In a nutshell: A cool cafe with a casual European look, good music, superb service, some outstanding European ‘cafe food’ & good coffee whose aroma hits u as soon as u enter the place. Address & other details: Di Ghent Cafe Meal for 2: Rs. 750 onwards Cuisine type : Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ … Continue reading Di Ghent Cafe (208, Level 2, Cross Point Mall, DLF Phase 4, Gurgaon)
In a nutshell: An understated presence of the restaurant (from outside), a cheap looking colored hoarding outside the building contrasts with a stunningly beautiful interior. Great place for enjoying some good Oriental food in a nice ambience. Address & other details: Oriental Blossom Meal for 2: Rs. 1200 onwards Cuisine type : Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited … Continue reading Oriental blossom (Optus Sarovar Premiere, 43-47, City Centre, Sector 29, Gurgaon)
In a nutshell: A small, neat & clean, good ambience, good service, Andhra style South Indian Vegetarian Eatery that filled a void in Gurgaon – of eateries that serve YUMM South Indian Veg food. Address & other details: Madhuban Meal for 2: Rs. 400 onwards Cuisine type : Vegetarian Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has … Continue reading Madhuban (216 & 223, 2nd floor, Cross Point Mall, DLF Phase 4, Gurgaon)
In a nutshell: A Retro Indian Restaurant that serves good North Indian food in a nice ambience with live Ghazals on all evenings – The whole setting & even the menu reminds one of eating out experience two decades back . Address & other details: Earthen Oven Meal for 2: Rs. 2000 Cuisine type : Vegetarian & nonvegetarian Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by … Continue reading Earthen Oven (Fortune Select Excalibur Hotel, Sector 49, Sohna Road, Gurgaon)
In a nutshell: Far Better & surely more authentic than most South Indian Vegetarian joints in Gurgaon – quite behind big boys of Chennai like Murugan Idly , Saravana Bhawan & others. Address & other details: Vanakkam Meal for 2: Rs. 150 onwards Cuisine type : Vegetarian Short Description – In case u r in a Hurry: The name of the restaurant reminded me of my … Continue reading Vanakkam (F 8, Qutab Plaza Market, DLF Phase 1, Gurgaon)
In a nutshell – Loved the overall dining experience at Amaranta including the splendid food – contemporary take on traditional food from 9 coastal states of India. Address & other details: Amaranta Meal for 2: Rs. 5000 onwards Cuisine type : Vegetarian & nonvegetarian Short Description – In case u r in a Hurry: Amaranta is an Indian Coastal food specialty restaurant that serves food … Continue reading Amaranta (The Oberoi, 443, Phase 5, Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon)
Some Super YUMM, someYUMM & some not so YUMM Vegetarian Punjabi Dhaba food in Gurgaon at unbelievable prices, with the owner & his family at the shop floor at all times to attend to customers.
Long shot of Mame da Dhaba – the front side is the dining room & the hind side is the kitchen.
Address & other details:As u enter the one way road of DLF Phase 3 from beside Gateway tower (Jahajwali building), u come across a building on the left that has RBS. Take the road on the left as soon as the RBS building ends. Mame da Dhaba is just less than 50 meters into that road.
Superb Paneer Tikkas freshly tandoored & served
Meal for 2: Rs. 150 onwards
Cuisine type:vegetarian
Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:
This tiny eatery looks pretty unimpressive from outside. However, it is pretty neat & clean within. There is seating for 10 persons at any point of time – One has to share tables with strangers. Might sound odd but believe me, once the YUMM food arrives, people just stop talking & eat till they r full.
Aloo methi
Outside, near the road there is a juice counter. The tandoor is also right beside the entrance.
Service is pretty fast. The owner is on the shop floor at all times & so is his family (most of the time). The owner supervises , takes home delivery orders on phone, manages the cash box, at times lends a hand to serving & at times to clearing plates as well. Staff members r quite good & r experts in fast service.
