Mindblowingly fabulous to scientific nightmares. I’ve experienced it all. Call it ‘Avant Garde cuisine’, ‘culinary scientific shenanigans’ ‘use of physics and chemistry in cooking’ or ‘molecular gastronomy’ My first experience of it was at the pioneering El Bulli – the Spanish wizard Ferran Adria’s mind-blowing restaurant near Barcelona. It teased my intellect and pampered all my senses. UK’s Heston Blumenthal followed it up in Fat Duck. Los Angeles Bazaar by Jose Andres (playful and fun) Gaggan in Bangkok (love the way he scientifically interprets Indian food). However, New York’s Wylie Dufresne’s WD 50 (awful) Spain’s Andoni Luis Aduriz’s Mugaritz (ghastly) were so intent on the audacious flavour combinations, and cerebral shenanigans that they neglected what is most important to the diner: tasty food.
So when Cardiff’s highly celebrated and awarded Indian chef Stephen Gomes sets up his Chemistry 101 in Lower Parel, I go with mixed feelings.
Decor
Located in the corporate jungle of Lower Parel, it’s wooden floored, two levels are sparsely done up (with a few test tubes and the like) almost deliberately so as to force focus on the food.
Food
Molecular
Innovative presentations, foams, fumes, air, bubbles, unusual mixtures and textures, deconstruction, splashes of colour, spherifications… You name it and chef Gomes weaves his molecular magic on Indian food. In their signature Atlantis served in a square glass bowl, flash grilled prawns are mellow with a moilee veloute, edible sand, and picturesque with a seashell meringue, foam and edible flowers. Can Caprese Salad be tasty with a makhani dressing and rasam? Chef Gomes ensures it is, he adds a quivering air balloon of mozzarella, balsamic vinegar pearls, and olive oil soil to it. We recommend their Smoked Chicken Roll, Paneer 3 States, ADIDAS Chicken too. Many a molecular fun cocktail too.
Classics
There is a happy balance. The classic dishes are retained in their original form, with a little twist here and there. Robustly spiced Kaleji is served with miniature 20 ladipav, as is the delicious Misal. Authentic Lamb Biryani topped with a Raita Ravioli. Tasty Maa Ki Daal too.
Minus Points
Some of the dishes are brilliantly presented, but low on taste. The bhelpuri is chilled to perfection with liquid nitrogen, there’s Jetchill pani-puri and dahiwada ravioli. But they lack the chatpatta punch and flavour, Ditto for the overdone deep fried chicken lollipops. Though innovatively presented, the desserts fail to hit the sweet spot. The champagne jelly saffron and cinnamon pannacotta is a grey unappetising ball and Cariad (white chocolate lavender, orange chocolate and powdery chocolate brownie) is avoidable. There doesn’t seem to be any sound proofing at all. Too noisy.
My Point
We dine here on a rained out Tuesday night and it is rocking and packed with youngsters. Aniket and Anupam Mayekar’s Chemistry 101 has obviously caught Mumbai’s imagination. It’s a wise move to add on classics to the Molecular gastronomy menu. The fact, that inspite of Chef Gomes being back in Cardiff, Chef Manoj has kept up the standards is commendable. A few of the dishes do sacrifice taste to gimmickry and the room is just too noisy. However, what is truly commendable is that Chemistry 101 pushes against the envelope of conformity and produces Indian food that’s playful and joyful. Result? A noisy Fun gastro bar! Jai ho!
Critic reviews are anonymous and all bills are paid by them.
Soul City is an effort to coalesce the sounds of soul, funk and disco. Bill Brewster is a DJ, record collecter and musician. He has brought a unique sensitivity to some of the world#39;s most hallowed club and festival stages and has long been a trusted hand at the DJ console. He will be supported by 2Sensitive, comprising Yohann Jamsandekar and Abhi Meer, who perform hybrid dance music sets, and DJ and journalist Kenneth Lobo aka LoboCop.
Entry: Free
Explore your creativity and express yourself through art with the Bombay Drawing Room. The workshop will be a guided session on knife painting and will shed light on the basic strokes and techniques. Participants will be encouraged to use this information to make their own creations as well. No prior painting experience is required and necessary materials will be provided at the venue.
Tickets: Rs 1,950
A culmination of the two-year-long Poets Translating Poets project initiated by the Goethe-Institut Mumbai, the Poets Translating Poets festival will bring together poets from Germany and across South Asia for a three-day celebration of multiculturalism and diversity that’s packed with poetry readings, film screenings, panel discussions, installations and photo exhibits.
