Gurgaon Archives - The White Ramekins

A Zoroastrian Rhapsody – Parsi Food Festival, The Oberoi, Gurgaon

June 1, 2014 by TheWhiteRamekins

Two things come instantly to my mind when I hear the word Parsi. First is Pearl Padamsee who played the quintessential Parsi aunty role in few of the legendary Bollywood films of seventies. We as kids used to enjoy those movies being aired on Doordarshan a lot. Khatta Meetha and Baato Baato Mein are two of the movies, which I am not sure I have watched how many times. And the second thing is eggs. That’s right! How could one not think about eggs when it comes to the mention of Parsi. I would love to eat the eggs everyday in breakfast, if they have been prepared by a Parsi lady. I got really excited when Anamika Singh, the renowned Tea Sommelier and the founder of Anadini Himalaya Tea called up for the invite to the Parsi Food Festival running at restaurant Amaranta of The Oberoi, Gurgaon. Mumbai’s best and the oldest parsi chefs Tehmtan & Shernaz Dumasia would be cooking at this week long authentic parsi fare running from 14th to 22nd of June. The legendary couple has been into Parsi food catering for over 25 years now and have served to the number of celebrities. The afternoon unfolded with catching up with the other guests at The Piano Bar at The Oberoi. I was wonderful to meet my dear blogger friends after such a long time. After a short chit chat, we initiated with our pre-formatted lunch menu showcasing some of the signature dishes of the Parsi cuisine. Few of the dishes, which we were served

Parsi lamb cutlet & Chicken Farcha

Lamb cutlet were made from brain part and coated in to the egg batter and semolina and shallow fried. I liked lamb more than the chicken. For starters, you couldn’t even tell if that is the brain you are eating. It was super yumm!

Vegetable cutlet and Chutney Pattice

Both these appetizers were classic appetizers you would get. Chuttney pattice, a tender boiled mashed potatoes with green chutney stuffing is the kind of finger food you would crave for on a rainy day with a hot cup of tea. The concept of wrapping up the green chutney as a filling within a fritter is something ingenuous.

Mutton Dhansak With Kebab

A real parsi meal can never be complete without the Dhansak, a lamb dish with meat slow cooked in lentils. And this had really great flavors. The dal was infused with the spices and the mutton gave it the depth of flavor. It was served alongside a spiced pilaf and mutton kebabs.

Patra Ni Macchi

Banana leaf wrapped marinated pomfret fish steamed with mint and coriander chutney. The fish was perfectly steamed and had freshness of flavors due to mint and coriander herbs. It was a perfect summer meal, light and fresh.

Jerdaloo Salli Murghi

It was a chicken curry cooked in roasted onions and apricot gravy. It had the perfect balance of sweet and sour. Finding out the whole apricot in the dish was a bonus. It just won my heart over.

Bhindi Masala

Stir fried baby okra with coconut and cumin reminded me of the way my Grandmother used to cook them, except for the coconut part, which I found quite interesting.

Lagan Nu Custard

A rich milk and egg based dessert baked with dried fruits. It’s a Parsi version of creme brulee, which is a specialty dessert for parsi weddings {as the name suggests}. It’s perfect way to sum up your meal. Each bite tastes heavenly.

Parsi cuisine like it’s community is an informal, light hearted cuisine with a balance of sweet and sour, which is Khattu Mitthu. It has got no rules of eating. It is best enjoyed with your hands as suggested by the chefs themselves. A real parsi banquet is served sitting on the floor. It is eccentric, lively yet has it’s own identity.

I was lucky to have experienced this and have interacted with the legendary chefs. Special Thanks to ever so pretty and gracious Mallika Gowda, the PR manager of The Oberoi Gurgaon for organizing this wonderful afternoon and having us over!

Blogger’s Table @ Thai Pavilion, Vivanta By Taj, Gurgaon

July 23, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Chef Ananda Solomon picture courtesy, The Hindu

Few days back, young property of Vivanta By Taj in Gurgaon, hosted a Blogger’s Table at their recently launched Thai Pavilion. It was a dinner, the day Thai Pavilion was launched here. It was quite a memorable dinner, as we all got to meet legendary chef Ananda Solomon, who brought Thai Pavilion to Vivanta, Mumbai during early 90’s.

It started with a brief introduction to Thai cuisine, by the executive chef, explaining how important it is to get the balance of flavors right in Thai cuisine. According to chef, Thai cuisine has got more vegetarian options than non-vegetarians, perhaps a biggest myth buster about the south east Asian cuisine in particular.

The grub extravaganza kicked-off with amuse bouche, for which chef selected galangal flavored compressed watermelon, which was quite crisp and a tidy affair, as much like an amuse bouche is supposed to be.

And then came an array of appetizers, one by one. Young papaya salad with sweet & spicy sauce and lots of crushed peanuts was something quite unusual. If hadn’t been told earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to tell about the papaya.

Tempura prawns and marinated chicken morsels wrapped in pandan leaves were served next. Tempura prawns nice and soft from inside while crunchy on the outside, I almost found them addictive and asked for the second helping and gave chicken morsels a pass.

Mushroom parcels blended with thai herbs, which were served next, were a little unflavored, somewhere lacking a character, rather nothing exciting to write home about.

Corn cakes and Thai dim sum were some other appetizers, which I really didn’t care about. All because, the food came in pretty quick, so much so that I was concentrating on my prawn tempura and let other things pass.

Main course, included crispy fried fish with tangy sauce, grilled lamb with mint and cucumber, water chestnuts and cashew nuts with red chilli paste, Thai chicken red curry and Thai vegetable green curry with some jasmine rice. All of them were pretty awesome, scoring high above their appetizer counterparts. Each one of the dishes tasted pretty decent and there was nothing in main course, of which I felt dissatisfied at all. I enjoyed almost all of them equally.

I feel that there is enough wide gap between a south east Asian cuisine and their European or American counterparts, when it comes to dessert in most of the restaurants. But this dessert platter completely blew me off. I was super impressed, how gracefully chef Ananda Solomon has succeeded in making such a refreshing dessert out of tender coconut milk and tapioca coated diced water chestnut. I did finish it to last bits and I still dream about that sometimes.

I found the overall meal an average, all because some of the appetizers failed to impress me {I wish, the flavors had been given importance than the numbers}, while main course and the dessert saved the day {definitely, a winner}. Will I go back, yes for the grilled lamb and some other main course and of course the coconut milk dessert.

See, what others have to say about:

Parul @ The Shirazine
Ruchira @ The Great Cookaroo
Mukta @ Bake-a-mania
Sid @ Chef at Large
Rekha @ My Tasty Curry

Blogger’s Table @ La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon

July 18, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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}.

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.

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!

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