Medley - Indian night
On Fridays, this restaurant has the Indian night called "Art of Spice". The dishes and the recipes are designed by celebrity chef Sweety Singh. I was invited to try out the food here and it was one of the most underwhelming experiences I've had.
The buffet is priced at AED 198.
There are a few things expressed in this blogpost that might seem negligible, but bear in mind the price point. It isn't a casual diner but a fine dining restaurant.
As soon as we entered, the hostess showed us the various dishes at the buffet counters. She didn't exactly show us around, but almost stood in just one place and pointed in various directions as to what dishes were where. At the end of it, I didn't even know where are the starters, and had to ask a staff member as to where I could find them (more on that later).
They've got some interesting salads and I decided to try out a few.
I started with the lentil salad. It was soggy and tasted pretty bland when I had a spoonful of it.
The aloo chaat wasn't bad, but could have been a tad bit spicier.
The paneer salad was quite good.
An interesting one was the karela (bitter gourd) salad which I think was something that I liked.
The tandoori chicken salad was salty.
I'm really fond of chaat items, and seeing a very appealing chaat counter, I was eagerly looking forward to try out something from here. I ordered the papdi chaat. This one was just about okay, also, the curd wasn't mixed well, but just put in a few places over the chaat.
For the soup, I had the tomato shorba and this was quite to my liking.
A saw a few mains there, but I was first searching for the starters, and after asking the staff member, I figured where I should be looking for it. It is almost hidden behind the mains. The area where the starters are is also pretty narrow, and a bit hard for two people to easily move around while serving food in their plate there.
The lasooni chicken was just okay.
The paneer was a bit dry, but the taste wasn't bad.
The meat in the mutton starter was hard.
The fish pakoda definitely lacked flavour.
Tandoori potato was the only thing that I liked among this section.
I was genuinely hoping there would be something good in the mains. Was there? Read on to find out.
Let me start with the dish that I genuinely liked. It was the prawn curry. It was a very simple dish, and by the looks of it, you may not find it to be all that appealing, but it tasted delicious. I also took a second helping of this one with rice.
The dal panchmel was also pretty good, and I also liked the whole lentils in it.
The kadhi pakoda was just about okay.
Despite being a fan of potato, the one I had here among the mains wasn't something I would relish.
The butter chicken looked like a disaster. There was oil floating in it. Oil. Floating. In butter chicken.
The spinach mutton was just average. The spinach was not bad, but the mutton wasn't great.
The papad was nice and crispy and I could keep having it.
They also had a chicken pulav which was greenish. The rice was over soft and tasted pretty bad.
We had the mains along with the butter naan from the roti counter which was made well. Oh wait, a correction, I, not we, since my friend never got the roti that he ordered.
For some reason, there were no spoons on the table; just forks and knives for an Indian themed night.
When I asked me to get a spoon to have my mains, they got me a soup spoon. Later a staff got the correct spoon, and along with it, the dessert spoon too, which she dipped in my prawn curry. I wonder for what joy.
There were no katoris (small bowls) for the dal either, and we had to ask the staff who after great difficulty got us a couple of them, and kept a total of 5 bowls near the dal. What were the other people supposed to do? Or was this restaurant expecting only 5 people to dine there that night I wonder.
Let's move on to the sweet endings, which ironically wasn't a very sweet experience for me.
They had some cakes and tarts in an enclosed glass shelf. The names were on one side, and the shelf opened from the other side. So you could either see what it is, or take it. In case the staff was expected to give these cakes, there should have been staff in the first place there.
The mud cake was average to good, while the mango one was weird.
The gulab jamuns were quite good, and the gajar halwa tasted good too but had a coarser texture than expected.
I did pretty much like the chocolate mousse though.
The moong dal halwa could have been better.
The rice pudding which was actually vermicilli pudding (kheer) was about average.
Can you guess what is the dish in the picture below?
These are jalebis. It took me a while to wrap my head around the fact that jalebis can look like this. For some reason, I foolishly even tried them.
It had the consistency of a pakoda (the kind you'd find in kadhi pakoda) and tasted sweetish.
I did enjoy having the ras malai though. It had a good consistency, albeit the lack of pistachios, saffron, etc.
