THE SYEDA SISTERS: Recipes

Freshest Food In Town: Vapiano Bahrain!

1/20/2015

Assalam alaikum to all our readers,

Today we'll be giving our first restaurant review. Our agents at O' talent, got us this delicious opportunity* to dine in at Vapiano, and try out their new menu!

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one had not dined well." - Virginia Wolf

-Where is it located?
Bahrain City Centre , 1st floor difficult to miss seeing it!

-What happens when you enter?
When we entered Vapiano, we were greeted by a pretty hostess she passed us two electronic cards and asked if it was our first time at Vapiano? We said yes, after which she politely gave us a quick idea of what the purpose of the card is and how one's suppose to use it.

Vapiano is the first waiter-less restaurant in Bahrain.

Yes, you read it right! Waiter-less service. Here, you go and order your food yourself and take it with you to your table when its ready and enjoy so it's complete self service! Our convenience is prioritized and that's one thing that we really loved!

-What to do?
First, you have to go up to either the Pasta, Pizza, or Salad station and order whatever you've liked from your menu and swipe your card across an e-reader that will record what you've ordered along with its price:

The Counter where all the magic happens! :)

Each staple food type have their corresponding food station when you can see your food cooked live in front of you. Once you've selected what you want, within 3-5 minutes your pasta, salad/anti pasta will be ready to eat. The pizza takes a good 5-10 minutes to get ready so Vapiano offers a buzzer (as seen below) to every customer which they can take with them to their table and wait ,once the buzzer starts vibrating, it means your pizza is popped out of the oven , hot and delicious!

The coolest device : A Pizza Buzzer!

Buzzing: When the pizza is ready!

Above the food stations is a black board (as you can see) with many interesting food quotes and drawings of food, celebrities and monuments, etc.

-What to eat?
Vapiano offers a wide range of staple Italian cuisine. So it was quite difficult to choose which dish to go with it. Below are few clicks of their new menu honestly the names of the dishes can be a little confusing at first but the friendly staff are always ready to help!

-How is the ambiance?
The restaurant is sprinkled with the smell of fresh rosemary and basil plants that are kept on everyone's high table along with three bottles of olive oil, chili oil and vinegar. Seating is very casual and very comfortable.
As fa as the ingredients of the dishes are concerned, they are all fresh and the pasta is made daily with fresh dough which is made out of non-dairy products every morning! They also have a pasta factory where pasta is made live everyday!

The beautiful collection of plants!

Olive tree!

Above the food stations is a black board (as you can see below) with many interesting food quotes and drawings of food, celebrities and monuments, etc.

There is also a dessert and juice bar area on the other side of Vapiano, soft drinks station where you swipe your card and order drool worthy Creme brulé, Tiramisu, Chocolate cake and much more.

Seating on one side, forgot to click the other side.

Each table has these.

-What We Ate?

On to the yummy part now: For Anti Pasti, we had Caprese which was made up of fresh rocket leaves, cherry tomatoes, big ball of buffalo mozzarella cheese drizzled olive oil & the combination was harmonious.

Caprese Salad.

For Pasta, from the Vapiano Della Casa section, we had Scampi E Spinaci with linguine pasta , which was tossed in basil pesto & cream, fresh baby spinach leaves and jumbo shrimps topped with grana padano cheese, black olives and oregano. This dish was amazing with every & the shrimps were cooked just right! Delicious!

Scampi E Spinaci Pasta.

For Pizza, we had BBQ chicken from the International Inspired section. This was the yummiest! It had big chunks of barbecued chicken, bruschetta tomatoes, smoked cheese, tomato sauce topped with a red onions and mozzarella.

BBQ Chicken Pizza!

Margherita pizza was our second choice from the Classico Italiano section. The thin crust was so good! covered in home-made tomato sauce base & mozzarella. It certainly was one margarita pizza that we haven't tasted before.

Margarita Pizza!

They have a wide range of juice and soft drinks to choose from , we went for the classic as you can see on the side.

Loved the old school bottles!

As for Desserts, they were complimentary for all the guests: It was Crema di Fragola made up of Mascarpone cheese mousse with strawberry's and mocha powder sprinkled on the top! Now, this one was drool worthy, very light yet filling!

Crema Di Fragola.

-How to leave?
At the exit, there's a counter at which one of the hosts will be waiting to swipe your card and your total bill due will appear , you pay and leave, a very quick and easy process no waiting at all!

Takeaway bag.

Conveniently packed.

Oh and we got our pasta packed to be taken away and were pleasantly surprised with the the packaging of the take away, a microwaveable container just like the Vapiano bowls. Simply Genius!

Chicken Alfredo.

What's our Verdict?
Overall the food, staff and a serene ambiance perfect for lunch or dinner after a hectic day at work or home.
We rate them 5 out of 5 stars & we'd Recommend you all to try it as soon as you can.

Take Care, Eat fresh and healthy!

Till the next post!

Love ,

The Syeda Sisters!

bahrain bloggers

Tutorial tuesday: Masala rolls

7/16/2014

Asalamualaikum sisters!

How's everybody fasts going? I've been fasting 15 hours a day & to be honest it isn't as tough as it sounds ^_^ the hunger pangs only begin an hr or 2 before we break our fasts & that's the best time to keep yourself busy with either reading the Quran or preparing Iftari :)

So since it's Ramadan & it's been months since I blogged any recipes or tutorials, today I am going to share a tutorial on how to make Masala rolls. What are masala rolls? Well as it's name suggest, masala rolls are like your average coiled Cinnabon rolls except with a different filling. We're sharing three different fillings for your rolls, each of them are delicious on their own. For this tutorial I'm using our Soft bun dough recipe that we posted earlier last year & had a great response too.

