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Blogger’s Table @ La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon

July 18, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon

French cuisine to me has been all about those amazing pastries, desserts like Crepe Suzette, delectable Macarons, yummy and crumbly pastries, mille feuille  and everything that has got butter in it, loads and loads of butter. Probably, I have a strong affinity for the desserts and that is the reason, I wouldn’t go beyond classic French onion soup, Foie Gras and Salade Nicoise with a warm crusty baguette when it comes to ordering a main course and would rather save my appetite for the desserts. Because, I know desserts would never ever disappoint when it comes to French.

La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon 3

Until very recently, a dinner I had one of the finest ones in recent times changed my mind, when I got to introduced to a Riviera cuisine, an all new and different take on the classic french cuisine, which I knew about. Blogger’s Table, once again gathered for a dinner at La Riviera restaurant of this newly built property of Pullman Hotels at Central Park Gurgaon.  Riviera cuisine, as introduced to us by Executive Chef Tanveer Kwatra, is basically a blend of  food from Nice, Marseillaise regions of France and has modern interpretations with emphasis on fresh seafood and prime cuts of meat. It more strongly resembles to northern Italian food. Fresh produce like local olive oil, goat’s cheese, herbes de Provence are more commonly used.

La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon 5

It was quite refreshing as well as exciting to know about the Italian connect of the food, knowing that Italian is the cuisine I love the most. La Riviera at Pullman, tries to use as much as locally available fresh produce but imports most of it’s prime cuts and ribs from the coastal region in France. Chef also told us, that how creatively, natural organic and fresh ingredients have been of prime importance in the menu at the restaurant. It was interesting to know, that they have got techniques to extract colors from fruits and vegetables, such as chlorophyll from spinach for the green color.

These were some of the dishes which we were served that night.

La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon 4

Ciabatta with olive oil butter. Wow! I just fell in love with the olive butter, when I got to know that it has got no butter, but it hold the shape because of natural emulsifying agents added to olive oil, I couldn’t resist slathering my bread with a generous spoon of this amazing olive oil. A nice kick of olives in very first bite.

La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon 2

Then followed Smoked Tomato bruschetta with garlic chips. You could literally feel the smoky-ness in those freshly chopped tomatoes.

Second course had Seared scallops and prawns with pistachio puree and noilly prat fumet along with Pan fried ricotta gnocchi, with cauliflower puree and saffron vinaigrette. Gnocchi was to die for and so was the pistachio puree.

Then we were served a nice and vibrant macerated asparagus and ruby grapefruit salad with smoked curd. The mellowness of asparagus paired really well with the tangy smoked curd.

Porcini mushroom risotto, very well cooked with a proper chewy-ness of the rice and the creamy-ness of porcini mushrooms.

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In next course, we were served Goats cheese tortelini with eggplant caviar. Tortellini could have been slightly well done, which I felt because personally I like my pasta to be cooked well. I am not the kind of al dente. I know, that would sound aweful to most Italians. But the eggplant caviar, I just polished off within few seconds, with eggplant being one of my favorite vegetables.

After the fifth course, we had our palette cleanser which was an orange sorbet. Strong tones of orange, it had that nice well balanced kick at the palette. I wouldn’t mind eating that as a dessert too. Infact, I almost felt that that this could have been the dessert {knowing that my stomach was full}.

La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon 7

So after the palette cleanser, came an array of three main course, which we all shared, as we all were full. We were served Twice cooked best end of lamb with textures of root vegetable, Roasted beef rib eye and braised cheek pithvier with onion soubise and Spinach pithivier with arrabiatta sauce. Lamb was perfectly done, and that is the only dish I remember from that course. Everything else was just over-powered by the tenderness and the juicy-ness of the lamb.

La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon 1

By this sixth course, I had no room left for the dessert and was hoping that we don’t get our dessert served. But then, it came. And it created the magic. Manjari chocolate cremeaux, raspberry and champagne jelly and ivory chocolate milk, basically chocolate pot de creme served with raspberry jelly, in simple words. But, the magic was all about the chocolate that went into. World’s finest Valrohna. Oh My God! Now how could I’ve resisted. It was polished to the last bit. Every single bite took me to some dreamy world. Such soul satisfying dessert!

