Dig into Varanasi’s chaats, and attend a chocolate workshop

A chocolate tasting workshop

Is there a better way to spend a weekend than attending a chocolate tasting workshop? The café-cum-chocolate factory Colocal is hosting weekend workshops at their outlets in Noida and Delhi. There’re guided tours of the factory for a behind-the-scenes experience of the chocolate-making process that involves roasting, tempering and moulding, among others. It will be followed by tastings of select single origin chocolates produced in India. Don’t go hungry.

Chaat for brunch?

If Varanasi is on the menu, there’s got to be chaat. On Sunday, at the JW Marriott Kolkata’s Varanasi Cuisine Brunch, dig into the addictive sour and spicy tamatar chaat and the appetising kachori sabzi. Then move to mains with the Varanasi-special nimona (spiced, mashed green peas) that would pair perfectly with hot puris or parathas. The complementing beverage menu has aam panna, kulhad chai and thandai. And, do not miss the cloud-like dessert malaiyo made with sweetened milk froth.

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Goa in Mumbai

The Goa bar Slow Tide made waves with a menu honouring the party community of the state in the seventies, eighties and nineties. On Friday, it will be at Akina in Mumbai for a bar-takeover featuring its signature cocktails. The drinks are inspired by people who shaped this culture. There are drinks like Acid Eric, Sailor Fred, Amsterdam Fred, among others. Perhaps their most famous drink is the clarified Acid Eric with Reposado, watermelon, yuzu and basil.

Pune-inspired high tea menu

Vada Pav, kanda bhajji (onion fritters) and kothimbir wadi (coriander cutlets) are on the new high-tea menu at Link Café, Sheraton Grand Pune Bund Garden Hotel. There are sweet treats too with hot jalebis and gujiyas. While the desserts could be considered festive specials, most of the menu is dedicated to warm and addictive monsoon delicacies and street foods of Pune as well as Mumbai.

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