Odisha ( Orissa Stall , Dilli Haat , Aurobindo Marg, opp. INA market, Delhi)

In a nutshell: Went in with high expectations & that was smashed by bad execution of a good plan. Long menu card with many options, very good serving staff but I guess lack of supervision & leading to suboptimal Quality Control.

Address & other details: Dilli Haat Meal for 2: Rs. 250 onwards. Cuisine type : Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has paid for the full Bill & tips also. http://www.yummraj.com does not have even one featured / sponsored reviews. YUMMRAJ believes in going to a restaurant in anonymity, as a normal guest, experience everything & give a honest account of the same to you. I rate all the food items & then give a final overall rating which is a simple average of theindividual iem ratings. What the ratings stand for : 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster. Short Description – in case u r in a hurry: Loved the food at Odisha Bhawan & hoped to get similar or better food at Odisha stall, Dili Haat. Run by the Govt. of Odisha, this is a showcase of the state’s culinary excellence in a national platform. One approach can be to let a private chain like Dalma run this or to have strict supervision on own/contractor staff running the show. None was done & hence a great potential turned out to be overall disappointing. Are the babus listening? If yes, pls do something about it. We the people of Delhi want to eat good Odisha food. Pls give us access to it.

Like all other stalls at Dilli Haat, this stall is also open air. There is a 4 table ‘semi covered section’ as well. The menu card is long , well illustrated, well designed but is ill maintained, torn from sides & shows the state of affairs – again, good planning, bad maintenance. The menu had items like Bara, (vada), singara (samosa) , pakuri (pakoda), gup chup (pani puri) Odisha Kataki chaat, meals etc. For vegetarians they had loads of options – chhena tarkari, chhatu, dahi baingan, nadia pachedi, bhindi khatti, many options of rice, nadia pulao – pulao with thick coconut milk, biryani with Kataki style. Full crab is available across the year, pomfret, prawns, many Odiya desserts, kheeri, chhana pora, feni, gaja, chena chilli etc. It was a 10 page menu card & we were wondering how they manage so far. The guy did not refused anything that we wanted. It said ‘We cook from our heart & serve from our soul’. Totally disagree with the first part & totally agree with the second part of the sentence.

The guy serving us was outstanding. Always with a smile, making guests ‘feel at home’ attitude, taking control of customer’s needs etc. He made a positive difference to the otherwise not so positive experience.

Some food was very good, some were average. 1 was just bad (Such food shud not b served). Detailed Description – In case u have the Time to NJOY reading: We started our lunch with dalma. This is odisha style daal – yellow daal, thick, flavorful & intense. Not spicy, somewhat subtle but good to taste. Coconut adds to the taste & flavor. People who think daal shud b as ‘obvious taste’ as daal makhni might not like this. I guess rest wud like this. I give this a 3.5/5

Post Dalma we tried Chhatu tarkari – Fresh Mushrooms in spicy Odiya gravy. This sounded very interesting & we straight away ordered it. What came looked awesome.

As soon as it went inside the mouth, we were shocked. It was burnt, I guess during frying but ignoring that someone made a gravy out of it. Result – almost inedible burnt taste & unwanted unenjoyable smoky flavor. Disgusting. The gravy was in the right direction though. So the guy who designed the menu / gave the recipe was very good but implementation took a bad beating. I give this 1/5.

Maccha Kalia – Fish cooked with odiya spices & curd. This again turned out to be just good or rather ‘not bad’. No twist to the taste, unidirectional , almost flat gravy (jhola) & overfried, not so fresh rohu fish. I give this a 2.5/5 again.

We had ‘muri mansha’ here long time back. It was a mutton curry served with muri (puffed rice / murmura). We liked that very much on the previous occasion & hence ordered ‘mansha’ (mutton) with Chakuli pitha ( rice & black gram pancakes).

Chakuli pitha was excellent. It had some distant similarity to appam but was overall very different. It was fried with mustard oil & hence had a yellowish tinge on the body. I loved it & give it a 4/5. The mutton was also very good. The gravy was tasty & the mutton was soft & good as well. I give this a 4.25/5 Chena poda – Special Odiya chhena cake baked in oven. I have not had Chhena poda too many times but have had it enough to compare. The ones I hd at Puri & Konarak were surely better than the one served here but this one was notbad either. Once again the base was a bit over burnt to the extent that it had started becoming bitter. I give this a 3.5/5