Get Ready to Welcome Indigo Deli at Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj, But What Happened to Indigo?

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

Mumbai's star restaurateur,
Rahul Akerkar, has not had the
smoothest of starts in Delhi,
but he's hoping to make up
for lost time and keep his
staff morale intact by launching
Indigo Deli at the Ambience
Mall, Vasant Kunj

IT'S A PITY most people assume that Indigo Deli, which is formally opening tomorrow (May 30) at the Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj, is Indigo Delhi. If Mumbai's star restaurateur, Rahul Akerkar, had the freedom to act according to his Delhi expansion plan, he was to launch Indigo, the restaurant that's won every award and accolade possible, sometime in mid-January.

He was to make a grand opening at the urban renewal project, an arts and entertainment space that was to have transformed what used to be an open drain opposite the Hyatt Regency, in the shadow of Netaji Nagar. And he was to roll out Indigo Deli, starting with the second floor of Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj, in the space formerly occupied by Zambar, only after Indigo settled down as "a 'back-to-basics' address that will serve up eclectic modern European fare, coupled with an expansive bar and a private dining section". Indigo Deli will be next door to Pizza Express, which is the next high-profile opening to watch out for at Ambience Mall.

But for some mysterious reason, the area, which was blessed by the Sheila Dikshit government and is being developed by the father-and-son duo of Sanjeev and Samegh Batra, has been in suspended animation ever since Dikshit got a drubbing in the Delhi Assembly election, even though Delhi Metro has been constructing buildings next door at a frenetic pace. Was the previous government's showcase project not a priority for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) dispensation that followed? If that were the case, why did Lt-Governor Najeeb Jung not push it after the fall of AAP? No one is ready to share the real story.

"You know how officials work," was Sanjeev Batra's first response when I asked him about the delayed project. "But we will be up and running in a month," he added. Batra has been the man behind such significant heritage rejuvenation-cum-restaurant development projects at Mehrauli such as Olive Bar & Kitchen and The Kila, where blueFROG has re-opened, though after giving up the associated cafe and restaurant spaces.

Batra said that when it became clear the urban renewal project wasn't taking off according to the time-table they were working on, Akerkar came to him and shared his desire to launch Indigo Deli before Indigo. He had hired staff for Indigo and they had been trained in Mumbai, but they had no restaurant in sight, which was clearly a dispiriting prospect. He had to do something to retain his staff, which was why he fast-forwarded Indigo Deli, which is best known for its salads, burgers, sandwiches and ice-creams, and of course, its delicatessen.

"I feel a tinge of sadness, but when Indigo finally opens opposite the Hyatt Regency, the grandness of the setting and the cuisine that has given the restaurant its share of international acclaim will have their desired effect," Batra said, striking a hopeful note. For the sake of the city, we wish him luck! Delhi deserves an Indigo, as much as it can do with an Indigo Deli. Neighbouring Mistral's Mayank Tiwari has serious competition on his hands and even Chili's may experience some loss of lustre.

DLF, Don't Kill A Great Idea With Growth That You're Finding Hard To Manage

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

LAST NIGHT, the Cyber Hub, DLF's 'food mall' that's got Delhi-NCR talking because of restaurants such as Made in Punjab, Dhaba by Claridges, Sodabottleopenerwala and Zambar, not to forget Soi 7 and Nando's, ran out of gas. Literally, not metaphorically. Thousands of diners (someone estimated the number to be 10,000), as a result, had to go back without a meal, which must have come as a rude jolt for patrons, especially those who had come from distant parts of Delhi. The water supply too dried up, so what was a bustling Cyber Hub turned into a ghost of itself by the late evening. After the recent excise raids on a couple of popular watering holes at the Cyber Hub that led them to stop serving alcohol in the open areas,  this was yet another round of avoidable bad news.

Gas and water supply problems at Gurgaon's
Cyber Hub follow excise raids on certain
restaurants and compound the problems of the
establishments at the DLF showpiece 'food
mall'. Image: Courtesy of www.ixigo.com
  

Imagine the plight of the people being told in the middle of a meal that their restaurant cannot serve them anymore because the piped nature gas (PNG) supply was playing truant. For a newbie foodie hub, it couldn't have been a greater public relations disaster. The 'perception damage' caused by the episode may leave a lasting impact on the sales figures of Cyber Hub restaurants, which were on a high because of the intense public interest in the venue and its offerings. If that happens, it'll be a sad day for a great idea.

