The Hungry Monkey - Restaurant Review

Monkey Business!

Have you ever eagerly anticipated meeting someone only to find out that your good looking date has a brain the size of a pea? Or that their outward showoff does not correspond with their actual abilities? Well, that was my experience at The Hungry Monkey, one of Delhi's popular restaurant cum bars last week. I'd been looking forward to going there for a while as it had been mentioned in some popular blogs as having exciting food. Apparently Californian twist to European food.

While the ambiance and music were pretty good on the terrace and it was a pleasant Friday evening to boot, the food was a different animal altogether. We ordered the secret agent chicken, baked Brie and slow roasted mushrooms for our appetizers of which the only dish worth commenting favorably about was the mushrooms which were pretty tasty. The Brie came wrapped in parcels of filo pastry which were quite tasteless and not very fresh but the accompanying raisin jam was good. The chicken lollipop style was OK though it had a little too smokey (almost burnt) kind of flavor and the meat from each lollipop would barely cover a fourth of your fork. That was the better part of the meal.

The entrees... Two slider dishes, one, a crispy chicken slider, which came with three mini burgers and three shot glasses of warm beer (don't know where they were going with that) was pretty much picked at with only the slider filling being eaten. The beer shots went to their natural resting place.. at the far end of the table, forgotten in its uselessness. The falafel slider, another set of three, also didn't get finished, and came accompanied by three shot glasses of Bloody Mary, which promptly joined the beer. Not good. Or maybe would have been appreciated by people who love tomato juice, so not judging that too much.

My seafood linguine, with literally three small to medium prawns, some calamari, topped by one dodgy mussel, which didn't seem to have been cleaned so well, was smothered in a fairly tasteless tomato sauce and liberally sprinkled with at least a bush of fresh rosemary, was seriously underwhelming and not to mention annoying. Am all for roughage generally but it really wasn't my ultimate culinary experience plucking out tough long leaves and sticks (yes those were also thrown in for good measure) of rosemary from my mouth with each bite of food. And at 695 rupees plus tax, the dish was so not worth it.

Imperfect Parfait

The dessert gets a special mention. By the time we finished our mains we were a bit hesitant to order any more stuff but being the hogs that we are, decided upon the white chocolate parfait, which was supposed to be accompanied by a Baileys/ Kahlua float and almond and vanilla filo pastry cigars. Come on, how wrong can you go with dessert, especially at a fancy restaurant? Seriously wrong, I can tell you. A jam jar held a white pasty filling that tasted of concentrated milk powder sauce, rancid filo pastry cigars and no Kahlua/ Baileys float. This was where they should have actually added the liquor. Not to the burgers! We returned the dish after two bites and refrained from ordering anything else, though the sweet potato pie with pecan praline sounded interesting.

Don't remember the last time I've been so disappointed by a restaurant - actually it was Monk at the DLF Place mall in Saket about six years ago. If the company was not so fun, it would have been pretty miserable. Maybe the chef was on leave that day, or they were just having an off day, because the service was not so hot either. Whatever it is, at 3000 rupees a pop, just good ambiance is not enough for a repeat customer if the food is not up to the mark. And the day we went, it wasn't.

Capital Astronomics

Jantar Mantar, New Delhi

Misra Yantra

Many of us who have lived in Delhi would have passed this historical site repeatedly without really knowing what exactly it is and the significance of its creation. I would pass by Jantar Mantar, located in New Delhi's Parliament Street often and spare a glance at the nearest visible structure thinking maybe one day it would be worth a visit. In fact, I've done that for most of New Delhi's monuments in the last 10 years and as a result, missed out on the extremely rich and interesting cultural heritage of the city. A mistake I plan to rectify immediately!

It took a visit to the Taj Mahal with my young son, which got him totally fascinated with historical monuments around the world and going through the literature with him, the enthusiasm in turn rubbed off on me. It was then that I realized that the Jantar Mantar is actually an observatory with a set of four main astromical structures to measure time and the movement and alignments of celestial bodies like the sun, moon and other planets.

The name Jantar Mantar was derived from the words Yantra, meaning instruments and Mantra, meaning formula. The observatory was one of five built across northern India by Maharaja Jai Singh II of Jaipur and construction seems to have started in 1724, the exact dates unknown. The site comprises four Yantras and has a total of 13 instruments made in red sandstone.