The owner supervising the open Kitchen – standing in the Dining Hall
The 3 page menu card has a real long list of items. I wonder how they manage it. Stock-outs however happen ‘ aaj ye item khatam ho gaya ji’.
Menu card with home delivery numbers as well
Some of the food items we had were extraordinarily good. Others were just good. One of the six dishes was suboptimal.
Detailed description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:
Indian fine Dining Restaurant with superb food, excellent ambiance but quite mismanaged when it comes to the whole experience.
The logo of the restaurant
Address & other details: Kasturi
Meal for 2: Rs. 1500 onwards
Dining hall of
Cuisine type: vegetarian & nonvegetarian
Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:
If it had happened once, I wud have thought it to b an aberration. Since it happened twice, I smell a consistency in the pattern. The restaurant is on the first floor. First day we climbed up the stairs & reached there to find that a party was going on. There was no staff member either at the ground floor entrance or at the bar at first floor. Second day was again a similar experience – We climbed up to find no one upstairs. Waited for a few minutes & came downstairs. How can a restaurant in India not have a Human being manning it at all ‘open hours’?????
Sunehri Bater
As we sat for the food we realized that there was only one server for the full floor of approx 16 tables. He was welcoming guests (in case he was in the hall when the guest popped up), taking orders, going to the kitchen (I guess down stairs), serving the food, clearing the plates, settling the bill & saying goodbye!!!! Must say that the guy was too good & very well behaved. But the overall service was getting affected coz he was running around. We were at the restaurant from 8pm to 9.45 pm & the status was the same. Is the lone waiter expected to b a superman to still deliver impeccable service or is it sheer negligence on part of the Management?
beauty shot
The interiors of the restaurant is very nice. A ‘golden latticework’ theme is seen throughout. The walls have large paintings of Nawabs & courtesans. I think the Nawabs in these pictures are 3 times slimmer than what they wud have looked like, when they lived.
pictures of slim nawabs in the Dining Hall
I was however wondering why western music was playing in a Nawabi menu Nawabi look restaurant!!!
The menu card was beautifully designed – its cover was inspired by the lattice work mentioned above.
Menu card at Kasturi
Prices of food are on higher side as compared to prices of these dishes in mid range restaurants. So I heard my friends comment ‘too much priced’ etc. However, as compared to other Indian fine dining places like Dum Affairs South Ex Delhi or Kainoosh, Promenade, Vasant Kunj, Delhi, the prices r totally justified.
Latticework design
I wud love to go to Kasturi again & again inspite of all the above coz the food is real good. Authentic to a large extent & impressive taste & flavour.
Bunn Gosth
Detailed description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:
Better than most sizzler places in Delhi NCR but nowhere near to the real taste & flavours of similar food that u get in Europe / USA.
the logo
Address & other details: Kobe Sizzlers
Meal for 2:Rs. 800 onwards
Cuisine type:vegetarian & nonvegetarian
Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:
For the uninitiated, Kobe refers to cuts of beef from a certain species of cattle, raised according to strict tradition in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. The meat is generally considered to be a delicacy, renowned for its flavour, tenderness, and fatty, well-marbled texture.This happens to be one of the most expensive meats in the world.
When Kobe Sizzlers of Mumbai opened shop in Gurgaon for the first time few years back, we were exited. A quick visit to Kobe gave mixed reactions – It was surely better than most other sizzler places around, including Peter Cat of Park Street Kolkata. However, when it came to the sauces, the right flavours, herbs, texture of steamed veggies etc, this one was shades below its Global counterparts. Must mention here that the prices at Kobe r cheaper than the others I am referring to.
The restaurant is well designed – visually. Functionally, it is a bit too crammed, to the extent that u can definitely hear 100% of the discussion on the next table. I guess there is no alternative as space is limited & people throng here all the while – queues r often to b seen.
Dining Hall of the restaurant
The air inside is usually filled with strong burnt smell of sizzlers which is good for carnivores like us but might not b very enjoyable to vegetarians. Sound of sizzlers & the smoke coming out from it make up for the mood of this place.
