Growing up our concept of Italian meant a mandatory Pizza take-out on fridays and birthdays or the occassional white sauce pasta that the mother whipped up on nights she didn't want to cook. It was hence, easy, declaring to your school friends while you filled up the box next to the "Your favorite cuisine" in their slam-books with a "Italian" or a "Chinese". Only when we moved out of home, started fending for ourselves that we realized there was more to Italian than just pasta or to Chinese than Chopseuy. But revelation or no revelation, Italian has really stuck on as a favorite. Something about the simplistic preparation that aims at celebrating the ingredients that go into it. The richness and the freshness. All the red, white and green of it. We are in love. So when we heard that the Italian wing of Westin Pune's restaurants, Prego was hosting a food fest to glorify the cuisine of the famous region Emilia Romagna in Northern Italy, we made a bee line to the sample the same. The seasoned chef Eraldo Colazzo took us on a food trail of his homeland through dishes and tastes that he ensured were authentic as it gets.The chef ensures all the ingredients are top notch right from the parmesan that has been cured for months and the 15 year old balsamic vinegar that lifts up any dish to another level.


The Prego in itself is a very elegant place to dine at. It's popularity shows as there are always tables filled with Italian loving folks. The wide space is interspersed with comfortable seating and a glass facade that overlooks the Westin property. There is a bar as well as a open view to the kitchen beyond where you can spy the chefs busy at work, churning out pasta, pulling out spaghetti into bowls and doing the last minute garnishing.

We were welcomed with a delicious drink of ginger extract and watermelon juice served with a slice of watermelon. It was great palate cleanser and was followed by an Amuse Bouche of beetroot doused in balsamic, herbs and Ricotta cheese. It looked as pretty as it tasted.


We started off with the MOZZARELLA CAROZZA which was a nice chunk of mozzarella cheese crumb fried and served with a side of greens. It had a spicy tomato sauce to go with it. The mozzarella, as expected was stringy and juicy. All the cheese lovers (me included) would love it. It was the richer and elegant-er cousin of the mozzarella cheese sticks.


LUGO, that followed was made up of Polenta in the base that's basically boiled cornmeal which was then crisped up and served with a flavorful pate of tuna on top. The capers garnishing the bite sized polenta made it look so elegant. Alas, I'm not the best advocate for fishes, tuna being my least favorite of the lot, but I could give you this; the reaction around the table was very favorable.


Another one of my favorites of the night was BOLOGNA. It had tortellini filled with savory mix of mushroom and taleggio cheese swimming in a bowl of vegetable bouillon. The broth or bouillon was filled with flavor and was downright delightful.


The hero of the menu was definitely the LUNA. It was a personal favorite of the chefs as well and conceptualized and prepared by Chef Eraldo himself, he confessed he was rather proud of it. And when we ate it we knew why. It was savory pie, much like pizza, but all the goodness was filled into the pastry and then baked in the wood fired ovens till it was golden brown. And what came out was heaven in a slice. The pastry was crispy and yet holding together the filling of parma ham, mascarpone, black truffle, mozzarella mixed in with truffle oil. Could you GET more Italian than this? Definitely, definitely try this guys.


SUZZARA was a dish that I'd love to eat for dinner any day. Mr.TKD is big on mushroom sauce and he can polish off Chicken Stroganoff single-handedly if given a chance. The SUZZARA had a delicious mushroom sauce too, dribbling over a perfectly cooked, juicy chicken fillet. It also had a scoop of impeccable mashed potatoes adequately spiced and smooth as it can get. To balance it all it had fresh, grilled vegetables like broccoli, carrots and zucchini. A great dinner option!


The COPPARO followed which was described as a potato cake. This main had spice and baked squares of potatoes topped with spirals of crispied vegetables like the carrot  and beetroot which made it look beautiful.

What took our breath away was the dessert. An art in itself, it had a slice of apple strudel with a fine dusting of cinnamon and vanilla cream and cinnamon sauce. Everything went so well and was so great I stole the rest of Mr.TKD's dessert as well. The strudel had great crispy pastry and the apple inside was fresh and perfect. The cinnamon made everything good to better.


We would recommend this fest a thumbs up. Do drop by for a taste and do, do, do, oh do try the LUNA. However, if you are really unable to attend the fest, don't lose heart because they are adding the LUNA to the regular menu as well! Yay! You might just bump into us gorging on the luna :D


So the EMILIA ROMAGNA festival ends on 28th of August, Sunday. Be there at Prego, Westin to witness Chef Eraldo's genius and do make sure to pass on a compliment if you loved it :)

This average looking spud, found predominantly across kitchens all over the world has a bad rap when it comes to health and fitness but potatoes are not going anywhere, are they? I mean what would life be without potatoes? Sure, it doesn't get all the attention it deserves but its everywhere! So it was about time somebody took it upon themselves to throwback the spotlight on the tuber.

