In a nutshell:
A Beautiful, dramatic and pompous interiors ,large, two floor restaurant that serves some very good food – a good place for a get together or catch up with friends.
Address & other details: arth
Meal for 2: ₹1000 onwards
Cuisine type : vegetarian & non vegetarian
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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 were generally looking for a good place to eat at, on Zomato and this one popped up. When we browsed the menu uploaded on Zomato we saw a la carte as we’ll as set menu for both vegetarians and non vegetarians. Something about it looked good and we decided to go here – 25 km one way drive from our home, just to eat out.
The restaurant is located in a corner of a crossroad and hence has 2 sides open. The ground floor is set up like a lounge with sparse seating and the top floor is more like a lavish dinner / lunch set up.
Two walls of the top floor are ful glass and hence once can see the road beneath. Best part of this for me was the natural sunlight.
The ceilings were high. The interiors in general had good amount of colour and metallic gold – at times looking pompous / loud. Not that we ever bother about interiors – we r happy only when our taste buds r happy:)
As we sat, it took guys a bit of time to give the menu card and a lot mote time to come to take the order. They forgot to serve us 2 items that we ordered….. the guy seemed like a nice person with very good behaviour but surely far from being professional.
There was live music during Sunday brunch
What I had perceived as a set menu was actually not a set menu. It was Somewhere between a set menu and a buffet. The server asked us to pick whatever from the entire menu when we said we wanted the thaal (tasting menu). That was quite a task and difficult to imagine – in a buffet everything is kept and one picks up based on what is written and the look of the food. in a set menu one imagines after reading the menu and orders. Here it was anything from anywhere – any number of mains or appetisers. In hindsight, it’s a better version of buffet – u choose what u want. The kitchen serves it after making fresh / finishing.
The menu card was a simple One pager.
Food was very good in general.
Detailed description- in case u hv the time to njoy reading:
Drinks
We tried a drink called ‘Berry without’ – it had berry purée, egg white and lemon!!!! Unusual, twisty taste, nice balance of sweet and sour, layers of flavours and if course none of egg. Rate it 4/5
The other drink we tried was Chamoleone fizz – it had sweet lime, tonic, blue peas tea. The drink had coloured, infused ice cubes that made it great. The drink never diluted with time. Loved the tanginess of the drink. Rate it 4.25/5
Food
We ordered Chooza (small chicken). In Delhi chooza means small birds (chicken) weighing maybe 300-400 grams. Those are usually served full piece. Here chooza was tandoori chicken made from a smaller than usual chicken (30% less than the usual size). We wud surely not ordered if we knew this coz the last thing we wud like to hv was tandoori chicken.
The dish turned our to be very good. Super nice and soft meat, great flavours, burnt edges. Rate it 4.25/5
Mutton kakori kabab was among one of the top 5 I have had in mumbai so far. It was perfect in terms of taste, texture and flavours, the caveat being it had less animal fat in it than the traditional and road side ones in the streets of Lucknow / kakori house / kitchen of awadh – hence it was less moist than those. But excellent as it is. Rate it 4.5/5
Slow cooked nalli had an excellent gravy – grainy (daanedaar) yet the spices were not kn the face and had beautifully merged into the gravy. The Nalli pieces were not cooked from scratch in the gravy but somewhere midway I guess. Loved the meaty flavourful Nalli pieces …. rate it 4.5/5
We were bowled over the rice of Raan biryani – one of the best in town again (of course no comparison to K & K). The flavours of meat and spices mingled, the rice grains were super soft, yet independent. Awesome. Rate it 4.95/5
The meat was also very good but we surely had better. Rate it 4/5
Overall rating averages our to 4.5/5
Chicken Chapli kabab was interesting. It had burnt edges and nice smoky flavours. The chicken itself was good to taste. Soft and juicy. Rate it 3.5/5
Seafood tawa pulao – fish, prawns, squid, coconut milk (mentioned in the menu but did not express itself in the flavours or taste) and rice. We surely have had way better seafood Pulao in many places where flavours of seafood are much more engrained. Rate it 3.75/5
We also ordered Pondicherry ceviche – barramundi, Nagpur orange, kaaji lemon zest, chilli, micro cilantro, red onions. The kitchen forgot to serve it.
Turmeric leaf wrapped fish (Kolkata bhetki, pickled mustard, tropical ginger) also did not come.
Sunday home lunch like mutton curry with potato was very nice. We finished off the gravy till the last drop. Loved every bit of this curry – the soft and tasty mutton pieces, the potatoes, the lovely gravy that had beautifully merged flavours of meat and spices. Rate it 4.5/5
Malai kulfi was outstanding. The kulfi was very good and had optimal temperature – not too cold to be hard, not melting off either. Right sweetness. Rabdi was a great balance ti the sweet. Rate it 4.25/5
Jalebi with rabdi was very enjoyable too. Freshly made crisp hot jalebis with low sweet thick intense and daanedaar rabri. Wah. Rate it 4.5/5
Overall rating averages out to
Loved the food. Will get bk here again to try a la carte from the ‘specials’ section.