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