Dine Esty (Sushant Lok 1, near Park Plaza Complex, Gurgaon)

In a nutshell:

Pretty good Chindian / other Asian food & a very exciting & cool live Teppanyaki station – must experience it.

Address & other details: Dine Esty

Meal for 2: Rs. 1000 onwards

Cuisine Type: Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian

Short Description – In case u r in a hurry:

The Chindian (Indianized Chinese food) is tasty & nice but lacks on the authenticity front. For ‘close to authentic Chinese food’ in Gurgaon, YUMMRAJ recommends The Monk, Galaxy Mall. However, if u do not give a damn to authenticity & r willing to dig into anything tasty, Dine Esty is a good choice. Infact its a very good choice for a nice evening out with some good food.

The main dining hall – another view

We have been to Dine esty several times & always had been eating at the Live Japanese Teppanyaki  (Japanese Grill) Counter. This time around we decided to sit in the main dining hall & ordered some Chinese (turned out to be tasty Chinjabi) alacarte section.

starter at Dine Esty

The menu card was almost 10 pages long & really requires a great deal of study by foodies to decide on food. Too many interesting names pop up before the eyes & ity becomes a challenge (in a good way) to narrow down & finalize the order. In the menu card there are sections like soups, dimsums, starters, main course etc like everyone else but all these section in turn have detailed sub sections  – chicken, pork, lamb, vegetarian, duck, fish, crab, seafood. I saw some interesting items like seafood dimsum, crystal dimsum, pork gouza, prawn harkaw (a dimsum that has potato starch as wrapper) – I fondly remembered harkaw that we had at Royal china. To summarize, every Chinese place has sections but this one was in great details.

 The interior has three sections – a lounge & bar setting on the left (as u enter) & this is covered by a see-through wooden partition. Then there is the Main dining Hall with Restaurant setting & at the end is the Live Teppanyaki counter where u can sit on the counter & njoy seeing the food being prepared in front of u. A chat with the chef is also an interesting option. Getting the food made with ur choice of sauces is surely another option.

The lounge & bar setting behind the wood partition

The Japanese concept of teppanyaki is very cool though – it is essentially a flat Metal plate (say 1meter by 2 meters) that is heated at all times. The customers have the option to sit around this hot plate & the Chef stir fries veggies / fish / meats in front of u & serves fresh out of the Teppan.

Stir frying on the teppan right in front of the customer seats – u see the cooking right infront of u

Inspite of the fact that the sauces here r tweaked to cater to Indian tastes – the overall taste is very enjoyable. ………….. Infact not too many people might b able to appreciate the 100% original taste the way it is served in Japan or China. I Do love the original though & do not mind the tweaked versions at times.

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Ploof Deli , Kitchen & bar (Lodhi market, Delhi)

In a nutshell:

Very interesting cake shop cum imported meat & seafood shop cum a very cool sit-in restaurant – frequented by expats staying in Delhi.

ploof deli

Address & other details: Ploof deli

Meal for 2: Rs. 1000 onwards

Lodhi Market where Ploof is located

Cuisine Type: Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian

Short description – In case u r in a hurry:

U can walk in to the counter & buy tenderloin, salmon, pork ribs, hamburger patty, marinated (continental style) corn fed free range chicken & lamb etc – something that I have not come across in many places in Delhi NCR.
What is interesting is u can buy & take them home / ask them to cook it for u for a ‘sit & eat’. U can also order food & drinks from a 8 page menu card.

inside the restaurant cum store

Everything at the cake counter looks very enticing & a large array of different kinds of bread look interesting too.

seafood stack

We had an excellent juicy tenderloin steak, a finger-licking-good seafood stack – calamari, prawns & fish. On the menu card the fish mentioned is basa but we requested it to be replaced with salmon & offered to pay extra. The request was granted. For desserts came the unique (for Delhi) & very tasty banofee pie & date walnut pie.

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Seasonal Tastes : Coffee Shop at Westin Gurgaon, Iffco Chowk

In a nutshell :

Marvellous food – The Chef is a genius, the service however has a long way to go.

Address & other details: Seasonal Tastes, Westin

Cuisine Type : Both Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian

Meal for 2: Rs. 1500 onwards (without beverages) – a lot depends on what u order. Seafood, Red meats are expensive, veg & Chicken dishes are much lower.

Short Description – In case u r in a hurry:

Atlantic Salmon Steak was mouthwatering good – grilled & served with Lemon Butter sauce. Lemon tart was good but we’ve had better. Serving staff were bit less attentive or were plain overworked……. we really had to make efforts to make eye contact & wave to get something!!!!

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