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ATM - A Ta Maison - NOT for members only

Visited A Ta Maison (ATM) for lunch today. Right from the secluded hidden entrance in the back alley to the ambience of the restaurant itself, i was blown away. The food, the place, the service ... everything a cut above. The service especially was not far away from some posh gentlemens club in London or New York and i think thats what the plan was when this place was set up. I am surprised i hadnt been there before and i think that is because I didnt know part of the restaurant is open for non members.

The floor for members is something else altogether. Like a very tastefully done home that offers different seating styles to suit the mood. We decided to chill in the cigar lounge and ate there. Felt just like sitting in a friend's very tastefully done up den, all to ourselves and our nonsensical conversation over some beer and gin.

We kept it simple with the food and let the chef take over the ordering. First came the carpaccio, sliced really fine yet retaining the inherent flavor of the meat. The tenderloin we ate for the main course was out of the world. If i get into how soft it was, i will end up with an adult post so i will keep this post for all audiences. It was SOFT. Perfectly cooked just the way i like it. Rounded off the meal with a delicious Tiramisu.

If there are more people like me who thought ATM is for members only, its not, so do give this place a try. The folks behind the bar, in the kitchen and on the floor are doing wonders. I will most certainly be back.

 

 

 

 

 

Bengali food gem - City of Joy

Continuing the search for great regional food, last week a friend surprised us by taking us to City of Joy. Its not an easy place to find and once you enter and find that you are the only diners there its not comforting. My friend however had been there before and reassured us that the food is good. It looks like a canteen set in old times Kolkatta with the walls adorned with pictures of yesteryear movie stars from Bengal.

We didnt waste too much time on the menu and ordered some Bengali staples, Prawns Poturi, Prawns Kabiraji, Bekti Poturi, Kosha Mangsho and Mutton Biryani. We had some lovely Luchis with the Mangsho and ended the meal with Mishti Doi. The mutton in both dishes was really well done and was very tender.

The food was excellent but the Kosha Mangsho and Mutton Biryani were simply outstanding. Our server was great, smiling and eager to make us happy. I would repeat this meal any day and in fact now that i am writing about it i need to go there again.

 

 

Triple 8

A new entrant into the Asian food scene in Delhi is Triple 8, in Ansal Plaza. A large and opulent space very tastefully done up and in 2 levels. But what sets this place apart is the food.

Great sashimi is not that easy to get outside of 5 star hotels in Delhi, with one or two exceptions. Even then you would not be able to find the rare Blue Fin Tuna sashimi. Triple 8 has super fresh blue fin that just melts in your mouth. They dont stop there and also put it on a pizza with a little truffle, modern twist and just as delicious as the sashimi alone. This is brought in from Japan frequently and the Japanese know a thing or two about good sashimi :).

I have to applaud the boldness of the chef to put congee in a fine dining restaurant. Its a rare find also because its not easy to make a very flavourful dish out of what is essentially rice porridge. I am a little biased towards this one and i just would eat bowl fulls of the Prawn Congee in this place.

This bold attitude continues with the addition of the Five Spice Goat Brain, loved it. The asian flavours worked very well with it.

Another item that was familiar yet new was the lotus stem. This is not your regular lotus stem that you can find in most asian restaurants. Its BIG and like many of their ingredients, imported. Amazingly crunchy.

A beautiful high end ambience and top notch food will make this a very frequently visited location for people who love great food in a fine dining environment.
I will be visiting again soon, so many other things to try out.

Regional cuisine at Jamun

If i recall, about 15 or so years back good food in Delhi was usually Indian, Chinese, Italian or something called Continental. The people of Delhi were not very experimental and Mumbai was considered the place for a more varied food experience. Over time though i have seen Delhi go through a sea change in the food habits and as people have been eating out more and more, the restaurant scene seems to be going through a renaissance like period.

Even regional Indian food has broken through the state bhawan chains and is now widely accepted with more and more restaurants exploring different foods of this diverse country.

One such new regional offering is Jamun, from Rakshay Dhariwal of ATM, PCO, PDA and Pings fame. Located in the relatively quiet market in Lodi Colony (this is where Tres used to be), it covers food mainly from the Indian subcontinent south of Mumbai. There are some dishes from the North as well. There splashes of purple here and there and the seating is simple. Adding to the charm of the place is the music, old Hindi evergreen classics which puts everyone in a warm nostalgic mood.

I started with my current favourite bar snack, the Andaman bait fish. These little yummy morsels are fried in a light batter and a little squeeze of lemon is all it needs before you just keep eating them.