This is a place good to go, eat & get out. Not really a fine dining place, not a dating place either but a kind of ‘eat good food & spend chatting time elsewhere’ kinda place.
Some members of the staff are Old School true blue restaurant Stewards & that makes the experience quite nostalgic at times. Rest of the guys appeared to b modern day restaurant waiters who r doing this for earning a living & might move on to say a Shopper’s Stop in the next job jump.
Detailed description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:
Masters of Gravies, curries & fries, still a long way to go when it comes to tenderness of meats. Great place to try out traditional dishes that r seldom cooked at home these days but not a good idea to try basic day to day home food.
Bengali food is usually associated with fish, meats & everything non vegetarian. However there r some extraordinary vegetarian food items made from leaves, stems, flowers, roots etc that cost minimal but taste YUMM e.g. Mocha (banana flower), thor (the pith of the banana stem), oal (root), bok Phool (flower), kumro Phool (pumpkin flower), kochu pata (leaf), kochu (root), lau shak (leaf) etc. These have unique tastes & flavours and most of these r different from the mainstream usually available Indian vegetarian food.
Bengali cuisine of today also has many Mughal influences like Kolkata Biryani etc. British influence shows upin the form of batter fried fish, orly, crumb fried chops, cutlets, fries , kabiraji (coverage), dimer devil (devilled egg) etc.
Bengali food also interestingly has influence from other unexpected Countries. E.g. Dolma came with the Armenians to Kolkata in early 1800s!!!!The Portuguese introduced Cottage cheese to Bengalis in 1600s& that is what gave birth to the famous chhena based Bengali sweets!!!!
Wow potoler Dolma
Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:
For those new to Bengali language, Hangla (pronounced ‘hyangla’) means Glutton. Ki Hangla essentially means – ‘oh, what a glutton!!!’
As I entered the restaurant, I realized it was a real tiny place but with very well done colourful interiors. There were 5 tables with a seating of 3 – 4 each. The Restaurant was neat & clean. A live roll counter is put up outside the restaurant, beside the entrance door – that ensures ‘roll’ customers can take away their rolls without entering the shop. Smoke from the roll counter does not get in the shop as well due to a glass wall that separates the counter from the Dining Room.
In addition to serving cooked food, the restaurant also sells Bengali snacks like Mukhorochak Chanachur & knick knacks like Jharna Ghee, naaru (Bengali style coconut gur laddoo), hojmi guli etc. The wall is adorned with covers of Old Bengali LP records.
Interiors of Ki Hangla
Home delivery seemed to be a large percentage of sales here as I cud hear the phone ringing quite frequently.
The Lady who owns this eatery manages the show herself & that makes a helluva difference. She gets live feedback from the constant customer interaction & that I guess helps her keep up the quality standard. We cud see that Quality of food as well as ‘home delivery’ on time was being directly supervised by her. When Love & Mustard restaurant opened in Galleria long back, the Owner’s presence meant the food was good & over time the food deteriorated as he started entrusting the shop to his staff members. I stopped going there after a series of average to bad experiences.
Ki Hangla serves traditional Bengali, British inspired food, Mughal inspired food, Bangladeshi specialities, Portuguese inspired sweets & of course Armenian inspired Dolma. The taste of some of the food reminded me of the food cooked by ‘thakurs’ (traditional ‘biyebari/shaadi’ Cooks usually from Orissa who were expert Bengali cuisine cooks) who are on the path to extinction after ‘Marriage Caterers’ have found their way into the Bengali ceremonies.
Ki Hangla also comes up with ‘special thalis’ & special menu for different occasions.
Special occasion menu @ Ki Hangla
Food is served in aluminium foil boxes – the same ones that r used for home delivery – A concept similar to Dominos Pizza where they serve on the home delivery box even if u r having it sitting at the store.
As mentioned above, gravies & fries r awesome at Ki Hangla but the meats r not well done at all – something that needs to be taken seriously by the Management.
Detailed description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:
