Showing posts with label plantain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plantain. Show all posts

Thursday, July 18, 2013

French Fry Diary 504: Kobe Grill & Buffet


The sign went up over a month before they opened. Kobe Grill Sushi & Seafood Buffet in big red neon letters. Everyone was talking about the new place opening up in what was currently a dead strip mall, even the K-Mart and SuperFresh had vacated. There was nothing here, nothing but the big red neon sign, and folks working tirelessly inside to renovate and construct. Now, after less than a month open, the sign reads Kobe Grill Sushi & Seafood uffet. That's not a good omen.

When you walk in there is a quite beautiful lobby entrance, fountain, sculpture, and water wall between the lobby and actual restaurant. I should say up front, this place was way fancier than the buffets I have been to, even at the casinos. This place was huge, and despite what it says on Foursquare, it wasn't all that crowded. Maybe the novelty and newness has worn off after a month? I know that the sign maintenance has.

As soon as we were seated, and had our drink order taken, they brought us lobster, two halves of lobster, one for each of us. I guess it was free half-lobster night. I'm not a eating-the-inside-of-a-fish-thing's-scary-armor-skin-type guy, so I passed. They took mine away, and I couldn't help but wonder what they did with it. I hope it didn't end up on someone else's plate. The Bride wasn't too thrilled with hers, and didn't eat much.

The buffet was not large. It was spread out over a large area, but really, not all that much offered, and for catastrophically picky eater me, not all that much either. On my first foray into the buffet (or uffet), I got buttered potatoes and sweet fried plantains. Both were very good, and the potatoes were very soft and well cooked buttered wedges of potato, succulent. These were very good, two thumbs up. I got seconds on those babies. However the French fries were regular cut frozen fries, which seemed to have lived beneath the heat lamps for much longer than I would to think about. Not good.

There was grilled steak available but it didn't seem like anyone was ready cook any new for you. No, scratch that, they seemed unwilling to. We also seemed to have multiple people waiting on us due to the lack of crowd. We couldn't find butter or knives. Is this the TSA? Some of the food was very good, and some really not, and the customer service was also not, despite being plentiful. And when I say really not, I mean really really not good. This was really not a good experience.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Nendran Chips

These aren't your average everyday chips, this video, and the accompanying description from FIXOVISION tell you all about it:



If you have been if you are from South of India you will for sure recognize the Kerala Nendran chips. It is one of the popular snacks in Kerala. It is also called variously as "Nendrangna Chips", "Upperi" or "Kaya Varuthathu".

One generally snacks when not hungry enough or for just time pass. But the any time snack of "Nendran Chips" is purely entertainment.

The humble Nendran Chips is the most popular of all the plantain products. The Manjeri Nendran is the best suited for making the crispy, crumbly chips.

Deep fried in Coconut oil and seasoned with salt, it beats hollow any other type of snack (chips that is).

Any visit to my home town in Palghat (Palakkad) Kerala is not complete without buying loads of this stuff, both for our consumption and give away. Last week when I was at Palghat for the annual Kalpathy Ratholsavam (temple car festival), I was amazed to find a mechanical device doing the same job as the chip maker did. Slicing the raw banana into fine, even, thin and well engineered pieces, and putting them directly into the frying "uruli" filled with fresh coconut oil.

As if by magic, the pink Nendrans fall into the oil pan and emerge a crispy yellow. Too good to see and eat.

Dont even think about salt intake or you LDL levels. Grab a handful and start munching :))


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