(This post is long because I am bored to edit myself but you may read because you a. Really love me, b. Really like this blog, c. I crack a bunch of jokes somewhere in the middle d. I will hunt you down and ask you details that will then prove you have not read a word, post-which, I shall strangle you)
Hello bhai bandhuon,
This blog post is dedicated to perfectly common people, who read perfectly common things online. You, who lead simple lives and you, who come here for a couple of recipes and to read some of my ranting, you, who have a FB and perhaps a defunct Twitter account and who do not quite give a damn about such things as social media outreach programmes that have taken most corporates by storm...this blog post is to tell you that you ROCK. Coz you keep it real and unlike how mine is quickly turning out to be, your life is about good food and its pursuit.
Mine...? Mine has turned into the pursuit of great recipes and trying to save myself from the aftermath of a shoddily scripted communication and outreach programme crafted by a not-so-interested Creative and Social Media team servicing restaurants (creative and social guys, if you don't like it, this is the time to rethink your career paths).
These days, every restaurant is out to get us bloggers to come review their food. May be a tasting, may be a contest or some meet and greet thing - go figure what that means - so we can write (hopefully) decent things about them, earn them some genuine backlinks for free...and in general, create a buzz among their target audience.
Bloggers outreach programmes are the latest bandwagon and everybody is leaping on to one but guess what...?
It is NOT meant for everybody. Especially if you are a restaurant that isn't very sure about its food. Just like Corniche in Bandra West. Ask why? Because:
- If your food is bad, we are going to say it. In clear, curt words.
- A bunch of people are going to read it.
- A bunch of what you call social influencers and evangelists are gonna share it.
- It's going to kick your reputation. If it was good previously, hello, we damage it. If there wasn't much to begin with, oops, you have negative balance.
- Food bloggers are great cooks/chefs and/or voracious food explorers and Matt Preston is their big Daddy so baby, we know our food and we now have lines straight out of MasterChef Australia to throw at you, savvy?
This means, if you are conducting an outreach programme for us food bloggers, you make sure of the basics:
- Great service
- Great food
- Hygiene
- Timing
- Ability to take feedback
You know what you should NEVER do? ASK the blogger for a positive review, like a certain agency asked The Big Bhookad to do and he lashed out about it on his blog.
That is all. Simple no? We are not asking for anything special. Every paying customer expects that for his money so if you cannot do it for us, who you invited to talk and write about you, I wonder how you will do it for them?
So, a bunch of food bloggers went to Corniche, where we, for the first 20 minutes of waiting, had no clue what we would be doing. Why did we go, you ask? Well, coz we knew the bunch coming and wanted to hang out, an excuse just helped.
We met the PR team, they told us it was going to be a monsoon special cooking session with their executive chef, Amit Chaudhary and his sous chef (whose name I have most unfortunately forgotten to etch in my flu-ridden memory - oh yeah, did I mention I am down with the flu? Be nice to me, send me cupcakes NOW). The idea was to use seasonal produce and things that would be easy to digest while still keeping the yummy factor high.
So we all settled down and the live counter came alive. The Chef taught us how to make:
- Wild Mushroom Soup (soup)
- Tangerine Chicken (starter)
- Greek Salad (salad)
- Penne Amatriciana with Bacon (main course)
- Chicken Risotto (main course part 2)
So...Prasanna, the husband, quickly noticed that we were going to eat two things; a soup and a salad. Four vegetarians among the bloggers but you know what...we are amiable folks, we can pay for our dinner too, so we did not object. We also noticed - no dessert. Dessert has no seasons, folks.
BUT, we sat through it. The chef made:
The Wild Mushroom Soup. This was yummy. Not too earthy, which puts me off coz it makes me feel the mud has not been washed off the mushroom. P ate it too (whoa!) coz he said it did not have real mushrooms floating around (meaning, it was cream of mushroom, pureed, get it?). He quite liked it too and the parmesan was working its magic on him anyway so why complain?
The Tangerine Chicken. Most people said they could not taste the tangerine at all, the citrus flavour did not hit anybody. The chicken was pre-grilled, which had dried it out. I did not eat it of course, but I am not blind yo. And the leaves you see in the photo? Well, they looked just as bad in real life so I would not have eaten a huge load of leaves with my starter.