Did DLF not anticipate the volume of PNG and water likely to be used after the Cyber Hub came up? Or worse, did it not care? A food mall initially designed to house 42 outlets, already has 45, and counting (the latest additions being Quiznos, the American quick service restaurant brand famous for its toasted subs, and Spanish Chef Nuria Rodriguez's Imperfecto). And many more, including Farzi Cafe, Smokey's, Cafe Delhi Heights, Amici Cafe and Raasta, are slated to open in the coming months (and DLF, I believe, is charging them higher rentals).

Can Cyber Hub accommodate so many new restaurants without pausing to take stock of the infrastructure? Cyber Hub restaurants, I am told, are paying up to Rs 1.5 lakh a month for their PNG supply and they are not allowed under Indraprastha Gas Limited rules to keep regular LPG cylinders as backup. Those with tandoors can tide over, to an extent, such emergencies, but what about restaurants that don't have this safety net?

When I first put up a post about Cyber Hub gas crisis on the Indian Restaurant Spy page on Facebook, Arun Kumar TR, Zambar's Master Chef, was the first to respond and his posts are heart-rending. His first: "This is not the first time ... Kills the concept ... What do we tell customers? No gas!!!" His second: "It has happened before too! The day we opened ... full house and resulted in a huge backlash! Customers are not interested in explanations." His third: "Tonight all over ... Cyber Hub has emptied out."

Zorawar Kalra, Managing Director of Massive Restaurants, voiced the concern that was yet to be expressed. "This has happened multiple times," he posted. "Made in Punjab is still able to serve tandoori items, but I feel real sorry for my fellow restaurateurs as they end up with nothing to serve and lose sales on one of the most important nights -- Sunday. The cost implications are huge."

If this has been happening "multiple times", what has DLF done about it? And more importantly, does it plan to compensate the restaurateurs who have turned the Cyber Hub into the real estate giant's most successful public venture yet? One of my most ardent commentators, Anurag Mehrotra, who has recently relocated to Atlanta from Gurgaon, said it all when he posted: "Farmers don't get water, factories don't get electricity, restaurants don't get gas. Welcome to India!"

Zorawar Kalra Presents Farzi Cafe Sneak Preview at Delhi Gourmet Club's Gourmet Passport 2014-15 Launch

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

Zorawar Kalra, Managing Director, Massive
Restaurants (Made in Punjab/Masala Library),
raises a toast to the Gourmet Passport 2014-15.
Others in the picture: (From left) Varun Duggal
of Massive Restaurants, Atul Sikand of the
Delhi Gourmet Club (DGC), yours truly, Aditya
Soni of Citibank, Sandeep Tandon of Old World
Hospitality and DGC's Rocky Mohan.

WHERE else can the humble karela be turned into a gourmet statement than at a Zorawar Kalra restaurant? And what can be a better forum to showcase the talented young chef Himanshu Saini's 'bitter gourd tempura' with sweet and sour raw mango chutney than the launch of the Gourmet Passport 2014-15? The smartly designed book of 402 'buy one main course, get one free' discount coupons from 134 restaurants in Delhi and Mumbai was presented by the Delhi Gourmet Club in partnership with Citibank at a free-flowing launch party on May 1 attended by all the supporters of the project.

SURPRISE PACKAGE OF THE EVENING:
Karela has never tasted better than in the
Bitter Gourd Tempura with sweet and sour
mango chutney served at the Gourmet
Passport 2014-15 launch party at Made
in Punjab on Thursday, May 1, 2014.
Of course, this was just one of the star
items on the 12-course menu.

The venue was Made in Punjab at Gurgaon's Cyber Hub; the finger-licking good food was from the menu of the upcoming Farzi Cafe next door ("it's not even 10 per cent of what we have in mind," Zorawar assured us, making us wonder, "what next?"); and the guests seen enjoying Himanshu's goodies included industry leaders Sandeep Tandon (Old World Hospitality), AD Singh (Olive Bar & Kitchen) and Pankaj Mathur (The Suryaa); restaurant powerhouses Janti Duggal (Mamagoto), Atul Kapur (QBA and The China House), Rajeev Aneja (Rara Avis) and Prashant Narula (Kwality Group); some of Delhi/NCR's most talented chefs -- Soumya Goswami, Ravitej Nath, Vikas Vibhuti and Sandeep Kalra (The Oberoi), Rajiv Malhotra and Pradeep Khullar (Old World Hospitality), Arun Kumar TR (Zambar/Lite Bite Foods), Vikram Khatri, Sujan Sarkar and Vaibhav Bhargava (Olive Bar & Kitchen and Guppy by Ai); F&B hotshots Ravindra Kumar (The Lalit's most durable pillar of excellence), Rajesh Namby (The Leela Palace New Delhi), Mohit Balachandran (Sodabottleopenerwala), Suveer Sodhi (The Lodhi), Sid Mathur (Impresario/Smoke House Deli), Yogendra Negi (DLF Restaurants/Set'z) and Sohan Bohra (Kylin Premier); and my partners in journalistic crimes -- Neeta Raheja (Very Truly Yours), Mukta Kapoor (Old World Hospitality), Deepica Sarma and Mallika Gowda (The Oberoi), Pallavi Singh (Crowne Plaza Okhla), Nidhi Verma (The Leela Ambience Gurgaon), Madhur Madaan (Kempinski Ambience), Nidhi Budhia (Crowne Plaza Rohini) and Manita Asija Tuteja (Kylin Premier/Sartoria).

