What we ate this September?

Another illustration piece I thoroughly enjoyed doing! Burrp, yet again. Sep-Oct 2012.

http://know.burrp.com/food-dining/what-we-ate-in-september/44934

If food is art, art could be used to describe food too, thinks Sandhya Ramachandran and summarizes the must-eats on the menus with her illustrations.

 

Domates Piperies Gemiste @ Kryptos, Khader Nawaz Khan Road

Prepared by braising red and yellow sweet peppers with tomatoes, pine nuts, mint and basmati rice tossed in olive oil, its aroma and taste are simply unforgettable!

Vaazha ilai meen varuval and gulab jamun @ Parambriym, Nungambakkam

Plantain leaf wrapped fish fry or the vaazhai ilai meen varuval stays put in our heart for being fresh and having a flavour we cannot get over yet. The gulab jamun is fit enough for royalty to feast on!

Filter kaapi, panjambridham grillwich, spicy vada holes @ The Madaras Kafé, Nungambakkam

The kaapi, for being a perfect brew which keeps us coming back for more; the panjambridham (fruit mix in jaggery) grillwich for being the best innovation of an Indian-version of a pancake and the spicy vada holes for a fantastic finger food – three must eats at this innovation hub.

Paneer Sukha @Ras Bhojan, T.Nagar

The succulent paneer with crispy edges looked like cubes crafted by an artist. In taste, the paneer sukha starter made us want to forget the rest of the menu and just want to repeat orders of it!

Now this is what we call ‘we draw our food, and eat it too’!

Finding the perfect fit: Beer Personalities

LINK: http://know.burrp.com/drinks-and-nightlife/beer-personalities-illustrated/44678

There is a perfect beer for everyone. Sandhya Ramachandran has a few suggestions.

You can tell a crow by its caw and a person by his beer. Or so we’d like to believe. After some very fun research, we found a few fun combinations. Read on and see if any of these are true.

Home-brewer Hippie

If you’d rather grow your own barley and hand pick hops you must be the home-brewer hippie. We are pretty sure you’ve staged a few protests, your home is flower-power paradise and free spirit means more than just one thing to you (pun completely intended). 

Corona Glory

You most probably love your friends, work hard and party even harder. How, you ask, do we know this? We think we’ve spotted you at a party,Coronain hand daring someone to a game of whiskey chasers. For you, this canary yellow drink is just about as bright and happy as sunshine itself.   

Cheer leader

Do you hoot for Sachin and root for Messi while watching the game on the big screen? If you do, we’re also sure you love your Bud, Coors and Kingfisher and can balance a bucket of chicken wings on your belly hands free. You’re also probably as loyal to your beer as you are to your teams. 

The Tipsy Tipplers

You drink behind locked doors of empty classrooms and corridors of dingy college hostels. “We don’t need no education” plays in the background as you sneak in buckets of beer, sometimes diluted with water or soda. Quantity not quality matters here and everyone tops up from the communal bucket. If you fall into this category, call yourself the rebels with a cause – beer. 

Cosmo Connoisseur

If you have various sizes of snifter in your glassware cabin and you smell and swivel your beer before you drink it, this is you. If you have travelled far and wide to seek out one sip of the best and rare beers, you sure are the Cosmo Connoisseur we are talking about. You are a walking beer-cyclopaedia who can categorize beers in your sleep according to taste, aroma, colour, strength and then some.

Grab your drink irrespective of which one fits you and utter universal hail to beer – cin cin, salut, mabuhay and cheers!

 Illustrations: Sandhya Ramachandran

Beer glasses

A series of illustrations I did for burrp.com in Oct 2012. 

http://know.burrp.com/drinks-and-nightlife/chug-mugs/44634

Are you bored with the dimpled mugs beer is usually served in? Sandhya Ramachandran suggests beer glasses you should consider trying instead.

 Thistle cup

Perfect for sweet heavy-bodied brown ‘Scotch’ beers, these thistle-shaped glasses compliment the taste. The rounded bottom helps to swirl the beer well and agitate it, releasing an intense aroma. The flared top allows for easy drinking. If you always prided in being a beer connoisseur, refuse to drink from any cups but these.

Tankard

A tankard is a roughly cylindrical cup with a lid and is made of silver, pewter, glass, wood, ceramic or even leather. Stylish, yet full of old-world charm, these vessels have been around for over 2000 years.

Yard of Ale

A yard of ale or yard glass can carry almost 1.4 litres of beer making it the perfect glassware to get you tipsy in a hurry. Originating in England, this yard-long-glass was popular amongst stagecoach drivers and was often used in feasts and to raise a toast. Drinking a yard glass of beer is a popular pub game and, the record time clocked so far is, hold your breath, five seconds. There’s a show we’d like to watch.

Beer Boot

Legend has it that a Prussian General promised his soldiers to drink out of a beer boot if they were successful in battle. When they won the war, the smart General got a glass boot fashioned and drank out of it to keep his word. Some others narrate that during the First World War, German soldiers passed around a leather boot filled with beer as they could not source glasses. Drinking out of a boot became a symbol of luck.

Since then, beer fests around the world have people drinking out of glasses shaped like boots as a challenge. It is made out of manufactured pressed glass or mouth blown glasses.

Kwak

The Pauwel Kwak is an amber ale that has its own branded glass held in an upright wooden stand. It is said that the innkeeper Pauwel himself served coachmen who stopped by his brewery in this glass he designed. The bulb at the bottom stays filled for long and once air reaches the still-bulb, a large amount of beer gushes towards the drinker with a ‘kwak’ sound. Now this is drinking your ale and hearing it too.

Toby Jug

Now this is how we think one should be getting royally drunk. A Toby Jug or Philpot is a pottery jug originally shaped in the form of a seated English King, although these days you might even Fidel Castro or Charles Dickens. Some say that the name originates from a jovial drunk character Sir Toby Belch, from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night while others attribute it to a Yorkshire drinker, Henry Elwes, who was known as ‘Toby Fillpot’ or Philpot. There is an American Toby Jug Museum in Illinois.

So grab the coolest glass you can lay your hands on and redefine fashion when it comes to beer glasses. Chug away, in style, and celebrate the ‘spirit’ of Oktoberfest!

Illustrations: Sandhya Ramachandran