In a nutshell:

A 5 star fine dine restaurant that had quite a few slips but more than made up all that by its outstanding food.

Address & other details:  Souk

Meal for 2: 3000 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.

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:

We read about this restaurant on the social media.

The restaurant is located on the top floor of new building of Taj Mahal palace and one side of it has the sea view, including gateway of india.

Inside the restaurant there was a large bar area.

Seating was all around the dining hall including window side.

Middle eastern artefacts were displayed in certain parts of the restaurant. The place had minimalistic decor.

The waiting staff was dressed in long traditional wear. They were Very polite and nice.

However for the first time in many years of dining at different Taj Hotels, we came across quite a Few faux pas.

1. One gentleman Gave the tooth pick after we just finished starters, assuming we finished the meal.
2. One guy got pissed when we asked him to keep the dish on the table rather than serve it. His thoughts expressed them on his face.
3. We asked one person for dessert menu. He did not return ever. We placed dessert order to another person.

Food was excellent and that made us overlook the faux pas.

Detailed description – in case u hv the time to njoy reading:

We started our evening with Lamb dolma – Lamb and rice wrapped in vine leaf . It was Mildly sour to taste. Loved the texture and flavour of juicy meat , texture of thick and sticky rice & the rough texture of the vine leaf and its unique flavor.

It was an amazing peaceful coexistence in which no one (none of the ingredients) overpowered each other and all contributed in their unique way. Rate it 4.75/5

We moved on to Crab & fennel baklava – A filo pastry with a crab filling. As if there were millions of super thin crisp n yumm layers on the outside and inside sat the outstanding, flavourful and yumm filling of  crab. Fennel did not make its presence felt as much. Overall it was memorable, mind blowing rate it 4.95/5

The next dish was Muhammara in dates – walnut was the predominant flavour and it also influenced the taste. Salt n sour in taste, the muhammara paste complimented the sweetness of the awesome dates at the base.

The muhammara had Aleppo pepper (hot pepper dip from Aleppo Syria) & pomegranate molasses, which also added to the taste and flavours….. rate it 4.5/5

We were served a Dip with freshly cut raw salad veggies. The white dip was curd based . It had a highly fermented feel to it & a lack of refinement and sophistication that we just loved.

Crunchy fresh bell pepper, carrots, radish etc were the salad veggies served.  Rate it 4/5.

The memorable experience for the evening was Chelo lamb loin flambé d  in cognac. It was a Live station brought to the table.

The meat had Intense flavours, mind blowing taste, was slightly soft and chewy , while being smoky. Speechless. Rate it 4.95/5

We also tried Harissa seabass – it was Pan fried seabass marinated with Harissa and served on a bed of burgul and crunchy veggies. For the uninitiated Harissa is a hot chilly pepper paste made from a variety of peppers, spices and herbs as well as garlic paste and olive oil. Burgul is broken wheat.

The seabass was flaky, soft, full of fish fat and juicy – so juicy that we cud slurp and drink the juice. It tasted wonderful. Effect of Harissa cud not b felt much as the fish flavour, taste and texture overpowered all the senses. Burgul tasted good. Rate the fish 4.75/5. Rate the burgul 3.5/5. Overall rating of the dish averages out to 4.1/5

For dessert we had Omali. It was baked filo pastry in reduced sweetened milk. Loved it. Intense to taste and thick creamy texture. Perfect sweetness. Filo pastry added play to the texture. Loved it and rate it 4.5/5

Overall rating of food at souk averages out to 4.5/5

 

Needless to say, will revisit, probably in daytime so that we can enjoy the seaview better.