Restricted menu tempers fire of Indian food fest

Restricted menu tempers fire of Indian food fest

Bill Blade, Contributor, Jakarta

In what may seem at first glance to be a brave move, Dusit
Mangga Dua Hotel, located in a part of town that is more usually
associated with the culinary heritage of the Middle Kingdom, is
staging an Indian Food Festival that's set to run until Oct. 9.

Unfortunately, judging by the rather sparse sprinkling of
diners in the Kafe Mangga Dua on Sunday evening, it doesn't
appear to be an overly successful move.

Let me make it clear right now, however, that this is
absolutely no reflection on the quality of the food dished up by
master chefs Dinesh and Sanji, jetted in (at no expense spared,
one would imagine) from Hotel Taj Malabar, Cochin, Kerala state,
India.

The festival consists of two separate presentations, a buffet
lunch (Rp 75,000 inclusive of tax and service) from noon to 2:30
p.m., and a set menu dinner (Rp 48,000 inclusive of tax and
service) from 6 p.m. until 10:30 p.m.

As things panned out, I wasn't able to get there for the
buffet, and had to be content with the set menu, which
unfortunately both I and my partner for the evening found a tad
restrictive.

The appetizers consisted of three offerings -- meen
pollichathu (grilled fish wrapped in banana leaf), Trivandum
fried chicken, and a mutton pepper fry. I decided to go for the
fried chicken, while my partner opted for the mutton.

Both dishes were served on a nicely arranged bed of pungent
raw onions and sliced yellow, red and green bell peppers, with
the chicken being fire-engine red but surprisingly mild.

According to my partner, the delicate cubes of tender mutton
packed a slight punch in the incendiary stakes, but nothing that
should deter the average normal, well-adjusted diner.

This was followed by the soup course, which consisted solely
of one offering, a hearty broth, chemmen chaaru, or prawn soup,
which I found to be deliciously spicy and curiously akin to
Thailand's tom yam seafood soup.

On the downside, however, the disadvantages of such a
restrictive set menu vaulted into play here as my partner has an
aversion to creepy-crawly things that live on or near the bottom
of the sea.

And so on to the main course, which, like the appetizer
course, consisted of three choices -- meen mappas (fish curry),
murg makhani (chicken cooked in tomato gravy), and gosht do pyaza
(lamb cooked northern India-style). All three dishes were
accompanied by lightly buttered rice, takda dal (boiled lentils
tempered with garlic, onion, green chilies and tomato), and subzi
palak, a delicious vegetable dish consisting of broccoli, long
beans and carrots doused in a spinach sauce that proved once
again -- if any proof be needed -- that there's no one who knows
how to cook veggies quite like the Indians!

I opted for the gosht do pyaza, which was only slightly spicy
but deliciously moist and tender. My partner, however, complained
that her chicken consisted mostly of bones -- a major attraction,
obviously, for those of us with a canine bent, but not so a howl
for everyone else.

Nevertheless, she pronounced the pureed tomato sauce
delicious, and almost enough to make up for the serious gnawing
involved in the effort to extricate some meat.

Our meal was rounded off with the syrupy sweet, but
nonetheless salivational, pal payasam, or rice and milk pudding
set off with sultanas and raisins -- a truly superb finishing
touch to a delicious, albeit rather restricted, dinner.

India Food Festival, Kafe Mangga Dua, Dusit Mangga Dua Hotel,
tel: 612 8811 ext. 82055/82057. Runs through 9 Oct., 2004