Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Doha Review: Dados Beauty Center

Wednesday, December 31, 2014 0 Comments

You know sometimes you read raving reviews on TimeOut and you get carried away with the flowery words the authors have to say about a beuty center. In reality its not quite the same. I was looking for a post-natal massage and came across Dados from Timeout Doha. This place was reviewed years back and the author raved how good the pre-natal massage was that she definitely will go for the post-natal massage

Well I did that on your behalf and it was just OK. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would rate it at a flat 5

Why?

Bitch please! I come from a nation of masseurs that Doha simply cannot beat

When I called to make an appointment I misheard the price at 150. It cost me 450 riyals

The interior of the place was nice and kitschy. It is located on the ground floor of Al Seal Tower behind Kempinski. It was easy to find, the directions on their website is accurate and well detailed

When I went in for my appointment, a lady at the cashier gave me a writing board with a bunch of papers clipped unto it, a form of questionnaires and a disclaimer form too




I filled in my details and after about 5 minutes of waiting another lady showed me around. We toured the showers, the steam and the sauna rooms. Then I was given tour of the massage rooms, the hair studio and the mani-pedi parlour. All in all the decor was nice.




My massage room


Glass floor

I was then ushered to the VIP massage room (they use this to impress new clients I was told) and was asked to undress (but to keep my panties on) Then a black lady came in, introduced herself and gave me a nice sensuous body massage. OH, SO THAT'S WHAT POST NATAL MASSAGE IS ALL ABOUT!!!



The Jacuzzi




The hammam

She was kind because she did part with some good advice:

  • not to keep my head wet (I had washed my hair and shaven myself clean prior to the massage)


  • she noticed that my lower abdomen area (near the incision) was still inflamed (from the inside) Don't ask me how she knew that!


  • She also asked if I was using any scar repair cream-I was using BioOil although not religiously. She wanted to sell me their Mamma Mio but I wasn't interested so she didn't push far

All in all the massage was OK, I would recommend this to white expats whom had never had massage done to any part of their body in their lives ever.

After my massage was done I sat on the bed and expressed my milk. They were kind enough to let me do that. Also, as a guest to the beauty center you get to use their sauna and steam facilities for free. Otherwise they're restricted to the tower residents

For the Asians expat missing home massage I will write up another review for another massage parlour that has UNISEX massage services. Dados is a strictly women only beauty center






The hair salon

The products they sell. They carry Mamma Mio brand

I took the courtesy to post their price list here, in case you want to run thru it before you go there so you don't get a shock when you take out your credit card

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Food Review: Bajra/Millet Flour Goondh/Edible Gum Pak

Tuesday, December 30, 2014 0 Comments
Bitch please!

I googled online for goondh pak recipe and the only one (with step by step pictures) I liked was from this blogger in Africa

I delivered 3 months ago and since I am a fussy cook (my food has to be prepared in a hygienic condition, I must be involved in some part of the cooking and my kitchen has to be spotless while I'm doing it) I prepared the dry items for the MIL to cook for me a goodh pak following the RECIPE I KNOW (not some mumbo jumbo pak passed down from people who claim they know everything there is to it about post-natal food)

So this blogger had a nice recipe going on there but her measurements were all in ounces so I am going to put down here the absolute goondh pak recipe (no fail, this shit is fool proof because HEY I AM NO PAK fan unless I need to EAT IT) Let me just say that the MIL with 6 kids and a dozen of grand children and her claim to fame was post-natal food was utterly taken aback by my recipe which pretty mummed her from then on. Here I am a modernist with no experience to boost of and yet the idiot me manage to impress a 'pro' in her field

OK lets go to the recipe bitches

First Recipe

453 grams of ghee
113 grams of gundh
453 grams of millet flour (bajro/bajra flour)
453 grams gur / jaggary
200 ml evaporated milk
226 grams of milk
250 grams of sliced almonds