Samrat Yantra

The Ram Yantras, comprises of two circular stone buildings without ceilings quite resembling the colosseum in Rome. This instrument is used to measure the vertical (altitude) and horizontal position of the stars. The twelve stone triangles fixed a bit above the ground within this structure shows the movement of the stars.

The Samrat Yantra is the large sundial measuring time.

The Jai Prakash Yantra, shaped like two bowls, sees the position of a celestial object and determines local time among other things. It makes observations at night too.

The Misra Yantra, the most strikingly shaped one synonymous with the site has a central sundial and two arcs on either side of it and is a combination of five instruments. This was used to measure noon in different cities around the world and was the only one not built by Jai Singh but his son Madho Singh. The structure also determined the shortest and longest days of the year.

Ram Yantras

I must honestly admit that this was one of the hardest posts to write and took a really long time and my head spun trying to translate all the various functions in a manner that people including me would understand as well as maintain accuracy. Not much official information is out there which can be translated to something understandable by anyone who can read English. All the other sites I trawled trying to get a concise understanding of the functions of the various instruments had differing explanations.

It would have been a wonderful experience had there been some literature about it on site or headsets with recorded information. There's nothing but steel boards next to each instrument describing it in a way that only Sheldon of the Big Bang Theory would understand or get excited about. The information above, I've collated from various sites on the internet like Wikipedia and tried to put it across in the most simple way possible but unfortunately my attempts at providing more information failed.

Otherwise there are tour guides offering their services for a fee but the whole thing being unregulated, I generally avoid them because I don't really know whether they're really giving you facts or making up a whole bunch of fiction for the gullible tourist.

The structures are in mild disrepair. Entry into them is not permitted, at least it wasn't on the day I went. The accuracy of the readings apparently have also gone because of the tall buildings surrounding the site. Wish the government would do more to preserve these historical jewels and maintain them in a manner that would ensure visitor delight and appreciation of the truly wondrous history and culture of our land. 

Art For a Start

Rohit J Kapoor Art Exhibition, New Delhi

 

 

Last weekend I went for LEFT, a collection of art work by Rohit J Kapoor, who was `exploring the feminine embrace' in his debut. The 32-piece display comprised paintings as well as sketches in charcoal and pen depicting the influence of the feminine energy in everyone and everything around us. 

 

The artist is portraying the feminine energy in its compassion, sensuality, nurturing forms as well as life-giving importance. Its interesting to see the artist's transition from the brushstrokes of his earlier pieces to the more complex play of colours and form of his later ones.

We had a discussion about whether he should have written a little note about each of his paintings to give the viewer an idea of where it's coming from and what it's supposed to mean, but he said that he wanted people to have their own interpretation of his work. You can be rest assured that your interpretation is going to be waaaayyyyy different from what the artist has conceived! With all art, I guess, some pieces are aesthetically appealing and with some, one has to really wonder what was going on in the artist's head!
 

I'm looking forward to witnessing Rohit's journey in turning a hobby into a career and am eagerly awaiting his next collection, where he's threatened to let his imagination run wild! It's quite fascinating to see an artist's metamorphosis and the influences that govern their art as well as the new techniques they adopt as they go along.

The exhibition is on till 5pm this evening at the Twin Gallery II, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 1 C.V. Mess, Janpath, New Delhi. You can check his works out on www.rohitjkapoor.com.

P.S. If I had a better camera, the pictures would be more lustrous, but unfortunately, for now, I'm stuck with my trusty Samsung S3. 

 

 

Delhi Fashion

Shantanu & Nikhil Bridal Collection 

 

Last night, I went for a fashion show by designers Shantanu & Nikhil who were showcasing their couture bridal collection at the Delhi Fashion Week. I wasn't really looking forward to it too much as bridal collections are to me an assault of bling and overwork making the garments look more like they belong on the wall than on someone's body.















I was pleasantly surprised. The women's collection was a mix of pieces in white, brown, red, pink and yellow with gold prints and designs. The focus seemed to be on the cut and the flow of the garment rather than throwing every glittering stone, bead and sequin one can find, on the cloth. Some of the pieces were really stunning. Totally my kind of clothes, sophisticated and classy and if I were a very (and I emphasize on the very) rich gal getting married this year, this collection would definitely be on my to-hit list. Some of the men's clothes I couldn't understand, though I guess the designer's job is to get really creative!

Indian fashion, especially couture has a long way to go before it can compare with the top designers of the west but if these guys keep going in this direction, focusing on the cut, quality and sophisticated style, they will get far.