In a nutshell:
One of the many micro-breweries – ‘Freshly brewed Beer’ places in Gurgaon that not only serves good beer but also beer cocktails & thankfully focuses on serving some excellent food as well.
Address & other details: 7 degrees Brauhaus
Meal for 2: Rs. 1200 onwards (alcohol separate)
Cuisine Type: Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian
Short Description – In case u r in a hurry:
Micro breweries are popping up every here & there in Gurgaon. It all started with Howzzat few years back in Galaxy Mall. While all of them serve 2-3 options of fresh unbottled beer, most of them serve really average food. My experience of food at Lemp has been very average – same for Downtown & of course for Rockman’s & Howzzat. Its different that post a couple of glasses of beer the tastebuds tend to numb & taste does not really matter at that time, but food is surely not the forte in most of these places – all of them have some good / popular / chatpata items but in general food is average to good – not outstanding / excellent.
Brauhaus is an exception. I was pleasantly surprised by the good food (I tried the German food section only) at this place & am willing to get back to try & ‘eat’ more stuff – a feeling that I have not got in other places so far.
The interiors are very good – high ceilings ensure that the place seems airy & non-claustrophobic. However, the seating area is quite cluttered. In fact the seats are so near that if the music stops, u might be able to catch a whisper from the table beside u. A part of the seating area has trees (with leaves) etc & u get the feel of sitting beneath the tree (without the threat of bird droppings).
The crowd was almost a 50:50 mix of Indians:Expats.
Music was good. I liked the little note-slips kept on the tables that looked like audio cassette covers – they were meant for music requests to the DJ.
The waiting staff who was in charge of our table was a very good guy & he positively contributed to us having a very good experience.
Detailed Description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:
We started our evening with a ‘special’ beer that supposedly had better flavors than the lager (said our guy). We trusted his recommendation & really liked what came in. I am not a connoisseur of beer or alcoholic beverages but I fully enjoyed this one – very smooth, chilled, not bitter like the bottled ones & a mild nice flavor.
For food we ordered a Grilled German sausage platter that had an assortment of Nurnberg Bratwurst, Krakauer, Weisswurst , Weiner & Knaxx. All were obviously different than each other & had their own distinct flavours & tastes. I won’t say these r the best sausages I had ever had, but some of the sausages from this platter will figure in top 5 sausages I have had in the last one year.
While I liked all the sausages, I super duper loved the tiny dark brown Knaxx pepperoni style sausages. They had a thick rubbery cover & a juicy , strong & rustic ‘taste & flavor’ within.
This was served with a very good mustard sauce that was quite pungent & tangy. The sauerkraut served with this was very enjoyable too.
A pretzel was also served with this platter – it was good but got lost within so many juicy ‘n tasty sausages.
Post this we ordered a 7 degrees Brauhaus non-vegetarian platter. It had three strips of fried chicken, fried calamari, prawns, minced meat pie & an outstanding set of 3 meatballs.
This was accompanied with an orange sauce that had a mayo base – close to cocktail sauce but different. I am usually not much of a ‘sauce’ fan but this one was very very good.
The chicken strips were very crispy fried outside, perfectly salted & perfect by German standards but it is quite bland by Indian standards – I mean Indianized spicy KFC that we get these days. I super enjoyed this chicken strip with the sauce described above.
The calamari rings were dry, crispy fried – very different texture than the soft, glazed texture that we r usually used to. Taste was very very good.
The prawns had been made into little pops – very interesting & good to taste.
The most interesting part of this platter was the meatballs – it had a hand-pounded kind of texture, very robust taste & flavor, soft in texture & topped with a dark brown sauce. Super liked this again.
The pie was also good to taste – layers & layers of crispy cover with a minced chicken filling within. Good.
My partner noticed a section called ‘beer cocktails’ & she went in for a beer mojito. That turned out to be interesting – not great not bad either. It was made of lager & I guess wud have been better if made with the Special Beer.
I also tried the dark beer & liked it. I liked the Special Beer better though.
The last dish that we had was pork knuckles. When she suggested this item after reading about it in the menu, I remembered the pork knuckles that I have had in China. Those were more cartilage & less meat. The pork knuckle served here was of course the European kind. It was unexpected huge portion served along with a dual needle fork & a meat knife. The guy serving us offered to get the same cut from the kitchen as well.
The pork was outstanding & so was the brown sauce that was poured atop. It turned out to be one of the best dishes in the evening. The outer layer was crispy & the inner layer was soft & somewhat juicy. Flavors & taste was truly enjoyable. My only regret was that I wud have been able to appreciate it better if we wud have had it earlier – not after 2 platters.
Needless to say we did not have space for desserts & there were quite a few unusual (for Delhi NCR) desserts on the menu. Look forward to trying those on some occasion in future – will surely keep u guys updated.