So without further due lets begin.

For the filling-

We haven't specified the quantity of each ingredient as it's up to you, how much you require.

Asian style-

Tomato ketchup

Chopped onions

Crushed Red chilli

Chopped fresh green chilli

Capsicum

Cilantro.

Italian style-

Cheese of your choice

Parsley

Oregano

Tomato ketchup

Olives

Mushrooms.

Middle eastern style-

Zaater

Olive oil.

Method-

First preheat your oven to 180 degrees. After proofing the dough give it a quick knead to make it shrink to its orginal form & then half the dough in two portions. 4 cups of flour is enough to make 2 rolled out dough base. Then Roll out your dough till it's quarter inch thick & spread ketchup or tomato paste over it.Then sprinkle the above ingredients for either of the Asian or Italian style masala rolls. As for the middle eastern style roll, if you've worked with Zaater before, you'll know it's a dry powder so it's mixed with olive oil to form a paste type texture. Spread that all over your bread and they're ready to roll.

Italian style

Now simply roll in the dough width wise (tightly) like you would roll a Swiss roll or sushi ^_^. After you're done, gently with the your palms roll it forward and backwards to elongate the roll slighty.

When you're done simple chop them into 1 inch thick slices. WARNING: this part might be slightly messy because the ketchup will try to ooze out!

Place all the slices side by side in a greased pan & with your fingers slighty push the rolls downwards like shown in the images

Then you pop it into the oven for 15-20 minutes or till you think they're done!

Et Voila! Your masala rolls are ready to enjoy!

Masala Rolls are a perfect addition to your Iftar meals & also a nice way to impress your guests & best of all the kids will love it!

We hope you liked today's easy peasy tutorial! Do give it a try and let us know how you did on the comment section below or on our Facebook page!👍

Till the next post,

Have a Blessed Ramadan

Remember us in your Prayers

Lots of love,

The Syeda Sisters

bahrain bloggers

RECIPE: Cheese fondue.

4/12/2014

Cake

Tutorial Tuesday: Checker Board Cake

10/01/2013

-Baba's Birthday cake

Asalamualaikum!

So its Tuesday again and we are blogging our 4th tutorial,

did you check out the previous 3 tutorials? if you haven't then click on the tutorial icon on our drop down bar and have a look!
We're really excited as always with today's tutorial ^_^
*Drum roll*
Checker Board Cake!

Checkerboard cake

Well the name says it all, A cake whose interior looks like a checker board!

Just in case you think it looks complicated let us assure you its so easy and simple to make and looks ridiculously cute, perfect for small occasions (y)

we've experimented this cake a few times now and so we decided to give you guys a tutorial on it!

Lets begin:
First you will need two cakes each being a different color, you can also use 3 different colored cakes but since it'll be your first time it would be better to experiment with only 2 colors now cuz more than that can get tricky, and once you're used to assembling you can go for 3 or even more colors!

lil bro birthday cake di-colored checkerboard cake

tri coloured cake batter

You can use any sponge cake recipe that you're used too or cake box mix.

First separate the batter into two/three bowls and add the desired food coloring ,we always leave one cake batter its original(white) color.
Over here for the di-coloured checker board cake we baked a chocolate cake and plain cake, and for the tri-colored checker board cake we baked a plain, chocolate and pink colored cake!
pour the batters into 2 or 3 round cake pans (same size) and place in the oven depending on whatever time your cake's recipe tells you to.
When done baking, let the cakes cool down if your going with di-coloured cakes than you will have a 2 layer cake and 3 layered cake if you go with the tri-coloured cake.

After Baking

The circular cut outs

First you'll need 3 different sizes of cookie cutters (each one 2 cms bigger than each other)...I doubt anyone owns a large enough cookie cutter so you can use different size plates and place them on the cake and cut around them.

We used a different method since we didnt have either of the options with us :

we cut a newspaper into 4 circular strips, each radius was 2 cm bigger than the next, then place each circle strip on the cake and cut neatly with a knife, do that with the other three circular strips and voila you are a step closer to getting your checker board cake ready!

how to assemble a di-colored cake

Now that you've cut your cakes into circles start assembling them. You have to assemble them in such a way that when you layer them over each you dont have the same color on top of another. It wont be that hard with di-coloured cake but it can get a lil confusing with tri-coloured cakes.

To get an idea of how to assemble cakes we are attaching a photo of which colour to put where ^_^

How to assemble a tri-colored cake

Now when you start mixing and matching make sure you add butter cream as it'll act like a glue in between the circles.

Assembling the 2nd layer

2nd Layer done

Assembling the 3rd layer

3rd and final layer done!

Then after you have finished the puzzle (lol) layer them on top of each other and crumb coat with buttercream.

Crumb coat

Keep it to rest in the fridge and frost it with your favourite icing we went for Chocolate ganache in tri-coloured and whipping cream for di-coloured checkerboard cake.
You can use butter cream or the above mentioned or even marzipan or Fondant!

The roses are made out of Swiss meringue butter cream and we used Wilton tip 104 to make them.

And voila your check board cake is ready!