High Rollers Hold Back Big Bucks at This Year's Diwali Parties, But Food & Drink Get Better

This article appeared in Mail Today, Delhi/NCR, on 02/11/2013.

Copyright: Mail Today

http://epaper.mailtoday.in/epaperhome.aspx?issue=2112013

By Sourish Bhattacharyya and Radhika Bhalla

Diwali parties may be seeing less money being thrown
around this year, but the food, wine and single malt
offerings are getting better by the year. Image:
Courtesy of www.buzzintown.com

THIS is the weekend when the pace and magnitude of Diwali card parties picks up, but the city's punters are already complaining about the market having become "thanda". They blame the cooling down of property transactions for the dampening of the high-roller sentiment this season.

Diwali has traditionally been the season of brisk property sales, which in turn has sustained the cash economy that comes into play at the imported roulette tables of the city's richie-rich parties. This season, the punters are no longer talking about fatcats sauntering in with suitcases bulging with money at Chhattarpur farmhouses or of Rs 5 lakh being the minimum 'move'.As one veteran of these parties put it ruefully, "There's a liquidity crunch." In other words, there's not enough liquid cash floating around in the grey market. But of course, card parties have shown no signs of slowing down. They continue to go on till 6 or 7 a.m. -- the time people leading less colourful lives normally set off on their morning constitutional -- though the stakes may not be as high as before.Two features of this season stand out, according to insiders. The first is the growing visibility of the scions of business families -- not the prominent ones, but those that are locally important, from rice traders to car dealers. These young men with their trophy wives, each one of them a walking DLF Emporio, are the new high-rollers. Even they are being restrained in their 'moves'. No one's putting more than a couple of lakhs per move. And these high rollers literally enjoy elevated positions at card parties -- they play in secluded cabanas or on machans. Hosts are also judged by the number of roulette tables they set up, enabling guests to indulge their passion for blackjack.At the more 'affordable' parties, the 'blinds' range from Rs 8,000 to Rs 20,000 and in some cases even Rs 1 lakh. But the minimum buy-in at medium/high poker games, a favourite of the scions, extends from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh. The 'ladies', who are assigned separate tables away from the men, play with very small stakes that their husbands wouldn't even sniff at.The other trend, which is not a new practice but has held its ground, is that no one gets to play on credit. This old practice often led to ugly situations in the past. The most infamous incident was that of a former cricket czar ending up owing Rs 1 crore to a late hotelier after a cards party. The day after got so out of hand that the former (and controversial) BCCI top honcho's industrialist father had to bail him out by paying in installments the money his son owed. Since then, you're allowed to play on the high tables only if you have the cash and you can move' only what you have.The money changing hands this season may not be high, but the hosts of card parties are pulling out all the stops when it comes to showing their hospitable side. Single malts are the flavour of the season. At one such party, on offer to guest were a hundred single malts, some of them from the barrels of distilleries that had stopped operating decades ago. Italy's premium red wine, Barolo, is another favourite, and the hosts are going to great lengths to get their wine lists right.Finger food, fondue (this year's flavour of the season) and kebabs accompany these libations and they continue to be served through the night. "The stakes may be lower, but our business is booming this year," said a caterer who's popular at high-end card parties. Win some, lose some. Isn't that what gambling is all about?

DINING OUT: Swiss Comfort Food to Warm Delhi’s Heart

This review first appeared in Mail Today on 18 October 2013.

http://epaper.mailtoday.in/epaperhome.aspx?issue=18102013

It is difficult to produce a simple dish — you understand why when you savour the delicately balanced flavours and textures of Heinz Rufibach's roesti served with emince Zurichoise

QUICK FACTS

Swiss Gastronomy Experience

WHERE: Café, Hyatt Regency, Bhikaji Cama Place

WHEN: Till October 20. Dinner Buffet: 7 to 11 p.m.; Sunday Brunch: Noon to 3 p.m.

