Near pavilions

The Thai Pavilion is decked in warm, welcoming colours 

Place: GURGAON 

Restaurant: THAI PAVILLION

Thai Pavillion is a welcome addition to Gurgaon’s considerable culinary space

Almost two decades after the first Thai Pavilion opened its doors at Mumbai’s Taj President, it forever altered that city’s appreciation for Thai delicacies. Now its latest edition is set to usher in a similar sweep in shiny-shabby Gurgaon’s swanky Vivanta by Taj, where the latest edition of the Pavilion has just opened. The newest edition of the restaurant, the third, after a Pavilion at Vivanta in Hyderabad’s Begumpet, also marks the first north Indian foray for the outlet.

Kai haw bai toey, marinated chicken morsels wrapped in
pandan leaves and fried

The same high standards still apply, still under eagle eyes of Executive Chef Ananda Solomon, whose success with this brand for long was a model to emulate for specialty restaurants at top end hotels. Well chef is personally in Delhi about once a month, and the team here has trained with him in Mumbai extensively. Additionally, there is a diminutive and dazzling and thankfully English speaking Thai Master Chef Prajaub Shoosridam, spending long hours in the kitchen and frowning at no chillies and other such customization requests. Yes, you are guaranteed an authentic Thai flavour here.

The wonderfully tangy Som tam, Young papaya salad combined
with sweet and spicy sauce

Nevertheless every day there are tests that must be passed successfully. A nod to Delhi’s local client palate means there is a comparatively greater stress on red meats, and well meats in general than the other outlets, but then Hyderabad is spicier. Solomon says a proper study was done of trends in Delhi before finalizing the menu. “You can’t Indianise the concept,” chef stresses. “Thai restaurants have to be authentically handled. The right combinations have to be achieved, right from the starters to the main course. Solomon is known for his adherence to the classic traditions of cuisine, be it his native Konkani or in the successful restaurants he has launched in cuisines as different as Thai and Italian.

The 80-cover Thai Pavilion carries forward the traditions of its cousins – most of the ingredients still fly in from Thailand to Mumbai and then get distributed to Hyderabad and Delhi. While chicken is an exception, almost everything else from lamb to rambutan and dragon fruit to pandan leaves, condiments and even a variety of chillies all fly in twice weekly.

The famous Thai curries - red and green, with steam rice

The menu is fairly extensive, and starters after the lovely pomegranate based welcome drink, include Sakuna chowsuan sos makam (Tempura prawns with tamarind sauce) and Kai haw bai toey (marinated chicken morsels wrapped in pandan leaves and fried), but the best choices by far are the tangy Som tam (Young papaya salad combined with sweet and spicy sauce) and Pra hed (mushrooms delicately blended with Thai herbs). There’s a vast choice of main courses, including many vegetarian ones. Apart from the most familiar, and ordered red and green curries – delicious by the way – try the Heao phad prik haeng (Water chestnuts and cashew nuts with red chili paste) or the Pia Nueng Manao (Steamed John Dory with coriander, chilly, peanut in a tangy sauce).

The restaurant itself is spacious, has a waiting lounge, which in the near future could we well used, given the restaurant’s popularity and fairly affordable pricing. Traditional Thai motifs are present and yet subtle, and the one that can become two PDRs, or private dining rooms offer a greater degree of privacy for groups. While Taj will not say how much it cost – Solomon says finding the right young people who are ready to spend long hours in the kitchen is getting harder – and a challenge for the entire sector.

Try the lovely Tub Tim Grob, Diced water chestnut with coconut milk, a dessert that will leave you
yearning for more

For those not yet favourably inclined to oriental desserts, make an exception and save space for the delectable Tub Tim Grob (Diced water chestnut with coconut milk), which is served in a scooped out raw coconut and comes with ice cream and chocolate rolls, if you like. You will ask for a refill even if you are stuffed! Or return for another helping!  

It’s a sellou(t)

Place: GURGAON 

The warn interiors are evocative of the
 legendary Moroccan city

Restaurant: CASABLANCA

Moroccan cuisine makes a stylish entry to NCR

North Indian men are notorious for being food ‘loyalists’. Fill them with butter chicken or rajma chawal, and you can work out a much better deal. Deny the same, and suddenly lack of cultural connects become an issue, even if you are from just south of the Vindhyas, not to refer to the wider world beyond. For decades since independence, Delhi’s culinary landscape, even top end restaurants in hotels, had to balance global cuisines with more local tastes. It is very recently that increased travel, and possibly more choices as well as a sense of novelty have widened the acceptability levels, and new cuisines are coming up.

Lamb tagine - yes served in its
ubiquitous platter too

A wonderful beginning for Moroccan cuisine has been made by a restaurant called, what else, but Casablanca. Located at one end of Gurgaon at the new Double Tree by Hilton, the restaurant actually has a Moroccan resident chef, Rashid Choukki, who has planned an extensive menu, albeit with the considerable presence of dishes from all across the Mediterranean. The restaurant is also the first by the global hospitality chain to offer Moroccan cuisine, say the staff! Surely they must mean outside Morocco.

