live singer was playing some good goan music, konkani songs, etc adding to the Goa feel.

On a rainy Sunday night, I planned to have some good food to cheer my weekend. I haven't heard good about the food at the hotel so I was initially hesitant, like most of us. But I gave this place a try and review it myself rather than going by other's review. What better than some Goan food in Bangalore? I started my meal with hot crab soup. It had full flavors with crab meat, delicious till the last spoon. I wouldn't anything more than this soup on a rainy night. After this, I had some starters, veg croquettes, fish tikka, paneer karawali and chicken. I liked the veg croquettes with tomato ketchup. I would have preferred fish tikka with a mayo dip or mint dip. I do not have a pic of fish tikka.

Crab soup

Chicken

Paneer karawali

Veg croquettes

Then I had some salad's. I was in a fix to choose from various salad's on display. I had chicken and beetroot salad, creamy ranch with potato and fish, egg platter, mugachi salad, seafood salad, paneer tikka chaat, Cucumber - low calorie dip, set curd just to name a few. I liked panner, cucumber and egg platter more.

Creamy ranch with potato and fish

Egg platter

Fish salad, I don't remember the name

Seafood salad

Paneer tikka chaat

Cucumber - low calorie dip

Set curd

They have a live counter for ross omelette with pav and mini pizza. Ross omelette is a street food of Goa which has meat spread on an omelette with pav.

Ross Omelette with pav

Veg mini pizza

Non veg mini pizza

For main course, I had Goan rice, Kaju pulav, Chicken vindaloo, Mutton xacuti, Fish curry and Prawn curry. Apologies that I forgot the Goan names of the curry. Prawn curry was spice and burst of flavors on my tongue, fish curry was my favorite and mild, mutton curry had coconut flavors while chicken curry had no aloo in it. I had no space in my tummy to try the veg so I skipped it.

Goan rice

Kaju pulav

Fish curry

Mutton xacuti

Chicken Vindaloo

Prawn curry

It was time for desserts, a good spread of desserts which had Goan desserts too. I had no idea of Goan desserts and Chef Martina introduced me to the desserts and explained me every dessert and the ingredients which went in it. Portuguese custard pie, Dosh, Strawberry delight, Dodol, Boleno, Bebinca, Alle belle were few Goan desserts among the rest which had baked yogurt, milk cake, badam burfi, rajbhog, rice kheer with goan rice and jaggery. The desserts sound really different and they tasted different too. It was the first time I tried it and pretty much liked them too.

Portuguese custard pie

Strawberry delight

Dodol

Boleno

Bebinca

Dosh

Alle belle

The variety in veg is good and all those who think Goan food is about non veg then they would be proved wrong. Overall, it was a Goan experience in Bangalore and all those who love Goan food shouldn't miss this festival at The Chancery Pavilion with Chef Martina. It is available for dinner only and is priced at Rs. 999+taxes.