eating out


Restaurant Review – After Stories

I recently visited After stories as part of a large group and tried a bite from a number of dishes. It is very close to the IFFCO chowk Metro Station in Gurgaon and is known for its freshly brewed Beer. Here’s a quick review.

Ambience:

It is naturally well lit and has a nice ambience. The interiors looked good and music played at a comfortable volume (where you can hear yourself talk).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food & drinks:

They have multiple cuisines which includes North Indian, Continental, Chinese, Mexican and fusion of these. The Prices are a bit on the higher side but one must try it out. The Service staff was pleasant and knowledgeable about the food.

In drinks I tasted the Apple cider & Kala Khatta (signature drink). Both were quite nice.

For appetisers, I tried :

Peri peri cottage cheese fingers : Paneer was soft, exterior was crisp but needed more of the Peri peri as I couldnt taste it at all .

Tandoori Mushroom with double cheese : Quite nice.

Crispy aloo sabutdana : To be honest it wasn’t too crispy. Potato wedges are usually crispier.

Falafel with pita and humus : Nice and crispy falafels served with pita bread and 3 types of humus – one of them was made with black chana too.

Veg Spring Rolls : Average

Cottage cheese in Schezwan sauce : Crispy on the outside, nice taste. But personally I feel there are just too many paneer dishes.

Chicken jujeh Kebab : was nice and tangy.

Baked filo puff – The pastry was quite nice and flaky but the filling (in the Veg one) mainly tasted of carrots and cheese. Could add some other flavours.

Mexican Style mutton seekh with salsa and sour cream – different flavours from usual punjabi style but nice.

For main course I stayed away from Indian food though others seemed to enjoy it a lot. I tried the pastas which had the right italian flavours and were not their Indian versions.

I also had Mumbai style chicken manchurian served with fried egg and sichuan rice. The manchurian was a bit tough and dry else the dish looked good and tasted good.

For dessert I tasted the Churros with Mandarin sauce and clotted cream as well as the variant with strawberry and chocolate sauce. I found the latter combination better. The churros were a bit dry because they were quite thick. But tasted nice. The chocolate and walnut brownie with ice cream was quite nice and gooey.

Here are some images to describe what one can’t in words!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The food was nice, not too spicy. Main course portions are ok only for one person per dish. They also have interesting events like Cinderella nights on Wednesday, Thirsty nightingale on Thursday (free beer for all & also a karaoke night) , Story teller Sunday and more. It occupies the basement, ground floor and first floor and also has outdoor seating. There is a long flight of stairs that leads up to the 1st floor. There’s no elevator. The parking is free. Overall this place is well worth a visit.

 

After Stories Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato  


The Orb – One of the most visually striking lounge bars in Delhi

Recently Radisson Blu Plaza, Delhi Airport, opened ‘The Orb’ – a new and very visually striking lounge Bar.

With the opening of  this avant-garde lounge bar, Delhi now has a new venue for all fun loving people and party animals.  They have an exquisite collection of innovative cocktails, sumptuous relishes, and live events that add to one’s evenings.

Paneer Mushroom Pinwheel, mint mayo, tomato chilli marmalade_

Paneer Mushroom Pinwheel, mint mayo, tomato chilli marmalade_

Phuket Chicken'- green onion, wild ginger, thai chilli

Phuket Chicken’- green onion, wild ginger, thai chilli

Oreo Cookie Baileys Cheese Bar, mango & blue berry sauce

Oreo Cookie Baileys Cheese Bar, mango & blue berry sauce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Achari Fish Tikka, pickled baby shallots, lemon mint foam _

Achari Fish Tikka, pickled baby shallots, lemon mint foam _

Hazelnut Mousse Fudge, chocolate ganache

Hazelnut Mousse Fudge, chocolate ganache

Roasted Beetroot Salad with goat cheese, orange & caramelized walnut

Roasted Beetroot Salad with goat cheese, orange & caramelized walnut

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Orb has an extensive cocktail menu, and enough live performances to keep you coming back for more. Their drinks menu has a lot of variety unlike many other places and includes everything from signature cocktails, Martinis, Jagerbomb, Tequila, single malts, blended whisky, vodka, gin, rum, champagne and various wines. Basically one is spoilt for choice.

The cocktails have rather intriguing names like Chamba Booti, Khopdi, Masala T-Knee, Rajkumar, and Orb Marry.