The place did not seem to have enough staff around. Even at the live chaat counter, the staff wasn't there, and had to be called.
Paying almost AED 200 for this is preposterous.
The buffet is priced at AED 198.
There are a few things expressed in this blogpost that might seem negligible, but bear in mind the price point. It isn't a casual diner but a fine dining restaurant.
As soon as we entered, the hostess showed us the various dishes at the buffet counters. She didn't exactly show us around, but almost stood in just one place and pointed in various directions as to what dishes were where. At the end of it, I didn't even know where are the starters, and had to ask a staff member as to where I could find them (more on that later).
They've got some interesting salads and I decided to try out a few.
I started with the lentil salad. It was soggy and tasted pretty bland when I had a spoonful of it.
The aloo chaat wasn't bad, but could have been a tad bit spicier.
The paneer salad was quite good.
An interesting one was the karela (bitter gourd) salad which I think was something that I liked.
The tandoori chicken salad was salty.
I'm really fond of chaat items, and seeing a very appealing chaat counter, I was eagerly looking forward to try out something from here. I ordered the papdi chaat. This one was just about okay, also, the curd wasn't mixed well, but just put in a few places over the chaat.
For the soup, I had the tomato shorba and this was quite to my liking.
A saw a few mains there, but I was first searching for the starters, and after asking the staff member, I figured where I should be looking for it. It is almost hidden behind the mains. The area where the starters are is also pretty narrow, and a bit hard for two people to easily move around while serving food in their plate there.
The lasooni chicken was just okay.
The paneer was a bit dry, but the taste wasn't bad.
The meat in the mutton starter was hard.
The fish pakoda definitely lacked flavour.
Tandoori potato was the only thing that I liked among this section.
I was genuinely hoping there would be something good in the mains. Was there? Read on to find out.
Let me start with the dish that I genuinely liked. It was the prawn curry. It was a very simple dish, and by the looks of it, you may not find it to be all that appealing, but it tasted delicious. I also took a second helping of this one with rice.
The dal panchmel was also pretty good, and I also liked the whole lentils in it.
The kadhi pakoda was just about okay.
Despite being a fan of potato, the one I had here among the mains wasn't something I would relish.
The butter chicken looked like a disaster. There was oil floating in it. Oil. Floating. In butter chicken.
The spinach mutton was just average. The spinach was not bad, but the mutton wasn't great.
The papad was nice and crispy and I could keep having it.
They also had a chicken pulav which was greenish. The rice was over soft and tasted pretty bad.
We had the mains along with the butter naan from the roti counter which was made well. Oh wait, a correction, I, not we, since my friend never got the roti that he ordered.
For some reason, there were no spoons on the table; just forks and knives for an Indian themed night.
When I asked me to get a spoon to have my mains, they got me a soup spoon. Later a staff got the correct spoon, and along with it, the dessert spoon too, which she dipped in my prawn curry. I wonder for what joy.
There were no katoris (small bowls) for the dal either, and we had to ask the staff who after great difficulty got us a couple of them, and kept a total of 5 bowls near the dal. What were the other people supposed to do? Or was this restaurant expecting only 5 people to dine there that night I wonder.
Let's move on to the sweet endings, which ironically wasn't a very sweet experience for me.
They had some cakes and tarts in an enclosed glass shelf. The names were on one side, and the shelf opened from the other side. So you could either see what it is, or take it. In case the staff was expected to give these cakes, there should have been staff in the first place there.
The mud cake was average to good, while the mango one was weird.
The gulab jamuns were quite good, and the gajar halwa tasted good too but had a coarser texture than expected.
I did pretty much like the chocolate mousse though.
The moong dal halwa could have been better.
The rice pudding which was actually vermicilli pudding (kheer) was about average.
Can you guess what is the dish in the picture below?
These are jalebis. It took me a while to wrap my head around the fact that jalebis can look like this. For some reason, I foolishly even tried them.
It had the consistency of a pakoda (the kind you'd find in kadhi pakoda) and tasted sweetish.
I did enjoy having the ras malai though. It had a good consistency, albeit the lack of pistachios, saffron, etc.
The place did not seem to have enough staff around. Even at the live chaat counter, the staff wasn't there, and had to be called.
Paying almost AED 200 for this is preposterous.
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