Bombay Foodie

Sometime last week, I flew into Chennai, spent a day doing meetings and made a long trek to reach my hotel at 7 pm. At this point, most people would order room service and crawl into their beds. But I had friends who were heading out to dinner to Murugan Idli. I'd never heard the name before but it came highly recommended and I am easily persuaded. Thus came a one hour cab ride in Chennai traffic and a bit of a wait outside the T Nagar branch of this famous chain. Then we sat down and the world turned a whole lot brighter. The moment you sit down, they spread a banana leaf in front of you and spoon in 4 kinds of chutneys. These are your usual coconut and tomato relishes though I was particularly taken in by the tamarind one. From here on, I left it to my friend to order. The folks at Murugan don't linger so just a few minutes after we ordered, we had food coming onto our banana leaf plates. The plain idli is super soft but just you wait until you taste idli-podi. It'

It's almost the end of first week of January which means that most new year resolutions to eat healthy and lose weight have already been broken. But if you are still going strong or will like to get back on the wagon, this is the right time to talk about a fun way to eat healthy - grain bowls. Filling and full of flavour, grain bowls offer so many possibilities that you will never be bored. Plus, unlike salads, these can be warm or cold depending on your liking, the mood and the weather. So what's a grain bowl. It's half a bowl of cooked grains, combined with an equal quantity of some combination of proteins, vegetables and other toppings, plus a dressing that brings the whole thing together. The possibilities, as I said, are endless so let's put together a template for what a good, hearty grain bowl should look like for your lunch. Start with a healthy grain: Millets, quinoa and wheatberries are my favourites but you could also go for brown rice or couscous. Co