Sakura (Metropolitan Hotel, Bangla Sahib Road, Connaught Place, New Delhi)

Note:

This review is only for Breakfast ‘set menu’ at Sakura.

In a nutshell:

Loved the breakfast set menu offered by Sakura – served at the Coffee shop of Metropolitan Hotel

Japanese (fusion) salad @ Sakura Delhi

Address & other Details: Sakura

Meal for 2: Rs. 2400

Timing: Breakfast

Cuisine Type: A set menu having both Nonvegetarian & Vegetarian food.

Short Description – In case u r in a hurry:

We read about this breakfast at Sakura quite some time back & had planned to go there for quite some time. A day before, we called the Gurgaon Sakura & asked about breakfast & they said Breakfast is available only at the Delhi Restaurant.

sweet omelet, pickled cherries, seaweed, baked salmon – part of a breakfast set menu @ Sakura Delhi

As we reached the Metropolitan Hotel near Connaught Place, we were taken to the Coffee shop. We said ‘but we want to have breakfast at Sakura’. The answer shocked us ‘Sakura is closed in the morning. Opens at 11.00 am!!’ We asked them to check with (I think) the F & B manager & this time the reply was different – ‘Yes, u can have the set Japanese breakfast but that is served in the Coffee shop’. We were obviously fine with the offer as eating the Japanese breakfast was our only motto & not necessarily sitting at Sakura.

The Manager of the Coffee shop walked up to us & greeted us after maybe hearing we had come for Sakura Breakfast – I didn’t know breakfast at Sakura was such a ‘unusual’ occurance. Anyway, the offer that came along with his visit was great – we cud pick up any juice / fruits from the regular coffee shop breakfast.

The service was very good post the initial ‘confusion’.

multicolored tea bags of diff flavors @ Sakura Delhi

Loved the food that was served to us in a set menu platter – salad (different from the usual ones), a superb miso soup, a tofu dish that looked superb & was good to taste, salmon baked, an excellent seaweed, a radish based preparation, a jumbo scoop of sticky rice & smartly cut melon.

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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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