Chp 424. Networking dinner III: Spanish Surprise

So last Friday I took part in my third Coral Networking Dinner event. The theme was “Spanish Surprise”.

I have blogged about Coral Dinner before, you can check the detailed post here: Networking dinner II: Mediterranean Cuisine, guaranteed to make your mouth water, especially if you are a Foodie.

So as I have mentioned before, Coral Dinner is an exclusive networking dinner event, held at Prahlad Kakkar’s bungalow. Mint even described it as a Snooty Foodie’s Club, as it is held just once or twice a month, and we have to confirm our reservation days before. There are only around 10 seats. Once the limit is reached, the others get on a waiting list, in the hope that one of the participants cancels. When a participant cancels without a valid excuse in the last minute, he or she gets blacklisted and cannot take part in further Coral dinners again.

It’s aptly called Networking Dinner because we all go alone and meet other participants for the first time and we start talking about different things, and then as you keep talking about this and that, more often than not, you’ll end up finding a link, like you have a common friend or you have worked on the same client before etc etc… while at the same time enjoying the delicious food the hosts are serving. The cost of the dinner is 1200 per head.

The participants this time were:

Murtuza –  Angel Investor
Kumar Jhuremalani – Founder of pet pujaris and professional Game Tester
Shubada Lele – Owner of Shubh Yog Kendra, yoga specialist for special disease
Shivram – Director for a leading financial company
Neetu Prasad – Analyst at a telecom company
Sarang Kulkarni – Works at Lacadives, the dive shop
Pawan Deokule – Managing Director at Digicat Digital Marketing Pvt Ltd
Megha Goyal – Founder of i2Cook and Head Chef at Coral Networks
Kima – Lover of Old Monk, Creative Trailblazer at Webchutney Pvt Ltd

Yes, as you can see from the array of different professions, it was indeed a very interesting night as we all shared our experiences and stories.

The theme this time was “Spanish Surprise”, which means everything was going to be Spanish.

The moment I reached and met the others, I was served Sangria, which is red wine punch with chopped fruits. Meg used Shiraz Sula for the wine, and both golden & red apples for the fruit. It was very refreshing and stronger than I expected as it hit my head on my third drink. The non-alcoholics had guava juice natural from Auroville.



So as the conversation got going, I found out Shivram was an alumnus of IIM-Bangalore and I told him I dropped out from that institution and we immediately bonded, talking about L-Square parties, placement, professors, pranks etc…

Meg served the appetizers soon, and for vegetarians there was freshly baked organic bread with romesco sauce… I love the sauce… I asked if the bread is also called Spanish bread, and she said no because Spanish bread is actually a Filipino sweet bread… Ahhh my knowledge about food just got a little bigger. Romesco sauce by the way, is quite controversial, so I’ll just put it here before anybody argues with me – It is a Catalan pepper sauce. Catalans take it as an offence when people call it a Spanish sauce, because of the whole Catalonian nationalism issue in Spain…



For non vegetarians, there was Tortilla De Patatas (which basically means Spanish style omelette and potato pancakes), which tasted like no eggs I had ever tasted before. It was really smooth and easy to swallow, as it melted in our mouths quickly. I tried my best to find and identify the savoury of any distinct spice in my mouth, but failed to do so, so I just took another sip of my Sangria and enjoyed the food without trying to analyze it.



And then my favourite – parsley prawns sautéed in oil, garlic and parsely with a squeeze of lime. Murtuza and I quickly became close friends as he and I were the only ones eating prawns that night. And boy, the two of us alone gorged through the entire serving, lolz.



Shubada Lele, the yoga specialist shared very interesting stories about her line of work, and how she even spent many months in Burma, learning about a specialized form of yoga. We even discussed about the Mizos, the Chin people and how there are many people from “Zohnahthlak” living in Burma.

Kumar Jhuremalani shared a lot of his travel experiences in South America, and as it turned out, he used to work at Resultrix, where I know a lot of people. Apart from being a foodie and the founder of Pet Pujaris, a popular foodie group, he is also a game tester and avid gamer. I told him I’m also working on a game project right now, so we activated our Geek Mode and spent the rest of the evening discussing all types of games and the gaming market in India.

The main course was soon served, and there were two options - Seafood Paella and Vegetarian Paella. Paella is a traditional Valencian rice dish with vegetables, saffron, olive oil and other seasonings. Seafood Paella is very popular, especially in the East coast of Spain.



We finally ended the night with Sponge cake, topped with cinnamon spiked cream. It was absolutely yummmm. Your mouth is watering right now, right? :)



As the night ended, around 2 in the morning, we all bid each other good night and Meg told me to take the remaining seafood paella home as I loved it so much. So I happily did that, and the next day, I had the same food again, along with omelette, fried in my own style though, not Spanish.



This was the last Coral event of this year, so I can’t wait for next year when it resumes again. What new cuisine will I get to taste? Which new people will I get to meet? Only time will tell, I guess.

Cheers everyone :)

All Photos courtesy Megha Goyal, except of course the last pic :P