Image Courtesy: Hyatt Regency Delhi
Head to Café from 25 – 30 August for a taste of Arabesque flavours!
Cafe, the all-day-dining restaurant at the Hyatt Regency Delhi, is celebrating Arabesque flavours this week and they invited us to be one of the first few to try it and share our thoughts. Chef Ali Alhaj (Chef de Cuisine, Park Hyatt Dubai) has flown in specially for the festival, and has curated a special menu with delicacies from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria for the lunch and dinner buffets.
Chef Ali graciously gave us a tour of the whole spread and we chatted about how the existing offerings of Arab cuisine in India have been adapted for the Indian palate, the challenges in sourcing authentic and good quality (Arab) ingredients required for the preparation of the cuisine and also, of course, the nitty-gritties of his special menu on offer!
The menu has been split into 3, to allow rotation and variety on consecutive days – each spanning a wide range of cold mezze, soup, kebabs, main course and dessert.
The stand-out items for me were the Pita bread (softest, freshest pita I have tasted in Delhi), the Falafel (moist and soft, very mildly flavoured with cumin and coriander) and the Umm Ali for dessert (creamy pastry and milk pudding, with just the right amount of sweetness that I like and loaded with dry fruit and nuts).
Other items that I liked from the cold mezze section were the Baba Ghanoush (I’m a sucker for this) and the Muhamarra (Roasted Red Pepper dip). There was a Beetroot Moutabel which I jumped at the opportunity to try because I love everything beetroot. I enjoyed the flavour but not the texture as much — it felt more like a salad than a dip. Once I acclimatised my brain to stop scooping it up with pita, as I was doing with the Baba Ghanoush and Muhamarra, I enjoyed it much more!
At the live station, the freshly grilled minced lamb kebabs and (chicken) Shish Touk were also very good, whereas the chicken mince kebabs were a little too mild for my taste. The shawarma was very flavourful but much drier (not enough thoum/ garlic sauce) than we are used to.
The main course items – Jordanian Chicken Mousakhan (chicken with olive oil, sumac and pine nuts), Lemon Garlic Fish, Mahashi Vine Leaves (stuffed with rice and mince meat) were interesting but not the stars of the menu for me.
The Lowdown
Where: Cafe, Hyatt Regency Delhi
When: 25-30th August, 2014
Time: Lunch @ 12 noon – 2:30 pm | Dinner @ 7 pm – 11:30 pm
Price: INR 2000 + taxes for unlimited buffet meal
More Information: Contact Kapil Malhotra on + 91 995 809 6568