200 grams of pistachio desiccated powder
1 tspn cardamom powder
1/2 tspn nutmeg powder
50 grams of katlu powder
50 grams of ganthora powder
113 grams of desiccated coconut

The items in bold are the hacks I added from the original recipe


Look at the gooey goodness spilling out of the tray. Since the thing doesn't set I dumped it into a clear plastic tupper ware and store it in the fridge. Whenever I wanted to eat some I just heated it in the microwave

Here's the second recipe


420 grams of ghee
113 grams of gundh
470 grams of millet flour (bajro/bajra flour)
460 grams gur / jaggary
210 ml evaporated milk

226 grams of milk powder (I used Anelene that's all I had)
250 grams of sliced almonds
280 grams of sliced pistachios
50 grams of raisins
1 tspn cardamom and a pinch more
1 tspn nutmeg powder


In this recipe you can see that I went generous with the bajra flour since I want to finish what I have in the house. The MIL brought too much of it despite me already having about 2 kgs of it. So now I am stuck with this stupid flour and I hate bhakris so I have to use it in some way to finish it off. And what better way than to make pak out of it

I am probably the only person on this planet that thought of using millet/bajra to make goondh pak. I mean its so obvious, if the seeds are suppose to help with your milk factory's production then why not make a pak of it instead of forcing yourself to eat the dry tasteless bland shit they call bhakri

This recipe I cooked myself so I could blog the step by step procedure for you

FIRST THINGS FIRST

1. Measure all the powders (nutmeg, cardamom, milk) and sliced nuts (almonds, pistachios,raisins) and dump it into a bowl


2. Measure the flour


3. Measure the liquids (evaporated milk, ghee) and keep them separated


4. Measure the semi solids (jaggery)


5. Measure the solids (edible gum/goondh)


Procedure

1. Pour all the ghee into a deep pan and cook the edible gum until it pops like popcorns. It takes all but 5 minutes for it to swell to twice its size and pop. 

2. Drain it.

3. Then POUND the shit out of that gum. I used meat beater/tenderizer to get the job done





Look how nicely crushed the gum is

4. Dump the bajra/millet flour into the pan. Trust me the leftover ghee is just right for the flour to mix and cook. 

I did this twice and both times the ghee was right. Plus I AM NO PRO


I cooked at full flame

How I know the flour had cooked? You could smell the flour smell wafting from the pan and you know you're about done. It took me about 10 minutes

5. Add the jaggery into the pan. Mix quickly. As you can see from my image below my jaggery was semi-solid. I suggest you microwave yours so it's melted. That way you get a mix real fast, otherwise you end up stirring too much

6. Turn off the gas if you're using melted jaggery and reduce to low flame if you're using semi solid jaggery. Once your jaggery has bonded well with the flour, TURN OFF YOUR GAS


7. By now the mixture would have harden a bit as you can see from the image below. Add the evaporated milk and mix well


8. Remember the bowl of powders and nuts we measured earlier? Now's the time to empty it into the pan. 

My pan was too small for everything. I didn't think thru that everything won't fit into my small pan so 
I took out the big GUN: my deep and round pasta sauce pan and dumped everything into it


9. Everything mixed well, it looks nice and dandy


10. Lastly I added the goondh/edible gum into my pak mixture


11. I stirred some more until everything had blended into one another. I used a wooden laddle for my entire cooking but if you must get your hands dirty USE DISPOSABLE GLOVES


12. I poured the mixture into a tray. Because for this recipe I had used milk powder it helped to harden the pak so I could cut it into cubes later 



13. After the pak had cooled off you can cut it into whatever shapes you like. I kept it simple with squares and couldn't RESIST TAKING A BITE


14. Put them nicely in a long tupperware and the lid wouldn't close....


THE MUG SHOT



...so I just cling wrapped the THANG and stored it in the fridge


Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Cleaning time: 15 mins

I was done in 30 mins. I know this because I was watching the time and a sleeping baby (didn't want him waking up to the aroma of the food wafting about the house)