What It Is
The Poets Translating Poets project was launched in 2014 by the Goethe-Institut Mumbai in collaboration with the Goethe-Institutes in South Asia and the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin to promote a cultural exchange, by creating a platform for poets from Germany and South Asia to translate each other’s works. It has brought together 51 poets from across 20 languages through events across Germany as well as nine ‘poetry encounters’ in Dhaka, Karachi, Colombo, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Gangtok. The results of this mammoth project have also been documented and are accessible online - free of cost.
What To Expect
Day 1
The festival kicks off on November 25th with a street performance aka the Mumbai Tea Party. Poets including Annie Zaidi, Abdul Rasheed, Orsolya Kalasz, Hendrik Jackson and Janhavi Acharekar will perform works in German, Marathi, English, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu and Hindi at five venues across the city – Lower Parel, Mahalaxmi, Colaba Causeway, CST and Dalal Street. The Goethe-Institut at Fort will host a photography exhibition of works by Atul Dodiya that have been influenced by Gujarati poetry and images by various photographers inspired by poems from the project. Visitors can also check out Wordscape, an audio-visual installation by sound designer and composer Udit Duseja, which explores the diversity of regional languages from South Asia and Germany. The festival will formally open in the evening with a discussion by founders and supporters of the project, followed by a Liederaband concert that pays tribute to the eponymous German tradition where musicians would sing songs inspired by poetry.
Day 2
Coinciding with India’s Constitution Day, day two is dedicated to poetry of resistance and peace, secularism and freedom of thought and expression. Several discussions are scheduled through the day, with highlights that include The Culture of Poetry in South Asia, Women Writing in Germany and South Asia, Poetry in Conflict and Language Communities in Mumbai. There will also be poetry readings by participants in the project, as well as a performance of different poetry traditions of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Kerala by Dalit poet Sukirtharani, Marathi folk artist Dhammrakshit Randive and the Yalgaar Collective. The day will end with a performance of works by Kashmiri, Malayali, Tamil, Gujarati and Marathi poets set to musical compositions.
Day 3
The final day will feature panel discussions and workshops that explore poetry’s relationship with others forms of the arts. At Mausam Hai Shayarana, Abbas Tyrewala and Uditanshu Mehta will look at the role of poetry in Hindi cinema, while poets Rochelle D’silva, Ulrike Almut and Rajshekhar will decode the rising popularity of spoken word poetry. Chaired by Swanand Kirkire, The String Song will feature musicians and poets and examine the relationship between poetry and musical traditions in different languages and culture. We’re also looking forward to the session on poetry in the digital age, which will shed light on how poets can make use of resources such as online communities, e-journals, apps, etc. Attendees can also expand their skills through a workshop on how to present and enact poetry through music by German writer and editor Nicolai Kobus, and a session on translating an image into a poem conducted by Sylvia Geist. The festival closes with rousing jazz performance by the Melt Trio, a German jazz band, whose programme will include improvised compositions to poems by Nicolai Kobus and Rochelle D’silva.
When: November 25th – November 27th, 10 am onwards
Where: Goethe-Institut, NCPA, Edward Theatre
Entry: Free
Click here for the complete schedule.
Music: Dmitri Shostakovich
Choreography: Yuri Grigorovich
Cast: The Bolshoi Principals, Corps de Ballet
This presentation is a screening of the ballet performance The Golden Age by the internationally acclaimed Bolshoi Ballet. In a seaside town, where business and mafia are flourishing, The Golden Age cabaret is the favourite nightly haunt of dancers, bandits and young revellers, where the young fisherman Boris falls in love with Rita, a beautiful dancer, who is also the friend of a local gangster. A satire of Europe during the Roaring Twenties, the show dazzles with its jazzy score and lively performances replete with mad rhythms, vigorous chase scenes and decadent cabaret numbers.
Tickets: Rs 750
Tickets available at BookMyShow.com
Written and directed by: Satyajit Ray
Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Santosh Dutta, Siddhartha Chatterjee, Kushal Chakraborty
Mukul, a young boy, is haunted by memories of his previous life. He is taken to Dr Hajra, a parapsychologist, for treatment. On discovering some of Mukul#39;s drawings, Dr Hajra comes to suspect that a fortress in the drawings may be in Rajasthan. He decides to take Mukul on a trip to Rajasthan in the hope that it might be a cure. When Mukul is kidnapped by some bandits, the detective Feluda and his assistant Tapesh are engaged to recover the child.