The Greek Salad. Well, we LOVED the dressing. I can eat this everyday but too little feta. I mean, the whole point behind why I love salads isn't just the biting freshness and crunchiness of the raw veggies, but the luscious bites of feta you get, like little bursting surprises. We hardly got any feta in ours.
The pasta...well, nobody gets al dente right. Corniche is one of those too but they do this on purpose because Indians prefer their pasta overcooked. What the hell? Would I like it if the Australians ate our Sambar half cooked? Hell no! There should at least be an attempt to educate, eh? Point in case, Little Italy and Out Of The Blue, both serve their pasta perfectly al dente and nobody seems to complain. Make it delicious, we will grow used to the right texture.
I will also point out here that P was very miffed when a load of bacon went into the pasta. He was hoping there would be one veg main course. So miffed that post Corniche, we went straight to Out Of The Blue and dug into some Penne 4 Cheese. Hah!
The risotto. India is clearly risotto hell so far. I am yet to find one place that gets it right - the only one time I ate it when it was perfect was in a little eatery in Hyderabad whose name I have forgotten and which later on, shut down. So much for perfect risotto :/
This risotto looked dry to me. Did not eat, had chicken in it. Some of us bloggers complained that it looked underdone but the version they finally got to eat seemed better. I am none the wiser. There was a crusty, crispy two cheese flat biscotti thing going with the risotto that we liked from the cooking table but loathed when we ordered more on the side - it was burnt, and burnt cheese is bitter as hell.
I have just few redeeming things to say about this evening - friends got to meet, got to eat, muft ka if not damn good food, went to Out Of The Blue later for their mind-numbingly awesome Peanut Butter Chocolate Fondue and that pasta P and I had. That apart, not much to say. Would I go to Corniche? I am not sure at all. Would I recommend you go? Well, I will let the people who ate ALL the food do the talking.
Ashrita aka CaramelWings
Shirin aka FoodChants
Gaurav Jain (who says he will do the review soon - he had just soup and he wasn't happy abt it)
Amrita Kaur aka LifeKiRecipe
Shivani aka Shivzi
Sunayan aka Culinary Muse
Hello bhai bandhuon,
This blog post is dedicated to perfectly common people, who read perfectly common things online. You, who lead simple lives and you, who come here for a couple of recipes and to read some of my ranting, you, who have a FB and perhaps a defunct Twitter account and who do not quite give a damn about such things as social media outreach programmes that have taken most corporates by storm...this blog post is to tell you that you ROCK. Coz you keep it real and unlike how mine is quickly turning out to be, your life is about good food and its pursuit.
Mine...? Mine has turned into the pursuit of great recipes and trying to save myself from the aftermath of a shoddily scripted communication and outreach programme crafted by a not-so-interested Creative and Social Media team servicing restaurants (creative and social guys, if you don't like it, this is the time to rethink your career paths).
These days, every restaurant is out to get us bloggers to come review their food. May be a tasting, may be a contest or some meet and greet thing - go figure what that means - so we can write (hopefully) decent things about them, earn them some genuine backlinks for free...and in general, create a buzz among their target audience.
Bloggers outreach programmes are the latest bandwagon and everybody is leaping on to one but guess what...?
It is NOT meant for everybody. Especially if you are a restaurant that isn't very sure about its food. Just like Corniche in Bandra West. Ask why? Because:
- If your food is bad, we are going to say it. In clear, curt words.
- A bunch of people are going to read it.
- A bunch of what you call social influencers and evangelists are gonna share it.
- It's going to kick your reputation. If it was good previously, hello, we damage it. If there wasn't much to begin with, oops, you have negative balance.
- Food bloggers are great cooks/chefs and/or voracious food explorers and Matt Preston is their big Daddy so baby, we know our food and we now have lines straight out of MasterChef Australia to throw at you, savvy?
This means, if you are conducting an outreach programme for us food bloggers, you make sure of the basics:
- Great service
- Great food
- Hygiene
- Timing
- Ability to take feedback
You know what you should NEVER do? ASK the blogger for a positive review, like a certain agency asked The Big Bhookad to do and he lashed out about it on his blog.
That is all. Simple no? We are not asking for anything special. Every paying customer expects that for his money so if you cannot do it for us, who you invited to talk and write about you, I wonder how you will do it for them?
