This is a review of Zoroastrian (Parsi)  Food festival at Amaranta – 14^th Jun to 22^nd Jun 2014. To read a review of Amarantha in general, pls click here: Amarantha

In a nutshell: An outstanding food festival curated by a famous Parsi Chef couple from Mumbai, that captured the authenticity & YUMMness of Parsi food quite well, at 5 star prices (but much cheaper than the airfare to to & fro Mumbai to have the same food).

Address & other details:  Amaranta

Meal for 2: Rs. 4000 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 the individual item 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: For the short description about the restaurant, pls click here

Detailed Description – In case u have the Time to NJOY reading:

For the beginners, a short read of wiki might help understand the context, history & link of this community with India. Pls click herefor the link – Zoroastrian

As we walked into the restaurant, we were greeted by a lady who turned out to b the restaurant manager. A nice normal conversation flowed that we all enjoyed. She herself came for getting the orders as well & later on many more occasions during our dinner. I must say she was one of the most ‘hands on’ Managers I have come across in a while. We also met the gentleman who served us last time & ended up having a good 10 minutes chat.

We started our evening with a non alcoholic drink Orange blossom (recommended by the lady) – It had fresh orange juice and green tea. It was very refreshing, had a thin consistency. The drink was served perfectly cold, not over chilled. Flavours of both green tea and orange cud b found. The astringent effect of green tea was felt as well. Really loved this till the last drop. This acted as a good palate cleanser as well. Rate it 4.5/5

The other drink was homemade ginger ale – One of the best I have had in few years. The taste and flavors were robust, feel of good ginger was abundant. Loved it & rate it 4.5/5

Coming to Parsi food, we started with a starter platter in the section called ‘snacks’ that included Salli par edu , tamata par edu, akuri on toast.

Salli par edu was eggs on a bed of potato matchsticks (salli). Unike the crispy fried salli served in sodabottleopenerwala, this one was crispy on the outer layers but soft & nice inside. The egg used was organic (not the stupid pale yellow yolk poultry egg) & hence had a dark orange yolk that was super tasty as well. Loved the dish & rate it 4.25/5.

Tamata par edu turned out to b the best of the best. As my regular readers know, I do not have a great relationship with tomato, specially not well cooked ones. This one was tomato and onions that were very finely chopped and put on slow fire and taken out a stage b4 it wud actually burn. The tomato and onion actually got married in the process. Atop that was the egg. Loved it. Rate it 4.75/5

Akuri on toast was a generous lump of something similar to scrambled egg atop a slice of crisp bread. The egg was outstanding. Soft, creamy, spices made their presence felt & just too YUMM. The bread had the perfect texture & taste. Rate it 4.5/5

Moved on to the second ‘snack’ – Lamb Bheja cutlet. As I keep saying, it’s always fun to have someone else’s brain as I am obliged to let people eat mine at work… The cutlet had a thin crisp layer outside & had slices of lamb brain inside. Rich, creamy , superb.

If u like eating bheja, u will like it. If u do not know what u r eating, u will love it. However, if the thought of eating brain puts u off, u might find the experiencenot so good. Rate this dish 4.5/5.

As we finished our ‘snacks’, we were served a complimentary palate cleanser. Citrus thyme and tamarind sorbet – a beauty on the martini glass. It was sour, had the flavor of good tamarind, a rich somewhat creamy base (though of course no cream was used). Outstanding to taste & also super effective as a cleanser. Loved it & rate it 4.5/5

For main course we had Patrani macchi – just outstanding. Full pomfret wrapped inside a banana leaf with traditional marination and steamed. Subtle yet distinct flavours. Coconut grated, tamarind , chilly made their presence felt. It was mildly sweet , hot and sour taste. Super soft fish with fat thick super soft oily skin (good choice of fish, optimum size). Served piping hot. Super loved it.

The patrani macchi at sodabottleopenerwala is directionally similar but falls off on two points. They use sole (coz they charge 1/3^rd the price) vs. pomfret here. What also makes a difference is the presence of skin in pomfret & no skin in the sole. Texture of fish changes. In sodabottleopenerwala the tamarind is not obvious & overall the taste of the green marination is way ‘bland’er than this.

Rate Patrani macchi 4.75/5 Mutton dhansak was a revelation. This was served with pulao. It had a thick daal base and super soft melt in the mouth pieces of Lamb in it. The daal base had the flavors of spices & meat infused in it. What an outstanding dish.

The pulao was long aromatic grains of rice ,super soft melt in the mouth. It had some mindblowing meatballs in it & the taste was just awesome. I do not remember having any meatball across cuisine so good in at least the last 1 year.

Rate this dish  4.75/5 Last dish that we had was Mutton pulao & daal. I was told that Curried Meat and saffron rice are cooked separately and then baked together for a rich and delicious mingling of flavours. Marvellous.

Patches of white rice insterspersed with patches of yellow rice & brown color of meat peeping thru. Once again, long aromatic grains of rice ,super soft melt in the mouth. Mutton was excellent in terms of taste & softness. Rate this pulao 4.75/5 The daal was again thick, had nice notes of spices & had a hot aftertaste but someone forgot to add salt to it. It was directionally very good but underwebt serious execution flaw. Adding of salt from atop did not help as well. Rate the daal 1/5.

Overall rating of the dish averages out to 2.9/5 We finished our dinner with Lagan nu custard. Lagan means wedding – so essentially this is custard served at weddings. Once again they ended up making a masterpiece of this. It was thick, had a rich creamy taste & feel, had the right balance of sweetness and was again just too good. Rate it 4.75/5

Overall rating of food at Amaranta averages out to 4.4/5 Mammoth rating for a dinner with so many items. Will look forward to more such real Indian traditional cusines here at Amaranta.

About the Chefs (based on what I gathered by talking to the people serving us): They have been catering for Parsi Weddings / Navjotes /Parties since 1992. They do celebrity dinners for private parties also.