Omnia Bharat by Silvena

Omnia Bharat is a concept by Chef Silvena Rowe and is one of the Omnia series of Restaurants. This one serves Indian food and is aptly named "Bharat". It is located beside VOX Cinemas in the Mall of the Emirates, and I was invited for a tasting session here. 

The restaurant has a brown and pink theme and the staff is mostly dressed in shades of pink, which is catchy and different compared to most other places. The interiors are nice and have a wall with an Indian caricature. 

The inside (covered) section wasn't operational on this particular day so we had to sit outside which is a little bit noisy since there are a lot of passers-by. The staff is courteous and very welcoming. 

We started with some Indian street-food items.
One of them was the all time favorite - the Pani Puri. It was extremely well presented, with smoke coming out from the center. The sweet and spicy water was served in a small tumbler, with pipettes alongside to add it to your puris. I think the presentation was better than the taste. 

Another item was the very famous Bombay Burger, or what is locally known as the Vada-Pav. There were two pieces of it, and it tasted good. 

Next was the papdi chaat. Usually the papdi is mixed with all the items, but this one was topped with them. The taste was not bad, and the quantity of the topping was a lot. 

The potato and green pea cutlets is what we ordered next. It was really soft; the taste was okay.

For drinks, we had the Tropical Pineapple which is served in a real pineapple and it looked marvelous. It also tasted very nice. 

Another one was the virgin pinacolada. This one is served in a fresh coconut, and tasted even better. We totally loved it.

Now coming to the mains...we had the King Grill. This one consists of paneer (which was soft, but could have had more flavor), lamb kebabs (which were good), and the chicken tikka (which was not too bad). It is served along with biryani rice which we really liked.

We also had the malai shahi kofta which is basically paneer dumplings in a creamy tomato gravy. This tasted really nice. Usually tomato isn't used in the gravy for malai kofta, so this tasted a bit on the tangier side as compared what I'd generally have in mind for a malai kofta.

The breads were really good. We had the garlic naan and the paratha. Both were hot and crispy.

Moving on to the sweet endings, we had the Emerald Sheikha. I can loosely describe it as a pistachio fudge. This one is raw and vegan, and tasted very good.

We also had the Gulab Jamun which is one of the most popular sweets in India. It was presented really well. It was hot, and tasted fantastic.

There was an interesting dessert called the golden sphere which we couldn't resist ordering. It is a golden sphere which you need to break open and inside is a chocolate mousse. It is served with ice-cream and raspberries. It tasted good, but looked even better.

I noticed that they have a few items that are not Indian per se and these tasted comparatively better than the traditional Indian items. Overall, the taste felt a bit bland. Judging from the people that usually visit this mall, perhaps they cater to a lot of non-Indians who aren't accustomed to spicy food, and just want to see what Indian food is like.

Overall, it isn't a bad place, and the service is pretty good.