So, a bunch of food bloggers went to Corniche, where we, for the first 20 minutes of waiting, had no clue what we would be doing. Why did we go, you ask? Well, coz we knew the bunch coming and wanted to hang out, an excuse just helped.
We met the PR team, they told us it was going to be a monsoon special cooking session with their executive chef, Amit Chaudhary and his sous chef (whose name I have most unfortunately forgotten to etch in my flu-ridden memory - oh yeah, did I mention I am down with the flu? Be nice to me, send me cupcakes NOW). The idea was to use seasonal produce and things that would be easy to digest while still keeping the yummy factor high.
So we all settled down and the live counter came alive. The Chef taught us how to make:
- Wild Mushroom Soup (soup)
- Tangerine Chicken (starter)
- Greek Salad (salad)
- Penne Amatriciana with Bacon (main course)
- Chicken Risotto (main course part 2)
So...Prasanna, the husband, quickly noticed that we were going to eat two things; a soup and a salad. Four vegetarians among the bloggers but you know what...we are amiable folks, we can pay for our dinner too, so we did not object. We also noticed - no dessert. Dessert has no seasons, folks.
BUT, we sat through it. The chef made:
The Wild Mushroom Soup. This was yummy. Not too earthy, which puts me off coz it makes me feel the mud has not been washed off the mushroom. P ate it too (whoa!) coz he said it did not have real mushrooms floating around (meaning, it was cream of mushroom, pureed, get it?). He quite liked it too and the parmesan was working its magic on him anyway so why complain?
The Tangerine Chicken. Most people said they could not taste the tangerine at all, the citrus flavour did not hit anybody. The chicken was pre-grilled, which had dried it out. I did not eat it of course, but I am not blind yo. And the leaves you see in the photo? Well, they looked just as bad in real life so I would not have eaten a huge load of leaves with my starter.
The Greek Salad. Well, we LOVED the dressing. I can eat this everyday but too little feta. I mean, the whole point behind why I love salads isn't just the biting freshness and crunchiness of the raw veggies, but the luscious bites of feta you get, like little bursting surprises. We hardly got any feta in ours.
The pasta...well, nobody gets al dente right. Corniche is one of those too but they do this on purpose because Indians prefer their pasta overcooked. What the hell? Would I like it if the Australians ate our Sambar half cooked? Hell no! There should at least be an attempt to educate, eh? Point in case, Little Italy and Out Of The Blue, both serve their pasta perfectly al dente and nobody seems to complain. Make it delicious, we will grow used to the right texture.
I will also point out here that P was very miffed when a load of bacon went into the pasta. He was hoping there would be one veg main course. So miffed that post Corniche, we went straight to Out Of The Blue and dug into some Penne 4 Cheese. Hah!
The risotto. India is clearly risotto hell so far. I am yet to find one place that gets it right - the only one time I ate it when it was perfect was in a little eatery in Hyderabad whose name I have forgotten and which later on, shut down. So much for perfect risotto :/
This risotto looked dry to me. Did not eat, had chicken in it. Some of us bloggers complained that it looked underdone but the version they finally got to eat seemed better. I am none the wiser. There was a crusty, crispy two cheese flat biscotti thing going with the risotto that we liked from the cooking table but loathed when we ordered more on the side - it was burnt, and burnt cheese is bitter as hell.
I have just few redeeming things to say about this evening - friends got to meet, got to eat, muft ka if not damn good food, went to Out Of The Blue later for their mind-numbingly awesome Peanut Butter Chocolate Fondue and that pasta P and I had. That apart, not much to say. Would I go to Corniche? I am not sure at all. Would I recommend you go? Well, I will let the people who ate ALL the food do the talking.
Ashrita aka CaramelWings
Shirin aka FoodChants
Gaurav Jain (who says he will do the review soon - he had just soup and he wasn't happy abt it)
Amrita Kaur aka LifeKiRecipe
Shivani aka Shivzi
Sunayan aka Culinary Muse
Well written!! We as the food blogging community must not be taken for granted. If they want to get a good word out they have to be hospitable and give us a good service (which should be the case with any customer that walks in to their restaurant). Despite pathetic PR and a haphazardly planned outreach, Corniche has their work cut out for them.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with you on that. The second session was a load better and they were pretty cool to get back for a feedback session though.
ReplyDelete