I know I have been away from my blog for a while. Been busy with college work, which has kept me on my toes. This one has been a long pending review of a lunch buffet at Hyatt Regency - Spice Haat. From my previous experience here over a year ago, I knew this buffet was all going to be about the starters and desserts. I just wanted to see if it had changed.






I just could not let pass  the hummus and pita bread. Hummus was rich and the soft pita bread made the combo heavenly. Moving to the chaat, we had a choice of 3 items, but the one we wanted was the dhai poori. Unfortunate for us, the waiter offered us the other chaat items apart from the dhai poori as the poori had broken down. But we really insisted that we would like to have a chaat item which had some curd to it, Volaa! a mixture of dhai and papadi chaat was presented to us. Yummy!!!! we just couldnt resist it. In-fact we had 4 servings of the same.




I just had a sample of some of the main course which was available. I took a bit a romali roti and sampled the mutton rogan josh and a bit of the grilled chicken from the salads. It was decent, but I was saving up some space for the dessert.



The desserts were just divine. Tiramisu, Mango Mousse, Chocolate Pudding, Raspberry Yoghurt, Black current Mousse, phew the list goes on. I had one each. Now that is called sampling!

The entire buffet has remained unchanged from my last visit, with nice starters, decent main course and finally outstanding desserts.

Ambiance:
The decor has remained the same. Just one grouse though. On this particular day the A/C was a bit off. We found it  hot and sultry through the entire meal.

Service:
The service was fantastic, the waiters were kind and courteous.

Price:
Finally the price for the meal at Rs 1799.- per head might sound a little expensive, but you just cant resist the desserts which are served here.

Food - 7.5/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Service - 8/10
Price - 8/10

Spice Haat is located inside Hyatt Regency on Anna Salai.

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Ahhh!! Finally, a New Town Cafe right inside the city. The one place I have been waiting to see close by and not on ECR alone. I was here for a CFG Showcase. The new outlet has opened up at the food street of Alwarpet, TTK Road.The ambiance at the new outlet is totally different from the one at ECR. Rich new age decor with amazing sound system.





The first starter to arrive was the Mezze platter. This is a cold platter with soft pita bread and hummus. The hummus was well made, in-fact one of the best. It also had some finely diced fresh veggies drizzled with lemon.


The next dish to arrive was the Asparagus and Mushroom vol au vent. For those who dont know what a Vol au vent is - it is typically a puff pastry of French origin which is circular in shape. Our Vol au vent was stuffed with a mixture of asparagus and mushroom. It was a combination of crispy outer with soft mussy filling. There was also a Refried Beans in Taco Shells. This was something which I skipped.



The starters for non-veggies started with Chicken Satay. Since I have had the same at the other outlet, I felt it still maintained the flavors. Next was the Tenderloin Teriyaki Skewers. WOW! is the word which best describes it. The beef was a really soft and full of flavors. It was served with Bok Choy. The combination was perfect. I would recommend this dish for true beef lovers.



Finally the famous Cheese Stuffed Drumstick Mughali Style. This is the best dish I have had on their menu. A piece drumstick deboned and stuffed with a mixture of chicken and cheese, served along with a Mughali style gravy. A big thumbs up to this dish. An absolute must have. The last starter to arrive was Mutton Murtabak. This dish is an stuffed parotta with a fancy middle eastern name. I have attached a close up picture of the same to show the amount of filling. This was the first properly spicy dish to be served. Point to be noted, it was well worth it.




After a half a dozen starters in my belly we moved to the main course. I skipped tasting the veg mains as I was beginning to feel a full. The veg mains served were Dry Pan Mee, Crispy noodles with 5 spice veggies, veg. grilled sandwich and finally Roti Canai with Veg Curry. I am a big fan of the Roti Canai with non-veg curry so I mixed up a little of the roti with some non-veg dish. The roti was soft and made me wish, for a non-veg curry.



The non-veg mains started with the Curry Mee. I am not a big fan noodles dunked in spicy soup, so I would not be the best to comment on it. The next was the Sago Tawa Fish. This was served along with Tandoori Aloo. The fish was fresh, spicy and tasty, the way I like it.



