TJ’s Brew Works & Nudo Pizzeria- Reviewed.

 

I have heard this saying many times “Everyone would be healthier if they didn’t eat junk food”. But if I say now your Junk food has become healthy food… yes you read it right. We have half way in 2017 and TJ’s Brew Works is celebrating its 5th year, this July. The last 5 years have been enriching for TJ’s Brew Works, as it has also been responsible for brewing memories in many lives. In an endeavour to make healthy choices, TJ’s is tweaking and twisting the existing menu to incorporate spent grain dishes, a treasure trove of goodness, nutrition, taste and health. Spent grain is super rich in protein, fibre content and macronutrients.

TJ Venkateshwaran, fondly known as TJ, founder TJ’s Brew Works and partner Girish Monie met sometime back, and in a casual conversation discovered they shared similar ideologies while they were independently experimenting and innovating with healthy food choices in life. This resulted in a new collaboration where the duo decided to pursue their passions under the same roof with an already established commercial entity at TJ’s Brew Works.

Now Girish takes care of the Kitchen and TJ is taking care of the brewery.
TJ has introduced two new variants of Beer – TJ’s Quin B and TJ’s Buck B, made from super seeds Quinoa and Buckwheat respectively.
 TJ’s Brew Works wanted to give a new twist to the way people have always perceived these super foods, by introducing the two new beers that are Belly Good! 
Beer per se made from barley is the healthiest alcoholic beverage since it is natural. By replacing some proportions of barley with Quinoa or Buckwheat, the goodness of these seeds and health benefits of these ingredients now augment the beers without taking the essence out of the beer. Sounds healthy right!! And the healthy Saga continues in the food as well.

Nudo Pizzeria-

Nudo Pizzas at TJ’s Brew Works
 is another food revolution, with the introduction of Gluten Free, Grain Free and Guilt-Free Pizzas by Nudo Pizzeria Al Naturale, the brainchild of Girish Monie. 
Nudo pizzas are made with interesting Superfoods in their 5 Crusts; Almond, Buckwheat, Quinoa, Amaranth and Waterchestnut, Cauliflower and Whey Protein, with unusual sauces such as their Classic Red Tomato Marinara, Roasted Garlic White Sauce and Almond and Pine Nut with Basil – Green Pesto.
From its Signature list; Nude Farm Veg, is a Quinoa Crust Pizza with a Roasted Garlic White Sauce, Nudo Pepperoni, made with Amaranth Crust and Classic Red Tomato Marinara Sauce are some of the Nudo pizzas that are good for you and taste divine. Girish takes immense pleasure to introduce Nudo Pizzeria by giving indepth knowledge of how he achieved the perfect receipe of converting the Pizza as a Healthy pizza. These are some of his view about the same “NUDO lies skin deep. Nudo is a way of life imbibed into a culinary innovation. It roots for foods with innate goodness, stripped of any artificiality whatsoever. We have foregone grains in a bid to make it completely Gluten-Free. Nudo is all about Whole Foods, Real Foods, Super Foods.”

That’s so much of good food yet be eaten!!! Lets try out some of it.

We started the evening with the TJ’s new Brew Quin B and Buck B along with Beer infused Beer Cheese Soup.
I personally like the taste of Buck B more as it was more closer to the beer which gave a slight bitter after taste. As Quin B was on the milder side but it was refreshing in taste.

Next one was the nice colourful very well plated Russian Olivie Salad-This was with Pineapple, Beetroot, Peas, Sweet Potato and Carrots Yumm!!

Soup: Beer Cheese Soup : Nice Warm and cheesy with a hint of beer flavour. The thickness was also good.

Appetizers:
They served us 2 veg and 2 non-veg Appetizers: Dark Malt Bao and TJ’s Spent Grain Pelmeni- As I earlier mentioned that Spent grain is the residue left over after the liquid is extracted from the malt during the brewing process. This residue is very healthy, super rich in protein, fibre content and a lot of macronutrients… which makes the Bao so delicious, that you just can’t have just one!! nice soft and juicy with Tofu filling inside with the tangy sauce. #Musthave

TJ’s Spent Grain Pelmeni- The Pelmeni are dumplings consisting of a filling wrapped in thin, unleavened dough. Its origin is from Siberia and it has its own variants in different cuisine in nearby countries. The Pelmeni which was served to us was bit greasy and chewy outer cover.

Main Course:

Mini Burgers (Cottage Cheese)- Burger patty was Juicy with soft and marinated cottage cheese with full of taste. As it was a Mini Burger you could finish at least two of them.

Spinach Wrap: Came in two variants Crispy Mushroom and Paneer Bhuna. Both the wraps were so beautifully placed on the plate, and they were huge, which is a good portion size for two. Taste wise I found Paneer Bhuna more flavorful. The Contrast color of chunky Paneer and the green wrap stands out the most of all the dishes.

Pizza: All the pizza crust are healthy and these are made from Buckwheat, Quinoa, Amaranth – Water chestnut, Almond, Cauliflower and Whey Protein. All the crust made on a daily basis and kept frozen. As of now they have 13′ inches pizza, but soon they will be introducing it other sizes as well.

The Pizza we tried were Buckwheat base Farm Veg, Amaranth Base Not Guilty Pizza, and Quinoa Base Margaritta. All the pizza had a very distinct taste of it own but never missed the White Flour taste, Infact these were more tasty and filling. Many of their toppings were organically grown and imported with a country specific. You can even make your own pizza and choose your toppings like Zucchini, Artichokes, Broccoli, Mushrooms, Bell Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, Red Onions and so on. The guilt free part of the eating these pizza is that they make you full without harming your metabolism.

Desserts:

Caramalt Cookie Sandwich and Nudo Grain Free Brownie: warm and Chewy cookie with Vanilla Ice-cream with Soft and warm Brownie which had natural sweetners added.

 

Vegan Masala Pan Kulfi: A innovative dessert tried to replicate the taste of the regular masala pan flavor infused in a Kulfi form which is served on the gulkand stuffed roll of a pan.

This was the most guilt free food tasting I ever attended.

A big shout out to Svetlana for the Invitation and TJ Venkateshwaran of TJ’s and Girish from Nudo Pizzeria for Hosting us and introducing us to the healthy eating/drinking can be Delicious as well!!!

 

 

TJ’s Zomato Link

Address: East Block, Amanora Town Centre, Hadapsar Kharadi Bypass, Hadapsar, Pune.

Contact: 020 30163544. 

Timings: 12 PM to 1 AM
Parking: Mall Parking

Disclaimer: I was invited for a complimentary food tasting event. This blog is a narrative of my experience at the event. These are my views that I have expressed in the blog. Others are most welcome to agree or disagree with the same. The blog is not personally or commercially influenced. I have not lifted, copied or plagiarised it from any source either. However, I have done my due diligence via publicly available information on the internet and as shared by the client/PR agency