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It was a very nice and warm evening spent with all my foodie friends, with getting to know about the different take on classic French cuisine. La Riviera promises to serve some authentic coastal french cuisine and does this job remarkably well. Definitely, a place to visit when you want to spend a calm evening and enjoy the delicacies from the Riviera.

Other’s present on the table that night:

  • Parul from Shirazine
  • Mukta from Bake-a-mania
  • Sushmita from My unfinished life

Filed Under: review Tagged With: blog event, blogger's table, food, french, Gurgaon, new delhi, pullman hotels, restaurant, review, riviera cuisine

Blogger’s Table @ The Piano Man Art Cafe, New Delhi

July 15, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

The Piano Man 8

An all vegetarian dinner too could be a Rockstar, which I got to believe few days back, when I visited this lovely cafe situated in Basant Lok market in New Delhi. The Piano Man Art Cafe serves a lot many mind blowing global dishes and you wouldn’t believe, if I say it just serves vegetarian food. Don’t think it is a spoiler. And I got to experience the vegetarian extravaganza with my happy and chatty bunch of bloggers from Blogger’s Table.

The Piano Man 10

And as the name suggests, it’s interiors reflect art all over. Walls are painted with some beautiful strokes of vibrant colors and are adorned with paintings and posters of various jazz musicians. One side of the cafe is all see-through glass, which gives a nice view of the market outside.

The Piano Man 9

I did not miss meat that night and that was really unbelievable. It started with smoothies. And we could chose from Chocolate & Hazelnut vs Paan smoothie. I didn’t want to load my stomach with chocolate in the beginning of the meal so I ordered for paan smoothie, keeping my fingers crossed. Thinking if paan could make or break the deal. And I was blown out. What flavors! You could chew on beetle leaves while sipping on to wonderfully fragrant smoothie…really light on stomach and delicious too.

The Piano Man

Pumpkin and peanut butter soup served with garlic toasty which followed next, was quite an interesting one, I must say. Both the flavors were quite prominent and were good enough to bring a smile easily on anyone’s face. A nice bowl of comfort food I must say.

The Piano Man 1

A crispy green apple and fennel salad was served right after the soup. Again a crowd winner! A very good balance of flavors and the perfect crunch!

The Piano Man 3

A big Mezze platter had everything I love about the mezze platter. Hummus was to die for and so were the fluffy pita breads!

The Piano Man 2

Vegetarian sliders with walnut and brown rice patty were so cute and adorable.

The Piano Man 4

Ratatouille was amazingly done having lots of peppers, zucchini and aubergines.

The Piano Man 5

Wild mushroom risotto was really flavorful and it had that perfect bite to it, I fell in love with it. Potato Dauphinoise was equally comforting and creamy.

The Piano Man 7

For dessert, we had tiramisu and dark chocolate caramel and sea salt tart. I did not like tiramisu that much, found it lacking some flavors. But I thoroughly enjoyed the chocolate and caramel tart. Sea salt speckled over gave the flavors an uplift, wonderfully done.

While we were enjoying these mind blowing vegetarian dishes one by one, a cellist and a magician kept the mood lighter and happier with their nice talent. And also, we got to hear some nice jazz from Arjun Sagar Gupta, who also runs the cafe.

The Piano Man 11

A decent place to hog on to some really wonderful vegetarian grub, you must give a try. And I can now at least vouch for the food that you sure would want to go back again. Apart from food, cafe also organizes various stand-up comedies and live jazz performances, which you could check out at their Facebook page.

Look what others have to say:

Parul from The Shirazine
Sangeeta from Banaras Ka Khaana
Ruchira from The Great Cookaroo
Sushmita from My Unfinished Life
Aishwarya from Aishwarya Eats
Mukta from Bake-a-mania
Rekha from My Tasty Curry
Rituparna from Chocolates & Dreams
Sid from Chef at Large
Charis from Culinary Storm

Filed Under: review Tagged With: art, basant lok, blogger's table, cafe, food, jazz, new delhi, restaurant, review, vasant vihar

Hi! I'm Himanshu - a home chef who loves to cook, bake, style and photo shoot... Read More…

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