Next up was the Nasi Lemak Chicken Rendang. This is one dish, which I have not had before and I was surprised as to why I had missed out on this. It is best had with all the ingredients mixed together. A little of steamed rice, with kadala (nuts), boiled egg, fried chicken and anchovies. A mouth of this mixture is an absolute nirvana. Finally the last of the main was the Shell less Crab meat with Kothuparata. The crab was almost shell-less. The dish was a little on the sweeter side and I just hoped it had a bit of spiciness to compliment the parata.







After munching on various dishes, I hardly had any space in my tum to have full portion of the desserts. So I went about sampling the various dishes served to us. We were served with Roti Bomb, Orange Chocolate Mud Pie, Apple Crumbled Tart, Mango Mascarpone Pannacotta and Espresso Creme brulee.  The only dessert which I liked was the Roti Bomb, the others were just passable. Roti Bomb which is a parotta cut down to small pieces and loaded with milkmade. Felt it was the cut above the rest. Overall the entire meal was just fabulous.

Ambiance:
The Ambiance here is totally different from the one at ECR. This one has more of a lounge kind of style with superb music. A big thumbs up to the audio system here.

Price:
A meal for two should end up costing around Rs 1200- 1500.

New Town Cafe is located in TTK Road opposite to Indian Terrain and Nike showrooms.

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The first non-veg dish to be served was the Machi Tikka Jodhpuri. It was a deep fried chicken with deep flavors. But the best among the starters was Mutton Sheek Kebab. Move over veg Patiyala Sheek Kebab. Stop imitating the true form of sheek kebab. Nothing can come close to beating this taste. There was also a Singapore Chilli Chicken. I wonder why the name Singapore got stuck to this dish, but it was mediocre in taste. Round one of starters, our clear favorites was the Mutton Sheek Kebab.


As we were getting done with the starters we were served with Paneer Pitha Roll. Of the all the dishes served that night, this was the most disappointing. Inspite of paneer being fresh, it was unable to lend a shoulder to help this dish. The dish lacked a punchy sour cream, which was further compounded by crumbly pitha bread.


The next to follow suit was the Indian Bread Basket, which was an assorted selection of butter naan, roti puthina parathas. Each different in its make. But really soft in texture with great flavors. To compliment these we were served with Buna Gosht and Reshmi Butter Chicken. Buna Gosht which is essentially mutton pepper korma. This was really tasty with the Butter Naan. If one thought this combination was great, then the combination with Reshmi Butter Chicken was even better. The Butter chicken was clearly the winner, which was creamier, richer and definitely tastier.


Finally we were served with the last main course which was the Chicken Biryani. It was better than many restaurant biryanis by many yards. But it no way compares to Muslim wedding biryani. But this is good enough, I would say.

After binging on these items we were finally served with Kulfi. This one was really rich and creamy. In fact I had one extra.

Ambiance:
The ambiance remains the same at Crimson Chakra, Adyar. It definitely is one of the best places to dine.

Price:
A meal for two roughly equate about Rs1500 - 1800 odd. But with many fantastic dishes, one would want to try  them all i suppose.

Crimson Chakra is located in Gandhi Nagar, Adyar next to the Gandhi Nagar Club.

Auroville, is a place were people come in search of peace and well being.But this was not the case for my bunch of friends. The first word which came out of my BF's mouth was Pasikuthu ( I am Hungry). This was inspite of us having a heavy lunch at Promenade. So we walked into the Dreamers Cafe. This is located inside Auroville visitors center.





Food:
 Since my friend and I are coffee lovers, we ordered a Cafe Latte, while the others ordered a Watermelon Juice. Then we saw Chocolate Mint Brownie and Biscotti we had one of each.

The Latte was decent, a little Indianzied for taste. The Chocolate Mint Brownies are to die for. Super gooey, very rich and has a minty effervescence. WOW!!! I would not mind driving all the way for these delights. The watermelon juice was neat. But I am pretty sure nothing beats the brownie.

Ambiance:
The cafe is more like a shack with a few seating around it.

Service:
NA

Price:
In total for the various portions of coffee and juices it brought a total of Rs 430/-

Food - 8/10
Ambiance - 8/10
Service - NA
Price - 8/10

Dreamers Cafe is located inside Auroville which is a few kilometers away from Pondicherry.

Food: 

To wash down the delicious starters, we had ordered Mango Lassi. The lassi was based on a mango extract instead of fresh mango ( its wrong to expect that in this season). It was thick, but could have done with a bit more of sweetness.