Apple cinnamon

Apple cinnamon

khopri

khopri

12 slaps

12 slaps

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orange Caprioska

Orange Caprioska

Orb Mary

Orb Mary

Reflection

Reflection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

True to its meaning, “Orb”, that means a sphere or more literally a spherical celestial body, the lounge bar showcases exactly that. The interiors are very trendy and lit up in shades of blue. At The Orb, the seating is arranged around a circular table, which is a very welcome change from regular linear bars. The ambience is also very “electric”. It is not a very big bar and with its circular core,one can feel like one’s partying on an island in the middle of a hotel. Apart from the live DJ performances every evening, there are mid-week blues (on Wednesday) and special performances every Friday night. In the month of March, the line-up of artists includes Soham Mallick, Namrata Nath, Jive Can, Anahita Dawar amongst others.

THE ORB

THE ORB

Keeping in mind the rising spate of crimes against women at venues that serve alcohol, The Orb guarantees  a fun and safe outing. The management and staff has been trained & sensitised to extra care for women.

Images in this post have been provided by Radisson Hotels.

Here are some more details of this bar

Address

Radisson Blu Plaza Delhi Airport, National Highway 8, Near IGI Airport, Mahipalpur, New Delhi

Phone number

26779191, 2677 9045, 9899115508.

Social media

Twitter, Fb, Instagram, Youtube

Cost

₹3,500 for two people (approx.) with alcohol

Opening hours

 5 PM to 1 AM



Neung Roi Review

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Recently I was invited by Radisson Blu plaza, Delhi, to try out Thai food at Neung Roi. I was actually supposed to try it exactly a year back when I had been invited to try out the spa experience. However the relaxing spa experience did not leave me any time for a leisurely 4-5 course lunch. So this year I went exclusively to try out the Thai food at Neung Roi. I really like Thai cuisine a lot and also make a lot of it myself. But then the stuff I make, mostly uses ready made pastes etc. So I was pretty excited to have “authentic” Thai home food prepared by Master Chef Yengai Suthiwaja.

Neung Roi means 100 in Thai and has been named after the 100oC East longitude, which runs through Thailand. Neung Roi is perhaps  the first Thai restaurant I have seen, that segregates its menu based on the major culinary regions. There are four major culinary regions listed – Isan, Lanna, South and the Central Plains. The menu has a preface that explains the specialty of each region. For example the Isan region has spicy flavours,  hot and salty dishes are from Lanna, seafood and fresh produce is from South, and mild, subtle and balanced flavours are from the Central Plains here. I like a menu that actually enlightens the consumer. It was only after a lifetime of eating Chinese or “Chindian” did I realise that Manchuria, Sichuan (misspelt as schezwan in India or even Sehejwan!), Hakka , Hunan, Shandong etc refer to various regions and hence different influences on Chinese food.

The ambience of the restaurant is very nice. Soothing tones, attractive lighting and spacious seats.

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So without much ado, here’s what all I tried from the iPad menu I was provided. Since I went alone for the review (instead of in a group), some of the portion sizes were customised for me and made smaller.

We started with something that was a mouth freshener sort of thing. It was made with a betel life like a paan but had typical Thai flavours like lemongrass, chili, peanuts etc.

Thai Paan

 

STARTERS & SALAD

Various starters and salad with small portions for me

Pla Phad Khing

Wok fried fish with black mushroom & crispy ginger. This was really tasty.

Gai Yang

Grilled chicken with coriander roots & roasted chilli sauce. The chicken tasted a bit chewy but that was because I realised that the skin was on. And although it felt and tasted like fried chicken, it had been grilled. It was flavourful.

Som Tum

Raw papaya salad with peanut, chilli & light soya sauce. The salad was light and refreshing and also used edamame beans – something I have never used myself while making this salad.

Chormuang

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Steamed Thai butterfly flower dumpling filled with vegetable

While going through the iPad menu my eyes stopped at “butterfly flower” and I was immediately curious about what this dish was. I wondered if it was made with something called “butterfly flower” or it looked like a “butterfly flower”. So I was told by the waiter that these are lavender coloured dumplings! Can you, dear reader, imagine anything like this? That piqued my curiosity even further and I ordered this dish. I must say it was quite a surprise when it came! Not only did it look spectacular, i tasted great. Later the chef met me and told me that the dough for the dumplings uses stock from dried purple flowers which give it this colour. And the filling was sweet potato, onions and peas!