In comes Murphies, brandishing the sinful looking baked jacket potatoes under Pune's nose. And Pune is starting to sniff back with appreciation. Spearheaded by Aman Talreja, Aniruddh Ahuja and Dhiren Khaturia, seemingly great lovers of the tuber, Murphies is quietly but surely changing the way Pune looks at a potato. With a menu that they have been perfecting almost over 2 years, the spud is surely the hero of the show.

The Kukkad Diaries walked in into Muphies, one late saturday afternoon, to check the place out. The eatery is bang on the middle of a cross-road, right at a spot that'd make it hard to miss. Spacious, with an additional outdoor seating, it looks like a place you could spend your weekends just mooching around being a couch potato (see what I did there? See?? Ok. I'll stop.)

The joint is very simplistic in design and bare walls and minimal decor. It just seems light, airy and cosy. Somewhere you could just have your potatoes in peace. You could sit by the bay windows on one side and play some Jenga or challenge your friends to a friendly game of Battleship or just read the day's newspaper. It also doesn't hurt that they have free wifi.


We were welcomed by Dhiren who practically rules the kitchens and manages things around the place. He helped us choose our menu for the day and recommended some house specials. The menu though brief and precise, holds a lot of promise and looks pretty exciting. We were a bit hungry when we got there but we might have seemed hungry too, because Dhiren got to the business of feeding us with vengeance. So we ended up having MUSHROOM CAPPUCINO soup, GERMAN SUPPE soup, PURPLE ISLAND SALAD, LOADED NACHOS, WAFFLE FRIES, CHEESE AND JALAPENO BITES, STEAK AND GRAVY murph and the BACON BITS AND MUSHROOM murph.

So apart from a complete hog-fest the visit proved to be almost educational. Dhiren is someone who is an authority on everything potatoes. He could give you a talk on the varieties of potatoes to be found in the different seasons, calorie count of a tuber to the best potato recipes while slowly feeding you into a food coma. It was a blessing he decided to dig into the goodness with us because we were starting to get worried with the sudden spike in our eating prowess. Because once you start eating those WAFFLE FRIES you simply can't stop.

Mr. TKD and me just couldn't get enough of the MUSHROOM CAPPUCINO. For someone who doesn't really dig mushroom soup, it might just have been one of the best I've tasted yet. It was rich and creamy and simply delicious.


GERMAN SUPPE is indulging soup loaded with bacon and potatoes. Its warm and filling. Though our scales were firmly tipped towards the mushroom soup, we'd accept it was a darn good soup.

PURPLE ISLAND salad was colorful and oh so fresh. It had crunchy veggies with sweet and sour and salty, all making up for a salad heaven. Also it made us a little bit less guilty about gulping down all those potatoes later.



Our favorite starters were the CHEESE AND JALAPENO BITES, crispy taters filled with gooey, stretchy cheese and melting into your mouth into a burst of flavor from the jalapeno. So sinful, so yum. We also met our food match in the WAFFLE FRIES. It just wouldn't be ignored. Potato chips cut into waffle shapes and fried, we couldn't solve the mystery of it's addictiveness. Bursting as we were from all the food yet the fries won't let us go. WAFFLE FRIES 1, TKD 0.



By the time we moved on to the Murphs, our body ratio charts must have read one thirds water and two thirds potatoes. But being gluttons of highest degree, we moved into the mains right after.

Now, a perfect baked jacket potato has characteristically crispy and crunchy outer skin and pillowy soft inner filling. Though it may seem horrific to health nuts to be eating so much "fatty" tubers yet its been shown that baked potatoes actually have 0g of fat and trans fat. Yes, they can add to the total carb intake of your diet yet its well within the recommended amount of carbs.


Another good reason to have these Murphs would be that they are simply amazing. The BACON BITS and MUSHROOM murph had a yummy crispy skin that we dug into with our hands and the bacon and mushroom loaded with the mashed insides and topped off with bubbling cheese made this my favorite murph.


The STEAK and GRAVY murph had pieces of steak in the filling and cheese on the top. The gravy that came with it was so good, making the whole dish an interpretation of a steak, gravy and mashed potato dish. Clever, huh?


The baked potatoes were really a revelation. The crispy skin and the interesting fillings really make the place a must try. Also did you know, they serve beer and are perhaps only one of the few places giving Buy One, Get One on BIRA right now. They also have a weekly special menu that you should really check out.


Murphies is a great place to hang out with your friends and get your potato fix. Murphs are here to stay and even though some may not get it, but it will grow on them anyway. What can we say, Haters gonna hate and Potatoes gonna potate!



P.S: A big shout out to Sonya for calling us over and introducing us to Murphies. A kukkadly thanks to Dhiren for taking such good care of us.