But the star of the evening was the spread planned by Zorawar and his multi-talented deputy Varun Duggal with Himanshu. Just back from America, where he had presented a talk on the trends defining contemporary Indian cuisine in the august company of Grand Master Chef Hemant Oberoi of The Taj Hotels, Zorawar said the Farzi Cafe, which is coming up right next door to Made in Punjab at the ground level of the Cyber Hub, would take 'Modernist' Indian cuisine to a level that is a notch higher than his other baby, Masala Library at the Bandra Kurla Complex. Now, that's a very serious challenge to set for oneself -- Masala Library, after all, has won nine prestigious awards in the seven months that it has been around! I am sure he must have picked up ideas from his recent visit to Alinea in Chicago, where the American guru of molecular gastronomy, Grant Achatz, gave him a guided tour of the kitchen (a rare honour).

AD Singh, who's unfailing in his praise for restaurants (even if they have the potential of becoming his competition), couldn't stop praising the papad-crusted dal chawal arancini with achari crème cheese and onion chutney. It was a brilliant reconstruction of the Sicilian classic with an Indian twist. My personal favourites were the tandoori portobello mushrooms with truffle walnut herb crust, bhoot jolokia lamb chops with tempered coriander seeds, and the chilli duck samosa served with roasted plum chutney. Each dish came with a twist and the presentations showed the Zorawar Kalra eye for detailing. As one of the guests said, "The food tasted as good as the discount coupons inside the book." Well, you have a year to check out each one of the 134 restaurants that have participated in the book that has stirred the pot of Delhi's imagination.

FORTUNE COOKIE: Proud To Be Indian Yet Refusing To Be Stodgy

This is my bi-monthly column, Fortune Cookie, which appeared in the edition of Mail Today dated Thursday, March 13, 2004. Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

There's nothing in-your-face 'South
Indian' in the look of the new Zambar
at the DLF Cyber Hub, and the menu
too is deliciously unpredictable.

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

DELHI/NCR'S Indian restaurants, even after successive waves of liberalisation, have had a limpet-like tradition of looking like a half-witted Bollywood set designer's bad dream.

Oily furniture, formica-topped tables, slouchy waiters in fancy-dress costumes, Brian Silas's repetitive renditions of Hindi movie classics on piano (or worse, live ghazals!) and boudoir art -- these were (and still are) the staples of the ambience of Indian restaurants. Such was the seeming permanence of this dolorous decor, that when the late lamented Corbett opened at The Claridges, recreating the game park theme accompanied by a menu that ventured beyond the obvious, and Park Balluchi at the Hauz Khas Village deer park capitalised on its wow setting by serving kebabs on mock swords with burning charcoal, we let out a collective sigh of relief.

It turned to be a short-lived escape from the dead weight of predictability, though, for Corbett got replaced by the Mediterranean restaurant, Sevilla, and Park Balluchi became a haven for discount-devouring tour groups. Indian restaurants went back to their cocoon of complacency as the city flirted with newer tastes and more titillating flavours. At last, there's a glimmer of hope. Three recent openings, all at the DLF Cyber Hub in Gurgaon (bordering the country's IT/BPO hub), have shown the way forward for Indian restaurant decor.

The wacky decor of Dhaba by Claridges, also at
the DLF Cyber Hub (and DLF Place, Saket),
prepares you for masterpieces such as the
vodka tharras and the best butter chicken
in Delhi/NCR

A venture of Olive Bar & Kitchen's promoter, AD Singh, steered by Mohit Balachandran (Mr Chowder Singh of the blogging world), Soda Bottle Openerwala was the first off the block with a quirky decor borrowing heavily from the unintentionally funny notices on the walls of Mumbai's Irani restaurants. Even the glass tops of its old-fashioned tables are balanced, imaginatively, by the railway station chai glasses and the LED screen at the bar, which awaits a licence, enhances the visual narrative by playing rushes of Hindi film classics and of acts by Parsi stand-up comics.

