Category: Eat

I am a traveler and I love my pint of local Beer. Well, if you do or if you at least want to know more it then this post is for you. The genesis of this post is an email which I got from a web-acquaintance where he shared a rich Infographic on traveller and beer. The source is http://comparisons.financesonline.com/beer-prices-around-the-world-compared/. Thank you David.

So I thought that I would share it with you all so here it goes.

Where to get the cheapest beers ?

And the winners are mostly in Asia. Ukraine, Vietnam, Combodia and China.
Continue reading “Traveller’s Guide To Beer: Where to drink the cheapest beer”

Take-aways, as they are often called, are not a new thing. Especially in bigger cities with longer work hours and even longer commute times, it can be hard to cook every day. The charm of getting home-cooked food is not lost but it is socially acceptable to order-food from outside and you no longer hide the fact. If there is a party at home then the food-ordering process is more social and involving, with personal-favorites and past-expeiences coming handy in deciding what to order and from where.

Few years back, take-aways were mostly limited to calling up the restaurants directly and then hoping that you would get hot and timely food. Often it worked because the deliveries were happening locally and the businesses had a strong motivation to deliver a high quality experience. For a lot of restaurants, home-delivery were there major contributor towards overall business. There were many a eateries who didn’t have any in-premise seating and did only home-delivery.

To drive this point further, lets look at some of the numbers of ‘Jubilant Foodworks Ltd’, the company which takes care of ‘Domino’s Brand’ in India. Dominos is mostly into Pizza-deliveris with a promise of money-back if you do not get the pizza of your liking in 30 or less minutes. They have some dine-in restaurants but I guess that proportion is very little in comparison to their delivery business. As per Business Standard, ………..This company shipped about 3.7 crore pizzas in the year, equalling to 1 lakh pizzas sold per day. The pizzas sold for a total of Rs 600 crore, translating into an average price of Rs 162 per pizza. The business operated via 380 stores in 90 cities; that is, approximately four stores per city. Each store sold approximately 1 lakh pizzas a year or about 300 pizzas a day. That’s about 25 pizzas an hour. The company recorded a net profit of Rs 90 crore. This equals to Rs 25 per pizza or a 15 per cent margin on the sale price………

So home delivery of food is beginning to get big and just like airlines where folks like MMT (MakeMyTrip), Expedia and many more are trying to provide better value at cheaper prices, it was time to have aggregators in the ‘food delivery’ business as well. And there comes foodpanda.com and their counterpart is at foodpanda.in. I have used this few times over last year or so and here is the way it works.

The simple four step process. Go to www.foodpanda.com (and then to their India site at www.foodpanda.in)
1. Tell them your location.
2. Choose a restaurant of your choice and order food.
3. The restaurant delivers.
4. Pay when the food arrives.

Continue reading “Introducing “FoodPanda” – Aggregating Home Delivery of ‘Food’”

I found myself at this joint last week and thought that I would write a small quick review. Right opposite ‘Deer Park’, this place is a food-cum-drink place in Safdarjang Enclave. Very well located if you are somewhere in South Delhi else its a bit of a distance to cover. Here’s an interactive Google Map for directions.

View ‘Its Greek to Me’ in a larger map

Its a Greek-Roman style of frugal seating with clean, light wooden chairs and tables , a light music in the background and no rush anywhere at all. I was there on a Sunday Lunch and the fact that I didn’t see many people makes it a good place, who needs the ever crowded Gulatis on a hot summer day. Its on two levels with an open kitchen. Its a good place for a group of 4-6 people who just want to enjoy a gulp over lots of conversations.

They have a very decent collection to wet your throat with the usual Beer to more sophisticated Wines. You can get a Wine by glass and thats really very practical. The food is Greek/Italian/Roman class with baked chicken etc. I do not understand much about food so I would skip this part but you do get a rich collection to choose from and it seemed and tasted good. You do not get North Indian or Mughlai cuisine.

I dont think there are any happy hours because I didn’t see any obvious mention of it anywhere but I wont be surprised if they have special deals for weekedays.

Price wise it seemed right priced. Mocktails at Rs 100 a piece are a steal. A lunch for two where we ordered two mocktails, one starter (Roast and Toast Lamb), one main cuisine (Vasilikos) set us back by Rs 1100 and the potion was enough for two people. You replace a drink/cock-tail in place of mock-tail, and it wont go beyond Rs 1600 which is nice.

The staff is courteous, effective and they dont sell which is good.

All in all, a place worth trying. My next goal is to convince my boss to take us out there so that I can have my share of bubbly at someone else’s pocket.

Hope this is useful.

In the old Noida, with mushrooming new sectors like 93A, 62, 61, 63 and what not, somehow sector 25,26,29,37 are now the ‘Old Noida’, there is a this bar called ‘Samarkand’. In old days, Sector 29 used to the 2nd point in terms of action after the legendary sector 18. I would have visited ‘Samarkand’ before but I went there recently and thought that would write a small review.

Location – Very well located. Right in the heart of Noida in sector 29, Ganga Shopping Complex.

Ambience – Mixed. There are two sections. They have tried to give this warm feel by using lot of wood but somehow it seems to have lived its life. The look is very much a yesteryear red-maroon kinds so it doesn’t look fresh nor modern.

Quality of Food/Drinks – Its a good place for non-cocktail crowd. Its difficult to ruin a old monk or a Kingfisher. Food was pretty good but they offer Mughlai and Indian-chinese kind of stuff so no special variety.

Pricing – High. A beer costs Rs 175, a 30 ml Smrinoff is at Rs 225 and a Chilli Chicken is at Rs 225. Their happy hours go till 8.30 PM and its at 40 % off. Considering that its Noida, prices are not too steep but for the kind of service and overall infrastructure, they can do well with either giving more discount during ‘Happy Hours’ or to increase the potion.

What to do – I wont not recommend this place so if you find yourself there, try to grab a seat in the open-terrace, you get some fresh air and you can smoke without leaving your table.

Overall, ok place for couple of drinks.