Monkey Bar all across India has launched a very unique festival – ‘One Bowl Winter’. What a fabulous way to welcome winter, with a curation of 12 hearty one-bowl meals that will take you back in time! We always crave for comfort food and what better way than indulging in some of our favorite evergreen meal choices.

We’ve all grown up having sumptuous meals cooked by our mums and built our palates around it. With a growing percentage of population living away from home and having a challenging work-life, it’s hard to get hold of a meal that satisfies our soul. With ‘One Bowl Winter’ promotion that is active in New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata & Mumbai, you can leave it to the great chefs of Monkey Bar, to give you an experience of a lifetime.

Make no mistake when I say that 1 bowl is all you need! Each bowl has great ingredients that truly pack a punch. Some come with accompaniments that are even more dear to us than the actual dish itself. It’s all about igniting that spark in you, to reminisce the good food from your past.

Cocktails

“All good things start with a glass of cocktail”. And as oblivious as we were as to who told this, we felt it was the right thing to do 🙂 We picked form their usual menu of cocktails. Top picks were Mangaa and Hipster Smash. The lovely Aam Panna in the Mangaa made it my favorite drink of the afternoon. Hipster smash is like this beautiful girl from your High School; so fine to look at and probably just as devilish with great potent alcohol mix. The watermelon cube is not really a freshly cut cube of watermelon fruit, but is a frozen ice slush made from watermelon juice. This was a big surprise though 🙂

One Bowl Winter Options

What I’ll probably do is list down the meals in the order of my preference 🙂

The best bowl from the ‘One Bowl Winter’ for me was the Kashmiri Yakhni. Succulent mutton in a yoghurt spiced curry, served with a saffron pulao. This dish is really dreamy and one must not forget to order this while the promotion lasts until the end of this year!

Panch Phoron & Kashundi Maach was that 1 dish that I was most looking forward to. I love mustard because I spent 10 years of my life in Orissa, which along with West bengal in the Eastern part of India cook food using Mustard oil. The taste of this dish brings me back to those days where I would indulge in some fine fish made with mustard. Kashundi is West Bengal’s famous Mustard sauce. Seer (Surmai) fish cooked with this Kashundi with accompaniments like brinjal and Gobindobhog rice.

Sesame Teriyaki Chicken was a bowl with some beautiful teriyaki glazed chicken on a bed of sticky rice with a portion of kimchi and broad beans.

Nagarjuna Inspired Chilli Chicken is for those South Indian fans who love their chilli chicken. Served with Malabar Parantha and plaintain chips, its probably the most fulfilling meal out of all the options.

Kadhi Chawal is not something that I was familiar with while growing up, but since my stay in Orissa, this was one more dish that I started to bother my mum to make at home! Pakoras in spicy yoghurt curry, served with crispy lady’s finger, papad, fried aloo, spicy onions, radish salad and chutney. I simply loved the dish along with all those amazing accompaniments!

Rajma Chawal is easily the most favorite meal for people in North India. I had a close friend in a neighbor whose mum made some of the finest Rajma Chawal that one could ever have. Wha do they say about setting standards when you have something for the first time. It may well be the worst tasting Rajma Chawal, but for you that’s how it’s supposed to taste, cos you’ve established the taste on your palate! Here too, it tasted quite extraordinary.

Goan Xacuti is chicken cooked in red chili and other spices, served with barnyard millets. This was fiery and went very well with the millets. Interestingly, this was the first time I ever had millets! Probably not my cup of tea, but worth a try 🙂

A few other bowls that you can try, (which I didn’t) are :

Wild Mushroom Khichdi, which is a dish with slow-cooked mushrooms in a creamy daal khichdi.

Korean Bibimbap is a spicy gochujang steak served with pink sticky rice. This was a crowd favorite for those who eat beef!

Moroccan Vegetable Tagine is an interesting mix of veggies, chickpeas, prunes, almond, olives with couscous za’atar and fresh mint.

Desserts

All good meals must end with desserts!

We tried 3 of their 4 desserts and were mightily impressed with all of them!

My personal favorite being the Old Monk & Nutella Cake!

All of these ‘One Bowls’ are priced between 280 & 420 INR, which is a superb pricing point, when it comes to actually delivering beautifully paired meals.
So, head to any of the Monkey Bars in India between 15-Nov-2017 and 15-Jan-2018 to get a chance to try the ‘One Bowl Winter’ 🙂