Even if I no longer create long-form writeup on this blog, my love for food and travel hasn't come to an end. Quite the contrary! You can find recent updates from my continuing food and travel adventures on Instagram @shantanughosh.
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It’s been a long time since I wrote about the Pune dining scene. When I began this blog, there was no Zomato, Google couldn’t identify most restaurants in Pune, and there really was no good way to even locate new restaurants. Much traffic ended up at this blog from search engines as people searched for reviews and/or phone numbers. Zomato’s founder-CEO called me up one day to review their newly-introduced printed food guides for the city; he had to introduce himself since the company was pretty much unknown those days. Well, a decade has since passed. Zomato and Google Maps both do a decent job in identifying all food places worth visiting and even many that are not. There are thousands of reviews online (though fake reviews abound too!).
It had been a while since I had indulged in some fancy food at San Francisco and I wasn’t going to let this chance go. First, the stand-out Mourad which continues to earn its Michelin star. Like the Michelin guide puts it, "Chef Lahlou is at his best when reinterpreting modern Moroccan cuisine with ingredients such as za’atar, harissa, and dates.”
Mourad has striking interiors with its soaring ceilings, glowing columns, and Persian motifs on its flooring tiles. The chef’s menu was also perfect for me, and I waited in anticipation as they quickly brought in my glass of wine and the amuse that started me off on a modern Moroccan culinary journey.
I was in the United States to attend an AI conference. Luckily for me, it was being held in downtown San Francisco, a location that is chock-full of my favourite restaurants. This trip turned out to be a perfect mix of business and pleasure. I had been missing steaks for a while, and this also gave me a chance to try out some of the city’s better steakhouses.
Its been a while since I have reviewed a restaurant and for good reason. Almost at the same time as I begun this blog, I had also begun jet-setting to foreign lands. As I discovered a multitude of cuisines, restaurants, and food habits across geographies, I got interested in the stories behind the plates I enjoyed. Pune too began growing as the software industry thrived bringing with it a boom in restaurants and bars. During the initial years, I wrote many a review of restaurants I visited and liked.
Regular readers of my blog will already know this: Emirates and Singapore Airlines are my two favourite airlines for international travel. This time we were on Singapore Airlines which meant transiting through the always-welcoming Changi Airport. We had a pretty long stop-over here and wanted to make the most of it, so we decided to take advantage of a transit visa to head into the city, dine at Jumbo Seafood and take a leisurely stroll in the cool breeze on the water’s edge.
