Food Diaries: Winter Collection, Spice Route, The Imperial Hotel

What’s up guys?

The changing season can get to most of our heads, hearts and bodies. And so I thought we’d celebrate it by doing a full-on Winter Edit for you guys.

This post is a food diary, a sea-food special as a part of Spice Route’s Winter Collection Menu. Spice Route is one of the luxury restaurants at the iconic 5 star hotel, The Imperial.

Ambience

For those of you who know me personally or have been following the blog know I love Imperial because of its decadent interiors. And it was no surprise that Spice Route was beautifully done up. Designed by Rajeev Sethi,  Spice Route reflects the journey of spices from the Malabar Coast in Kerala through Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia to Thailand and Vietnam. Speaking to Ruchi and Aparupa from the Corp Comm team, I found out that the restaurant took 7 years to complete.

Theme
Indulgent, warm and delectable Chef Veena Arora offers a treat to diners at Spice Route with an eclectic mix of recipes from the South-East Asian kitchen at The Spice Route. A lot of herbs with galangal, kafir lime, lemon grass, thai sweet basil and many more which are great for the body this time of the year, explained Chef Veena who joined us at the tasting session.

While the nutritional value is bound to make you less worried about number of calories (and cholesterol), Chef Veena and her team and Spice Route have spent days formulating an exquisite and authentic menu that captures the zest of South East Asia.

Food Tasting

We started with a round of  Yeara Varuval, a dish with deep fried prawls prepared in fresh spices from Kerala, thai spring rolls better known as Por Pia Kung. Both dishes were great to taste but I inclined towards the Yeara Varuval a bit more. I also tried fish and prawn dumplings called Luk Shin Pla: super light and healthy. We had an array of sauces and chutneys on the table as Chef Veena kept telling us different combos to try.

To my surprise, my favourite turned out to a beautiful bowl full of Tom Yum Thalay: a hot and sour seafood  soup, flavoured with lemongrass, galangal and kaffir lime leaves. I found it to be a powerhouse of ingredients, flavour and spices. For me, this could be in a meal in itself. I’d love to have it on very cold nights to come!

For main course, I ate a portion of Masi Goreng which is basically wok fried noodles made with sea food. This had a lot of the flavours from Indonesia (as the name suggests) and we were told that all pastes were made from authentic herbs sourced from Delhi and around the world. To finish this sumptous meal, I tried the Meen Thakkali Sadam i.e. Tomato rice tossed with prawns and squid rings along side well cooked sole fish in a Sri Lankan curry. The combination was fresh, light and had a flavour of the seas. If you, like me love tomato rice/tamarind rice, you will love this food.

For dessert, I had a few bites of green-tea ice cream that doubled up as an agent to digest, detox, and to clean my palette.

After this wonderful tasting session, we were taken to the outer part of the restaurant (you must sit there on sunny afternoons) for a Thai Salad cookout session with Chef Veena. She also told us how to use the same ingredients, chillies and easily whip up a vegetarian salad too!

All in all, it was a great afternoon with an interesting bunch of people.

Verdict

If you’re in love with prawns, squibs and all things sea (or are open to the idea of it), I tell you to go and try it. Yes, it’s a bit pricey but this is one of the luxury restaurants in Delhi that has also been recognised as the top 10 restaurants by Condenast. So if you love your plate of good food, you should consider it.

What? South East Asian Seafood special
When? 16^th November-31^st  December 2015
Where? Spice Route, The Imperial Hotel, Janpath, New Delhi
Timings: Open for lunch 2:30pm – 2:45pm | Open for Dinner 7:00pm – 11:45pm
Meal for 2: Rs 10,000
For Reservations: 011-41116634