Some of the things i ate and would go back include the Jhalmuri with Soft Shell Crab, which is an interesting combination and the soft shell crab is an unusual item for a standalone restaurant. I must say here i focussed on the crab and pushed the jhal muri aside.

The Goan pork was super soft, delicious and accompanied with Poi bread had you imagining sand below your feet and the sound of waves outside. The size of the Poi was also just right when you have a lot of other food on the table.

My absolute favorite item was the Raan in korma gravy. The slow cooked raan was full of flavour and was clean off the bone.

Some of the other notable mentions were the Daab Chingri, the Seekh Kabab and the Prawns in butter garlic. They are using some great big sized prawns here.

The vegetarian part of the menu had its own stars, like the excellent stuffed morels and their Daal.

The Jamun fruit, aside from bringing a memory of a very seasonal juicy delicious fruit and the cool purple, also brings to mind your mothers warning , keep it away from your clothes, that juice stain is permanent.

Just like the fruit, the Jamun we tangled with last night also left an indelible mark on our minds and palates.

Fun Fact: If you look at the menu at Jamun and see the purple splashes on each page, those are not random splotches, they are actually outlines of Indian states :)

 

 

Bo Tai

Lemon Grass !
That used to be the thought in my head a few years back when someone mentioned Thai food. In the zeal to differentiate it from the popular Chinese food, most eateries in Delhi would throw in Lemongrass and Galangal and call it Thai. Many still do …

Lemongrass is my kryptonite and I developed this strong aversion to what I thought was Thai food, avoiding it like the plague.

It is only when I went to Thailand a few years back that I found out that very few things actually have Lemongrass and once I steered clear of those, I found that Thai food is one of my now favorite cuisines. The science and art in the way they mix the 5 tastes really makes the food sing. Having visited Thailand now on many occasions I have also seen how food changes depending on the various regions. Not as crazy diverse like in India but they do have their differences.

When I learnt out about Bo-Tai I was excited and looking forward to visiting. I had happened to return from a trip to Thailand just this week and while there atleast one meal a day was Thai food. So the flavours were fresh on my mind and palate .

So did the Bo-Tai food taste like the food in Thailand ? NO! , did I expect it to taste like the food in Thailand ? NO !

Just like I wouldn’t expect Indian food in Bangkok to taste like it does in Delhi I wouldn’t expect the reverse. Ofcourse there are exceptions and one has to dig to find them but thats not what I was referring to.

A restaurant serving traditional Thai food in Delhi is setting the expectations too high and is most likely not going to be able to satisfy the now very well travelled Delhi-ite and leaves the door wide open for comparisons. Also the struggle to get the right ingredient and chefs will be a constant struggle.

A large tastefully done up restaurant with a focus on its open terraces, in the shadows of the Qutub Minar, Bo-Tai is not your typical Thai restaurant though.

An Italian and Thai love child where there the very good looking child has an Italian accent and brown eyes but the features are very clearly Thai.

Its a modern take on Thai food and thats something that going on even in Thailand. This also gives a lot of flexibility and freedom to the chef for being a little creative and letting his/her talent fly. And in Bo-Tai, it did fly.

We started with the soft shell crab which was delicious, beats the hard work of trying to get at the sweet crab meat. Another one of the starters I really liked was the crispy prawns with raw mango.

In the main course the one thing I would come back again and again for was the Belgian Pork Belly, sliced fine and cooked perfectly. The other thing that comes a close second was the Chiang Mai Pork Sausages accompanied by a a bread that can only be described as a puff of cotton, its that soft. The lamb chops were very nice also but could have been cooked a little less. Perhaps it was the large amount of them that had to be made and I got one that wasn’t exactly right. During the regular ordering though they have started to ask the diners how they want it cooked so I think that should fix the problem right there.

To end a Thai meal, there is nothing more satisfying to me than Mango and Sticky Rice. Its tasty, its simple, its comforting.

This place will become a Delhi hotspot for sure and weather permitting the outdoor seating is what you want. So visit this place not for eating Thai food but for eating great food from wherever it is, enjoy the fantastic ambience and music and the great service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A perfect dim-sum lunch - China Garden

For dim sum lovers there are not too many options in Delhi. I used to love Yauatcha until it closed down. Yes you get the odd dim sum offering in most Asian restaurants and some are really good, but you can’t really go for a complete dim sum meal unless you want to repeat the good dishes.

Went for lunch yesterday to China Garden  to sample their dim sum offering. They have really stepped up the dim sum game after a overhaul a few months back and I was eager to try their food again.