Admission on a first-come, first-served basis. NCPA members will get preferential seating till 6.20 pm.
A spin-off from theatre director Roysten Abel#39;s acclaimed production The Manganiyar Seduction, the Manganiyar Classroom features 35 children from the Manganiyar community of musicians of Rajasthan. The unusual production will showcase their talent through a repository of song, dance and rhythm and is an attempt to highlight this rapidly diminishing traditon
Tickets: Rs 300 – Rs 570
Tickets available at BookMyShow.com
Written and directed by: Meherzad Patel
Cast: Danesh Irani, Darius Shroff, Pheroza Mody
Every relationship is unique. What works for one couple, doesn’t necessarily work for another. There is a process of trial and error before you reach a level of understanding. However, what if, at the start of the relationship, you lay your cards on the table and make a list of things you like, dislike, approve, disapprove. That is what this one couple did – they got into a relationship agreement.
Tickets: Rs 200 – Rs 400
Tickets available at BookMyShow.com
Directed by: Rasika Agashe Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub
Cast: Kumud Mishra, Rasika Agashe, Ajit Singh Palawat, Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub
Based on Long Day#39;s Journey into Night by American playwright Eugene O#39;Neill, Raat na Aaye is the story of a family devastated by its memories. Yashpal Singh Sahney is a legendary actor who was once a star of Indian theatre. His role in television gave him fame and money but ruined his acting career after that. His wife Bala has recently returned from a rehabilitation centre. Their youngest son Aayush might have cancer, while the elder son Raaj is a frustrated soap actor who only got into the industry because of his father’s influence. This play talks about the hypocrisy of familial bonds and true love between family members.
Tickets: Rs 200 – Rs 400
Tickets available at BookMyShow.com
Artist Shruti Nelson will exhibit works on fabric, wood and paper with intricate images inspired by nature. She uses natural elements such as marigold, hibiscus, flame-of-the-forest, fern, eucalyptus leaves, strawberries and rose to make colours and for textural imprints,.as well as traditional dyeing and printing techniques for her creations. Her art deals with the aspects of nature outside the human gaze and hints at the powerful narratives that often go unseen by us.
Born Baroda, Gujarat, Shruti Nelson’s trajectory in art follows her education in Zoology. Her works have been shown in a selection of curated exhibitions in India and abroad, with solo shows primarily atHacienda Gallery, Prithvi Gallery, Nazar Gallery and Apparao Galleries.
Over 15 emcees from Mumbai, Delhi and Pune will take to the stage to battle, cipher and perform. The line up for the battle includes Poetik Justis Vs MC Kode, Shreyas Vs Calm, Ankit Harchekarr Vs Encore ABJ and Rapture Vs Sai. Also catch performances by D’Evil, The Champloo Project, Seedhe Maut and Youngsta.
Entry: Rs 200
Jon Kennedy is a drummer and electronic musician from Manchester, England. His childhood in Stockport was by exposure to new and interesting music, and he cites Peter Frampton, Electric Light Orchestra, David Essex and Geoff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds”, along with more guitar-centric bands like Kiss and AC/DC as influences. His DJ style is varied but always geared towards the dancefloor.
Entry: Free
Kautuk Srivastava is an average guy whose life has been a series of misadventures that are hilarious to everybody who isn#39;t him. In this hour-long show, the writer and comedian mixes personal stories, astute observations and his inherent goofiness as he takes you through all the tragedies of his life – from losing the genetic lottery, bringing bad luck to every girl he asks out, unwittingly getting into street fights, having a beard before he was even a teenager, to the oppression he faces because he wears specs. The night will also feature comedian Joel D#39;souza as the opening act.
Tickets: Rs 250
Tickets available at BookMyShow.com
Sanjay Manaktala is a stand-up comedian raised in the United States and currently based in India. He is a former software engineer who loved the IT consulting lifestyle but ultimately found his calling in comedy. He has performed all over the world and for various festivals with some of the top comedians from India and abroad.
Tickets: Rs 499
Tickets available at BookMyShow.com
Join Sonali Thakker, Trupti Khamkar and Prashasti Singh for a hour of stand-up comedy completely free of testosterone... well almost. Admittedly, they do not know many women. But they do know all the funny ones.
Tickets: Rs 350
Tickets available at BookMyShow.com