At Zambar, filmmaker-turned-chef Arun Kumar's ode to the gifted home cooks and famous tea shops of the south, backed by the corporate muscle of Amit Burman and Rohit Aggarwal's Lite Bite Foods, the minimalist decor doesn't have anything in-your-face, or stereotypically South Indian. Yet the art on the wall are digitally embellished prints of old South Indian film posters (you can't miss a Rajnikanth or a Sivaji Ganesan); the music, A.R. Rahman's chart-topping Tamil numbers; and the menu has happy surprises such as Prawn Rasam, the addictive Cauliflower Bezule (fried cauliflower florets coated in spices and rice flour batter), mutton mince balls (kola urundu), Kerala tea shop chilli chicken, and the unbeatable squid rings with seafood filling.

Unsurprisingly, Zambar has been drawing full houses ever since it opened a couple of weeks back. It's still impossible to find a table at Soda Bottle without waiting -- people just want to have their Mutton Berry Pulao, the juicy fried chicken (Marghi Na Farcha) and Bheeda Par Eeda (fried eggs on spicy okra) again, and again, and yet again. And it's not any different for Dhaba by Claridges, the new capital of the Republic of Youngistan, promoted by Sanjeev Nanda, its wacky menu laid out by Ravi Saxena, Corporate Chef of The Claridges Hotels and Resorts.

Dhaba by Claridges takes the hotel's hugely popular restaurant, famous for its Balti Meat, out of the stuffy five-star environment, and funkifies (I don't know if there's such a word!) the highway dining experience. The ambience is playful, the signs on the wall have that irreverential quality that has made Comedy Nights by Kapil the current rage, and innovations such as vodka cocktails (nicknamed tharras) served in quarters (pau-a bottles) and the humble baigan bharta arriving in a beaten-metal canister, are all drawing trendy young people to this restaurant in droves.

These restaurants are rewriting the rules of how purveyors of Indian cuisine must look without playing around with the basics. The butter chicken at Dhaba by Claridges is the best, in my view, in Delhi/NCR, and people in the know insist that Soda Bottle's Berry Pulao is better than what you get at Britannia in Mumbai. We are in for good times.

NO PLACE FOR TASTE ENHANCERS IN POLISH VODKA

VODKA, in our imagination, may be irrevocably associated with the escape it offered to people weighed down by communist drudgery in the erstwhile Soviet Union, but it is Poland that possesses the oldest written record of the drink dating back to 1405. And it is home to some of the world's most acclaimed vodkas, notably the Wyborowa, whose bottle was designed by the celebrated Canadian-American architect, Frank Gehri.

So, I spent an afternoon with Charles Gibb, President of Belvedere, the vodka brand instantly recognisable for the image of Poland's presidential palace (Palac Belwederski or Belweder Palace, Warsaw) that it carries on its slender bottle, quizzing him about what sets Polish vodka apart from its competition. A Polish vodka, like Scotch, has to be produced from Polish rye or potatoes (Belvedere is made from a rye named Dankowski, which has quite a distinguished heritage and is famously associated with another notable Polish vodka, Sobieski). The water has to be drawn from a natural source at the distillery -- Belvedere's formula requires its water, sourced from an artesian well, to be purified 11 times, so that, in Gibb's words, "it provides a completely blank canvas for the expression of rye".

Polish vodka makers cannot also use additives such as glycerine and citric acid -- and this came as a revelation to me -- that the industry routinely uses to add a hint of flavour to what is erroneously supposed to be a tasteless product. "The idea of a neutral-tasting vodka is the American definition of the drink," exclaimed Gibb, a Scotsman who's married to an Australian and lives in New York. "You must be able to taste the Belvedere in your drink." (Look out for a more detailed interview with Gibb will appear on this blog very soon.)

WE SAY MACAROON, THEY SAYS MACRON

CELEBRATED patissier Pierre Herme's visit to the city, courtesy of the India Today Conclave, has triggered off a spirited debate, started by the man himself, on the difference between a macaroon and a macron. Well, it's simple -- macron is French and macaroon is English. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the first recorded usage of the English word,  macaroon, dates back to 1611. And Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, which was first published in 1861, has a recipe for making a macaroon. Both the words are derived from the Italian maccarone or maccherone, and they mean the same thing: meringue-like cookies made with egg white, almond paste, ground almonds or coconut, and sugar with a crisp crust and soft interior with a filling at the centre.