SOUPS

Tom Yum Gai

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Spicy & sour chicken soup with lemongrass, kaffir lime & galangal. The soup was very flavourful and the individual flavours were distinctly standing out.

 

MAIN COURSE

Gaeng Kiew Wan Gai

Chicken green curry with Thai eggplant, basil, kaffir lime & coconut milk. The thai curry was quite tasty. I often make red and green curries at home and the wonderful new addition here was the crunchy Thai brinjal that looks more like capers.

Gai Kraprow

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Minced Chicken with long beans, hot basil & chilli. This was also quite tasty but perhaps best eaten with rice.

Pla Sam Rod

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Crisp fried fish in three flavor sauce. It was really tasty but felt more like a stand alone appetiser rather than a main course dish to be eaten as an accompaniment to other dishes.

Phad Thai Pak

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Flat rice noodle with bean sprout, chive, tamarind, chilli & peanut. I make rice noodles all the time at home. Nevertheless these were really tasty and actually had different flavours from the ones I am used to. Also, I’ve never used lemon juice on top of pad thai noodles! That was an interesting take.

 

DESSERT

Tub Tim Krob

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Water chestnut in coconut jasmine syrup. The water chestnuts had been soaked in a strawberry flavoured gelatinous syrup and resembled pomegranate seeds! It was quite tasty.

Kanom Tom

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Jaggery stuffed pandanus glutinous rice dumpling with coconut. This was the first time I had a sweet dumpling! That too with jaggery & coconut. It felt like I was eating an Indian sweet dish. But it is important to eat them while they are hot, else the jaggery solidifies a bit.

Fig & Honey Ice cream

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A non Thai dessert, but very tasty nevertheless.

 

After a very sumptuous meal I visited the washroom at Radisson Blu plaza and was completely floored by the gigantic drawing room that I entered in, which also happened to house toilets! So here are a few images of that lavish room too 🙂

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After this I met Master Chef Yengai Suthiwaja for some chit chat where I discussed various preparations and she also showed me the flower that gave those gorgeous dumplings their colour. It is a dried flower imported from Thailand for this very purpose.

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And here’s Master Chef Yengai Suthiwaja who I thanked for a hearty meal which was flavourful and also very interesting at the same time.

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Here are some more details of Neung Roi. Reservations are recommended.

Phone number

011 33105576

Address

Radisson Blu Plaza Delhi, National Highway 8, Near IGI Airport, Mahipalpur, New Delhi

Cost

Average Rs 3,000 for two people (approx.) VAT & service charges extra
 



An outing 7

Today I went to Tango, a restaurant in DLF. The ppl who accompanied me were Ish, Rohit, Mini, Bonda and Manoj – all from the PPG team. It was a small place with hardly any seating space on the ground floor. The cooking was done on the first floor, with a spiral staircase leading upto the cooking area. By now the waiters would have had enough of practice to avoid toppling dishes from that dizzying height :-). We all ordered our individual items and juices. The juices were surprisingly good and were freshly made instead of being tossed out of tins into stylish glasses. So the long wait was not minded much. The rest of the fare took quite some time to come though.
The first lucky recipient of his meal was Rohit. He had ordered a Chicken Sandwich and a Chicken Salad to go with it. Everyone dug into it except Mini who’s a vegetarian. After much wait, came the next item, Manoj’s Veg steak which had some kinda cutlet with garlic sauce on it. That was good too. The infinite amount of time being taken between orders could probably be accounted for, by the gas cylinder we saw, being “smuggled” up the spiralling staircase. One after another, all dishes came with the last one being Ish’s Macaroni florentine. Bonda didn’t like his Chicken Shashlik sizzler and found my Chicken Satellite sizzler better (dunno the funda behind the satellites though). In between Rohit tried all kind of antics (now that he was vela) with the water in the plastic glasses, managing to spill it all over himself, thankfully not in any strategic places :P. The food was good overall but the wait had been too much. Eventually it was time for payment of the 900+ bill. When we asked for corporate discount we were asked which company we are from and then told that there was no corporate discount policy in that restaurant. Wonder why the company’s name was asked for with such efficacy. We gave a credit card for payment and were told that the machine is out of order. Somehow managed to churn out 1000 bucks amongst ourselves and left.