In a nutshell:

A Mewati cuisine restaurant that has tried to keep most of the original elements intact & then added some twist.

Address & other details:  Apas Promenade

Meal for 2: Rs. 2500 onwards

Cuisine type :  vegetarian & non vegetarian

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.

As we started chatting about the menu, our server gave us an option – order 1 mutton kabab that has 6 pieces. He wud give us 3 pieces of chicken & 3 of mutton. So u do not see price of 1 of the kababs.

Same for the daals.

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 ur in a hurry:

The restaurant is located on the poolside of the new ITC Grand Bharat Hotel. So depending on the time and the mix of crowd in the pool, the background sound (or the absence of it) might differ.

It is a ‘open on 2 sides’ restaurant with just a roof held by a row of pillars.

The ceiling had a large tent feel & from there hung chandeliers.

Sufi music was playing in the background – Coke studio 3. It’s a coincidence that I am a sufi fan & hence I just loved the music.

The lighting was minimal. People with suboptimal vision wud not b able to see the color of their food. Some restaurants with such ambience have a candle on each table. This restaurant did not have that. Apologize to u all – the pictures r not as good as my usual standard as it was too dark. I do not like pics with flash.

Theme here is food of Mewat area – rustic & robust. In some cases, we were told, the Chef has kept it intact & in some cases they have tweaked the recipe to make it a bit more acceptable to the urban folk.

Detailed description – in case u have the time to NJOY reading:

We started our dinner with Bajra aloo Tikki. It turned out to b an excellent aloo Tikki. Bajra did not make its presence felt as the chef had reduced its quantity to adjust to common taste. The inside was soft & YUMm & the outer layer was somewhat crisp. Rate it 4.25/5 due to its sheer taste. If the bajra feel wud have been more, this cud have potentially been 4.5 or even 4.75/5

The next dish we had was Paneer Angaar – Paneer roulade ventered with masala potato mash. The paneer was thin strips, filled with masala mashed potato, covered with bread crumbs and tawa fried.

Very good to taste in its own. However nothing stood out in this dish inspite of it being good to taste overall. This was the weakest dish of the evening (on a relative scale). Rate it 3.5/5

We ordered Murg shola – double smoked chicken with ‘pungent spices’. This Chicken turned out to b one of the best in years. It was a Double smoked tikka – Cooked once on flame but not charred. Charred second time.

Bold spices, Degi mirch, soft but firm chicken pieces that were not so juicy. Outstanding to taste. I couldn’t believe my senses. Rate it 4.75/5. That’s a huge rating coming from someone who is usually not a big fan of broiler chicken.

The next dish we had was gosht sheekh. It was Mutton boti that was somewhat chewy, soft enough to b bitten but firm, cud feel the strands, not intrinsically juicy but with every bite the juices of meat and masalas wud flow into the mouth. Amazing again. Rate it 4.75/5 again

For main course we had Mewati daal – kaali daal cooked in a way very different from the cream laden daal makhni served in restaurants of NCR. The mewati daal had a home made feel to it. The spices used were different as well. Loved its Rustic and robust taste and flavours. Rate it 4.5/5

We also ordered Khushka Daal – yellow arhar Daal tempered with burnt garlic. Burnt garlic flavor made a huge difference. Loved it from the aroma itself when it was served – till we started eating it. Finished it till the last drop. Rate it 4.5/5

The showstopper for the evening was Dhungar maas / Junglee Maas – red colored due to Degi Mirch. The beauty of this dish was that no one tried to make it mass and chef retained its originality, it’s ‘basic / raw’ nature and its rusticness. There r only 5 ingredients in this dish meat, ghee, garlic, salt and Degi mirch. That’s it.

Result – an unbelievably good mewati goat curry. Yes, the meat was locally souced from villages of Mewat. The flavor and taste of the meat was in full glory in the gravy. The gravy was blood red color due to Degi mirch. Flavor of Degi mirch also got added. The gravy was thin but bursting with flavor and YUMM. I can keep filling up page after page writing about this. If I were a poet, I wud have written poems to describe the joy we felt after eating this dish.

The meat was soft, had the unadulterated  flavor of good goat meat and was just too YUMM to taste. This was chef’s master stroke. Rate this dish 4.95/5.

For dessert we had sugarless bajrey Ki phirni. Yes, it is sugar less, not using sugarfree but but actually adding no sugar. Our server explained that he generally serves this with Gulab jamun so that people can balance the taste.

The dish tasted strange coz there was no sugar in it. Slowly after few bites it started making sense. However it had in it a paste of dry fruits, etc. Cud feel the bajra. The thickness / creaminess of the dish cud have been more maybe by slow cooking the milk & evaporating off the excess water. The flavor of milk was suboptimum.

Rate it 3.5/5

NJOYed the food with outstanding ulte tawa ka paratha – different from the Lucknowi version. This one was overall more crisp, flaky , great to taste on its own & went very well with the food. Rate it 4.5/5

We also tried Khameeri roti. Coarse, puffed up & very good to taste. Rate it 4.25/5

Overall rating of food at Apas promenade averages out to be 4.4/5.

I wud surely go back here for eating that marvellous dish called Junglee maas & of course the two kababs. What’s going on in ur mind? Wanna try as well?