In a nutshell:

Unforgettable Modern & traditional Malayali food in western plating, meeting & dining with some strangers & some friends, fabulous food & travel conversations with Co-diners, beautiful ambience, ultra warm hosts, professional full service dinner with stories of food by chef Prima Kurien. In short, a memorable evening.

Address & other details:

Instagram – Prima Kurien

We the chefs

Facebook – Prima Kurien

We the chefs

Google – Prima Kurien

We the chefs

Phone for reservations at we the chefs: +91880988490

Meal for 2: ₹6300

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.

YUMMRAJ rates all the food items & then gives 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 have eaten food by chef Prima Kurien (will refer to her as P in the rest of the post) several times in the last 15 years. We have always wanted to have more of it & we kept going back to her pop ups. Click here to read the earlier reviews – Dastkar haat, Oberoi Gurgaon, Home delivery

So when we saw a post by P on Facebook, it took us less than 3 seconds to decide to book a table for both of us. We also informed few friends. Few who booked immediately got a seat. Rest missed it as the table got sold out very soon. There is a repeat of this event next month.

We had heard about We the chefs before but we did not know the details of what they do. Here is what we got to know that evening.

• We the chefs have tie ups with about 600 home chefs. Customers can connect for home delivery of food from the home chefs.

• We the chefs conduct tables at their experiential centre in Gurgaon

• We the chefs does corporate lunches & events.

The experiential centre is beautiful. It has an outdoor area & also indoor seating. The young crew is warm & hospitable. The serving staff were patient (I kept clicking pictures before they could serve) & professional.

The event worked like this –

• We saw the advertisement on social media

• Made an online payment (full amount)

• We got confirmation of our seats being booked

• On the event day we went to the venue. Met other guests (some strangers, some friends) Mr. Sinha, the founder of we the chefs, P.

• We spent a good 2+ hours in the hall area having appetisers & drinks (party format)

• We went to the smaller dining halls & had a full service sit down dinner.

• Made new friends. Heard a lot of food & travel stories. Ate some unforgettable food.

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

As we spent time in the hall area, the appetisers started coming. First came the Watermelon Mango and Spicy Prawn Skewers. This was surely a modern take on the traditional prawns. The two tiny fruit balls adds a twist to tradition. The texture of prawns was just perfect. In the first batch the prawns had suboptimal salt. That got corrected from the second batch onwards. The spices made their presence felt but they resisted the temptation to overpower the flavours of the prawns. Rate it 3.75/5.

Toddy Shop Style Meat was simply mind blowing. It was robust, rustic, heavy on spices yet the flavours or taste not overpowering than that of the meat, had a hot (scoville factor) aftertaste. The seasoning was perfect. The meat had a very enjoyable bite. Every thing just more than fell in place. Bowled over. Rate it 4.95/5

Parippu vadas – Crisp vada with an enjoyable tinge of sour. They had perfect balance of taste & seasoning. The outer layer was crisp & the mid section was soft & moist. It was a work of art. Rate it 4.75/5

For main course we started with Kanji (Konjee) served on a bowl. This came with Shrimp & Raw Mango Chutney. Another accompaniment was raw banana cooked Down with Moong Dal. On top of this spiced Buttermilk was poured over. P explained that this is regular food of the common person in the villages.

The rice used was the plump short grain rice from Kerala. We were asked to mix all ingredients & eat. I resisted that for a long time & kept eating with individual condiments & then in combinations.

The shrimp & raw mango chutney was just so flavourful. The raw banana cooked with moong daal was a gem – don’t remember having anything like this outside of Kerala. Slow cooked. Buttermilk did magic. I polished off the dish till the last drop. Rate it 4.75/5

Note – this dish is eaten with hands & we enjoyed it that way.

The next course was Idiappams with Mutton Varathartarchathu and Pickled Salad. The idiappam was super fine & unputdownable. Sourced dry & perfectly re-hydrated by chef.

The mutton was finger-licking good. The meat was perfectly cooked. It stuck to the bones properly but would fall of the bones at the slightest nudge. Slow cooked. The meat juices blended beautifully with the spices & the resultant gravy was unbelievably good. Rate this dish 4.95/5

Appams and Chicken Stew came next. This was again a very different experience. This was a sober, mild flavoured dish where the ingredients were being celebrated. The first few sips of this seemed bland as the mouth wax still filled with the strong flavours & taste of Varathartarchathu. A few sips of water later this dish came to life.

Loved the fresh appams (Delhi style 😊, pun intended). To know more about this , read my earlier post on home delivery here – appam

Rate the stew 3.5/5

For desserts we had Orange Chiffon Cake
Served with Assorted Berries & an Orange
Nutmeg Sauce. Jaw dropping good. Every bit of everything in this dessert. The flavours, the textures, the low sweet quotient, the tinge of salt in the cake, the lumpiness & fluffiness of the cake. Rate it 4.75/5

After that came a second dessert – Cooked Down Toddy with Mini Crisp Appams. I think I would have enjoyed this before the orange chiffon cake as this was milder flavours & taste. Epic good. Pro max level. Like a sixer which went flying out of the stadium & smashed the front window of a car wrongly parked on the opposite side of the road!!!! Rate it 4.95/5

Overall rating of food at the pop up averages out to 4.6/5

There is another pop up by P next month at the same venue. In case you want to join….