The confusion, I believe, has been caused by the picture accompanying the Wikipedia entry for macaroons -- it's of a coconut macaroon, which was a best-seller on the Wenger's menu and looks very different from the standard image of the confection. It was L'Opera that changed our mental image of a macaroon and more recently, Breads & More has outdone the French patisserie. Now, did you know that the bakers of the Tamil Nadu town of Thoothukudi (or Tuticorin) have an old tradition of making macaroons with egg white, cashew and sugar? You'll love the ones from Shanti Bakery, which has been making macaroons since 1964.

AND WHAT'S THIS 'POLMOS' BUSINESS ALL ABOUT?

EACH bottle of Belvedere, or for that matter any vodka produced in Poland, carries the acronym POLMOS. Its expanded form is 'Polish Monopoly of Spirits'. The expression harks back to the time when all vodka in this East European country, then behind the Iron Curtain, used to be produced in state-owned distilleries. After the Polish people got rid of communism in 1989, the government started selling its distilleries to the highest bidders and Belvedere, produced at a place called Zyrardow, 45km from Warsaw, was picked up by Eddie Phillips, a serial entrepreneur and son of 'Dear Abby', America's most famous agony aunt. The brand has been owned since 2001 by the luxury conglomerate, LVMH.

Gaon Ka Khana and the Dope on Punjab Grill Going Molecular in New Upscale Avatar

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

AFTER flagging off Punjab Grill’s forays into Bangkok and Dubai, the restaurant chain’s operator, Lite Bite Foods, promoted by Dabur scion Amit Burman and knitwear exporter Rohit Aggarwal, is now contemplating expansion to the United States. It is looking at Tysons Corner Center, the biggest mall development in the Baltimore-Washington area in Fairfax County, Virginia, as a possible location for the fourth international address of Punjab Grill, after Singapore, Bangkok and Dubai.

Sharing this information over a sumptuous Gaon Ka Khana spread presented at Zambar on Sunday by Gurgaon Foodies, a Facebook group promoted by Pawan Soni and Aalok Wadhwa of Indian Food Freak, Lite Bite Foods Chief Operating Officer Sharad Sachdeva also disclosed

(From left) Indian Food Freak and Gurgaon Foodies
co-founder Pawan Soni, yours truly and wedding planner
Nita Raheja at the Gaon Ka Khana lunch organised at
Zambar, Ambience Mall, Gurgaon, on Sunday

that Punjab Grill is going upscale and venturing into molecular gastronomy to wow its regulars.

The new direction of the restaurant chain’s menu will be first unveiled at Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj, where Punjab Grill is opening in place of Fresc Co along with a revamped Zambar, which has been going places ever since Arun Kumar TR, its low-key but hugely talented filmmaker-turned-master chef, took charge of its kitchens. A former GMR senior executive who powered retail concepts at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, Sachdeva clarified that Fresc Co is being nixed at Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj, on the suggestion of the mall operator.

Sachdeva, an IMT Ghaziabad MBA, also informed us that he has collapsed the traditional wall in restaurants dividing the back of the house and the front end by making the Punjab Grill cuisine consultant responsible for its profit and loss accounts as well. The chef de cuisine, in other words, has also become the custodian of the brand’s financial health — a bold experiment, but very much in sync with these difficult times when food costs are spiraling out of control.

Zambar, meanwhile, was packed to capacity with Gurgaon’s food lovers who enthusiastically dug the six-course Gaon Ka Khana spread that was accompanied by a steady flow of beer and wine. Arun Kumar said that feeding people who knew about food (and you’d expect such a gathering when it’s put together by the moving spirits of one of the most livewire restaurant reviews and recipes site) was a different experience altogether. They were inquisitive about the dishes and open to food innovations, the extremely knowledgeable Arun Kumar added.

Lite Bite Foods COO Sharad Sachdeva (standing) with Delhi
Gourmet Club member Pooja Sharma and yours truly

It was a happy afternoon, and though the service was not always up to speed, we never felt it because the wine flowed like water and conversation was strewn with laughter and nuggets of wisdom. I shared my table with Mr Old Monk and founder-member of the Delhi Gourmet Club (DGC), Rocky Mohan, who was with us for a short time but as always a gold mine of culinary wisdom; the gregarious Nita Raheja, a leading wedding planner and communications professional, and her husband; drummer and blogger about town Vivek Vaid; and DGC’s very well-informed member, Pooja Sharma, who had come with her husband, an automotive interiors specialist, and was regaling us with her stories of eating out in New York, especially at wd-50, a much-acclaimed Manhattan Lower East Side restaurant powered by Wylie Dufresne. When there’s good food, can delicious conversation be far away?

Photos: Courtesy of www.indianfoodfreak.com