Foodie Jaunts

I am one of those who follows the old adage, ‘Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen and dinner like a pauper’. My dinners truly are frugal, though I am non-vegetarian I usually prefer to have a light vegetarian meal at dinner time. While eating out, it is at dinner time that I get stumped, restaurants with their large portions and generous mix of spices, khoya and cream makes my stomach churn. Even if I do manage to coax the chef into making something light, the large portions lead to lot of food wastage. Food courts at the malls have saved the day for me. These are ideal places for light dinners that are more in the nature of a snack. The best part about the food courts are that the portions are small and you get the opportunity to try out different types of cuisines all at the same time. Unfortunately though, in recent times I have been noticing that high rents are forcing the small outlets to close shop and these are now being replaced by fancy high end restaurants, not what I would like to see at a mall. Well then while the few outlets still exist I guess I will make the most of it and now over to my brother Aroop Bose for his views on what we have called a 'Snacky' Dinner.

Snacky Dinners at the Shopping Mall
 By Aroop Bose

Sometimes we prefer to have ‘snacky’ dinners and what better place could it be other than nice food court in a shopping mall that offers you various choices. A food court gives you the choice of ordering different kinds of food which would not be possible in a normal restaurant. I want to share our recent experience of ‘snacky’ dinners at In Orbit Mall and Hyper City located at Malad (West) in suburban Bombay. The items we ordered were interesting and delicious sandwiches from an outlet called Fokaciazz, pie like pizza from Sbarro and
Chicken Shawarama (Open) served with pita bread.  

Fokaciazz

The specialty of this outlet is its range of sandwiches called Fokaas; these are made from focaccia bread. These sandwiches are nothing like what we have tasted before. They are truly wonderful; they are so very tasty to the point of becoming addictive. Firstly, the focaccia bread is a major differentiator, secondly the filling is yummy. We tried the Chicken Steak Fokaa and Chicken Pesto Fokaa

Chicken Pesto Fokaa

sandwiches the first time and Chicken Krispy Fokaa during our last visit. All three had mayonnaise in them along with other ingredients which imparted a lovely flavour. The sandwiches were pleasantly sweet and tangy and the herbs gave them a lovely flavour. The Chicken Steak Fokaa was slightly tangier and I could detect the presence of tomato sauce in it, the Chicken Pesto Fokaa presumably had pesto sauce in it and other green ingredients such as green beans and capsicum. Chicken Krispy Fokaa had a crisply fried chicken patty.

Chicken Steak Fokaa

The preparation of the Fokaa sandwiches takes some time but the final product is worth waiting for and they are served hot; the sandwiches are not triangular but square shaped and are cut in six pieces. This outlet also sells cakes and desserts. It also offers meal combos – one sandwich plus a soup or mocktail and a dessert. As of now there is no Fokaciaaz outlet anywhere other than this one. The people running this outlet also have a restaurant called 'Nibbletes' located on Swami Vivekananda Road, Andheri West in suburban Bombay, here they serve Italian food but Fokaa sandwiches are not available here either. So if you are planning to try out Fokaas you have to visit the food court at In Orbit Mall, Malad. As for us we will visit Fokaciaaz again in order to try out the other varieties.

Sbarro 
Sbarro is an international pizza restaurant chain serving Italian-American cuisine; currently there are four Sbarro outlets in Mumbai and one in Thane. I am not aware if Sbarro has a presence in any other city in India.

We quite like the Chicken Stuffed Pizza, Veg and Chicken Cannelloni and Chicken Meat Balls with Spaghetti; if you wish to have more details of what are served at Sbarro please visit their website. Unlike other pizza brands, pizzas here are served usually in portions (segments or slices), each of these portions is quite large and a Chicken Stuffed Pizza portion is a meal in itself. This pizza resembles a pie to some extent and we highly recommend it; there is also a vegetarian version called Veggie Feast Stuffed Pizza but we prefer the chicken version. We found that the Veggie Feast Stuffed

Veggie Feast Stuffed Pizza

Pizza is not as flavourful, maybe because we are carnivores. The Chicken Stuffed Pizza has three varieties of chicken – chicken pieces, salami and bacon; mozzarella and ricotta cheese. Veg variety has broccoli and spinach.

 Maroosh

Maroosh has a presence in many shopping malls in Bombay; it also has a presence in Pune as far as I know, the food served here are biryanis, Lebanese and North Indian food and a variety of wraps. We loved the Chicken Shawarama (Open), it is an interesting dish and is a mini meal in itself, it is served with fries, pickles, tahini sauce and pita bread. If you try it once you would like to repeat it for sure.

We eat ‘snacky’ dinners quite often; one such dinner for one person comprised Chicken Shawarama (Open) and half Veggie Feast Stuffed Pizza, another dinner comprised one Fokaa sandwich and half Chicken Stuffed Pizza and still another dinner was entirely a Sbarro dinner which comprised Chicken Stuffed Pizza and Chicken Cannelloni.The last time the two of us shared a Fokaa sandwich along with Chicken Meat Ball With Spaghetti and Chicken Cannelloni from Sbarro.

Chicken Cannelloni and Chicken Meat Ball with Spaghetti

If you happen to visit Bombay it would be a good idea to try some of this yummy stuff specially the food sold at Sbarro and Fokaa sandwiches which are worth trying, but I am not very sure as to how long the Fokaciazz outlet will be able to hang on at In Orbit Mall, the high rentals there are making life difficult not only for Fokaciazz but also the outlets. But I am sure if Fokaciazz moves out of In Orbit Mall it will surely find a place somewhere in the city, Fokaas are just too good.