DIAL: 011-26791234

PRICE PER PERSON: Rs 1,550++ for dinner buffet; Rs 2,100++ for Sunday Brunch with unlimited soft drinks or champagne

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

HEINZ RUFIBACH is the master of what he describes as the “Alpine-Mediterranean style of cooking”, which got him 15 GaultMillau points (the equivalent of a Michelin star), and he has designed the menu for the first and business classes of SWISS International Airlines, but at the Café of the Hyatt Regency, Bhikaji Cama Place, he has opened a window to the home-style comfort food that has travelled from his country to across the world.

Heinz Rufibach has turned Swiss comfort food into
a gastronomic experience at the Cafe, Hyatt
Regency New Delhi, Bhikaji Cama Place

For a country famous for being the receptacle of world’s ill-gotten wealth, Switzerland has a simple yet wholesome home cuisine. Potatoes, cheese, sauerkraut and sausages are the four legs of its daily table, the decorative elements being chocolate and the array of desserts, of which the Swiss roll is only the ornamental tip. As the Hyatt Regency’s Swiss executive chef, Marin Leuthard, expressed it, “We are a simple people with traditional tastes.” And Rufibach is Switzerland’s celebrity ambassador of everyday cooking.

The genial visiting chef, who has fallen in love at first sight with the Taj Mahal, lives and works at Zermatt, the Alpine ski resort town with over 35,000 rooms in 132 starred hotels across a radius of 3.5km (that is more, by the way, than the inventory of the entire Delhi-NCR!). Tourists (Indians included) outnumber the residents of this village many times over as they come to admire the majestic beauty of the Matterhorn, standing in dignified isolation with its crown of ‘banner clouds’ a little distance away. It is in this busy picture-postcard village that Rufibach presides over the kitchens of Alpenhof Hotel, which is famous for its Le Gourmet restaurant.

At the Hyatt Regency’s Swiss Gastronomy Experience, start with the wintertime staple, raclette, which Rufibach scrapes off lovingly as the cheese melts slowly and temptingly, serving it with two pearl potatoes, pickled gherkins and silver onions. Move on to the Munder saffron soup, which is named after Mund, Switzerland’s famous ‘saffron village’ in the Rhone Valley to the southwest, whose annual production every October is a mere 1.3 kilos. Of this princely amount, a gram of which is priced at 42 Swiss Francs (Rs 2,840 at the present exchange rate), the allocation for Rufibach is 3gm — he’s among the fortunate few, for the village is very picky about whom it gives its saffron to.

You can’t go for a Swiss meal and not have roesti, which is simply pan-roasted boiled and grated potatoes, a poor man’s dish that can be elevated with limitless variations. You could have roesti wrapped in an omelette, or roesti with bratwurst (“Switzerland’s street food”), or roesti with the heart-warming emince Zurichoise, or sliced veal (chicken at the Hyatt Regency) and button mushrooms in silky white sauce. It is difficult to produce a simple dish — you know why when you savour the delicately balanced flavours and textures of the emince. And of course, no Swiss experience is complete without fondue — a “family dish”, explains Leuthard, it is made with grated gruyere and emmental boiled in white wine on a pan brushed with a garlic clove, and finished with a generous helping of kirsch, the dry, colourless brandy extracted from dark morello cherries.

Also on the buffet are smoked pork loin; gravlax, or spiced preserved salmon (remember the excitement around the world in 2008 when Switzerland saw its first salmon in 100 years at the Basel stretch of the Rhine?); spaetzle, a gnocchi-type pasta, but made with egg, flour and water; and beer-battered fried fish served with a remoulade sauce made with preserved cucumber, gherkins, silver onion, mayonnaise, parsley and dill.

And yes, you can’t miss the desserts — Swiss rolls; carrot cake from Aargau, the carrot canton up north; rye bread mouse with blueberry sauce; and the nut cake from Engadine valley, which is famous for its playfield of the rich and famous, St Moritz. The Swiss have turned simplicity into a gourmet experience.