The dim sum menu itself is HUGE and I doubt any other place in India has such a large offering. What makes the idea more appealing is that you can have an all you can eat dim sum lunch, the only problem is selecting from the very big menu. We had no intention of going in for the main course and the dim sum selection itself was enough to visit a couple of times without repeating anything.

We tried a whole variety of them steamed, fried, baked. Almost all were stellar and hit the spot. There are some usual favourites but there are some that are unique to China Garden.

I especially loved the Steamed Pork Ribs, the steamed Tenderloin Balls, the Dim Sum Fish and the Baked Pork Puff. The only thing that I was not a fan of was the fried duck, I am kind of partial to the oven roasted type.

All this at an amazing value for money, Rs. 1599 for an all you can eat dim sum where everything was a 7+. Upgrade that to Rs. 1799 and they add wine, beer and sangrias. This kind of pricing for the spread on offer is too good to pass up.

 

 

Good eating at Smoke Trailer Grill

When one talks about barbecue in Delhi, its usually a discussion on tandoors, masala, tikkas, basically Indian flavours. American style barbecue and smoked meats are not very common here yet (and i dont mean smoked deli meats). It could be the lack of easy to find smokers and the skills of using them.

I had been hearing about this place from my friends mainly residing in Sainik Farms where the ribs were to die for. Somehow it took a while for me to plan a meal at Smoke Trailer Grill and last night landed up there at the insistence of a friend.

Opened in someone’s house, it has a large al fresco dining area with really basic and rustic seating. It does have the creature comforts though, an indoor area with air conditioning and proper toilet facilities. There is more than adequate parking at an adjacent plot of land.

We opted to sit in the open since the weather gods were not frowning for a change and pedestal fans were sufficient to create a comfortable feeling.

Its a BYOB place and that is a huge draw for the Delhi-ites.

We had ordered an all you can eat mixed package and the food started coming in a few minutes. It was a Tuesday and the place was practically shut so no service issues and we had the place and the staff pretty much to ourselves.

I can see what the fuss was about, the pork ribs truly are great. Very well made and smoked for a long period of time so super tender. In fact they were served to us off the bone so it was easy non messy eating.

The other thing which i really liked was a deep fried catfish. This was super crispy on the outside with soft moist flesh inside. The big bones meant we could scrape off the meat easily and get into that without fear. This was the only thing we actually repeated.

The whole chicken with its skin on came third in my mind though we ended up ordering too much and couldn’t really get into the chicken too much.

The other things we ordered were just about ok not something i would order again there were chicken wings, burgers, hotdogs and some pulled pork on an open sandwich others mileage may vary.

I think the quintessential draw of this place is the no fuss great American style barbecue and of course the BYOB which is a big saving on the pocket. Its got a lovely backyard barbecue feel to you , it is indeed someones backyard :) .

Fatjar Cafe

As part of our regular Tuesday food lunch outing, we landed up at FatJar this time. Located on the main Kailash Colony road , its a lovely space which is very bright and very spacious. With high ceilings and an exposed wiring/plumbing look. Its made like a cafe with a small grocery store within it although it was stocked with a few items right now. One of the things that was great was their own brand of sweet potato chips, nice and crisp.

As usual we ordered a couple of things that we later realised tilted more towards the Turkish style and we should have mixed it up. The Lamb Pide, the Shakshouka and Lamb Manti were probably the wrong items to order together as they all had the same flavor profile, being tomato based. The owner was very nice and visited all the occupied tables to chat with the people and explain the thought process behind some of the dishes. An explanation was needed as i thought the pasta of the Manti was a little thick and hard but i was told thats how it is in Turkey.

To mix it up we were encouraged to get a taste of the Orzotto, even though it was vegetarian i quite liked it. It had a nice bite and had a liberal splash of truffle oil on top. Something i would certainly order even though its (shudder!) vegetarian. 

We also tried the lamb bolognaise just to get an idea of the flavor as we were tomatoed out and it was really good and meaty. Cooked long in its own juices it would another dish i would order next time.

The absolute winner for today was the dessert, a sticky date pudding with home made vanilla ice cream. The cake itself was drenched in a lovely sticky oozy sweet caramel with just a hint of salt. The vanilla ice cream was amazing with real vanilla bean and the combo was perfect. The only thing i would add to this would be toasted almonds on top and i would go across town to eat it.

I would say its not a cheap place and its been set up as a premium cafe so people should expect the pricing to be as per that positioning.