A largish restaurant housed in a separate building of its own, it has about 100 covers, including outside seating. The interiors are welcoming, the décor motifs and hues suitably evocative of the legendary Moroccan town it is named after, complete with lamps - from huge brass ones to lit ones in brightly coloured glass, beautiful ceramic tagines, heavy drapes overlooking a verdant treescape and sofas that invite you sink into their comfortable depths. Add a welcoming drink of Moroccan mint tea, and for a moment one could forget the concrete town outside. There are little cabanas that make for a more private seating, and they are weather proofed, providing heat and coolness as required.

Chicken pastillas - succulent and right spiced!

A beautiful menu invites you to start the proceedings. A novelty is a bowl of delicious almond filled dates, accompanied by small cups of orange blossom flavoured milk. It’s complimentary, and may be a bit of an acquired taste for some. This is followed by stuffed breads accompanied by a hallmark of the cuisine – its varied and delicious dips, including the famous harissa but also the hummus, babaghanoush and zaalouk. 

Prawns pil pil. Again, delectable

All excellent, and you could be forgiven for finishing a meal with these alone. A popular menu choice is the pastilla, a traditional slow cooked meat dish combining sweet and neutral or savoury flavours of onions, herbs and spices, chilled overnight. After adding eggs and toasted almonds, it is covered by layers of phylo pastry and finally topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon.  

While Moroccan cuisine uses a lot of spices, the combination with food is very different from the way it happens in India, and like the rest of the Arabic world, sweet and savoury is a common combination. 

Vegetable cous cous: An excellent veg option

Cold salads, usually differing combinations of onions, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, garlic, greens and seasoning are followed by a tagine, a rich, slow cooked stew, both of meats and vegetables, often combined, that comes in its own pot. On offer are the more usual lamb or chicken tagine, but also more exotic seafood or even quail, rabbit or veal tagines! 

Two veggie options are listed too. The outlet actually offers main dishes after this, but be warned, normal appetites are only going to manage a tagine or a main such as moussaka, an eggplant based dish that is simply too good to be ignored. The adventurous may opt for khlea, dried lamb or beef, samak makli, assorted fried fish, though there are lovely grills as well.

You wouldn’t really have space for desserts if you tucked in earlier, but probably just as well. The traditional Moroccan desserts are fruits, though a variety of sweets, including traditional options such as sellou, but a brisk walk would probably serve you best! Take time out when you go, and let Casablanca weave its considerable magic.

View from the top

Place: GURGAON

The rooms are to the right and the public areas to the left,
both fronting the pool at Oberoi Gurgaon

It’s been awaited with bated breath. The Oberoi Gurgaon, in the making for a number of years, has finally thrown up its steel and glass frame. Given that the group has made a city hotel after a gap of nearly two decades, the anticipation, and secrecy, about the project had been high.  

For those familiar with its sister brand’s hotel, the Trident Gurgaon, with domed architecture, lush picture-perfect gardens and adjoining water bodies, its new neighbour, The Oberoi is as unlike it as it could be.  

The challenge was to do up the Oberoi as differently as possible from its existing flagship hotel in Delhi. The Oberoi Gurgaon, built at an estimated cost of Rs 400 crore over nine acres, has been imaginatively conceptualised and painstakingly built from scratch, largely by the in-house team led by PRS Oberoi, Chairman of the EIH group, arguably India’s top end luxury hospitality chain and RSP Architects. The group is on an expansion spree, and is adding five new properties to its existing 32.  

The new hotel, which is on a management contract for the group, has spared little to make itself a destination of choice for NCR’s elite. It opted for a clean look, prepared a freshly built hill topped by a forest, a vertical green wall, and a lobby at the top of the hotel. The hill, built on flat land, took about five years to complete, and trees were planted atop that with enough depth to ensure that no one can reach the massive 36,000 ft2 cobalt blue tiled pool in middle. Shades of blue, soft in most parts, with a touch of vibrancy here and there, surprise you as wander around the property. The hill also leads to the lobby, placed a la a property in hills, at the top level of the five-floor hotel. The retail section at the entrance is yet to come up, but will have brands such as Bottega Veneta and Jimmy Choo. The way up to the lobby will have the choicest of global luxury brands besides the Oberoi’s patisserie and deli.

Another F&B highlight is an extension of the Oberoi Delhi’s popular all day dining outlet, 360º. Only, Gurgaon goes several notches higher in its threesixtyoneº - which at about 10,500 ft2 is the largest of its kind in the country. It has three distinct sections – one each for Japanese, Italian and a combined Chinese and Indian. Even with its greatly spacious seating, it can accommodate 202, and being on the pool front, offers a spectacular view on nightfall.  It even has a poolside, but its prospective popularity, chances are slim that you will get seating there easily! There is also another fine dining restaurant, Amaranta, an Indian seafood restaurant. It has a live crabs and other sea food on offer, including the blue Saurashtra crab, fresh caught! In fact fresh catch comes in from Kochi, Chennai and Vizag every morning, even if the sea is a thousand miles away.

The hotel has, perhaps deliberately, not created a huge inventory of rooms, especially given the fact that there are luxury hotels already in the proximity, and many more in the offing. The smallest of the 202 rooms however measures a goodly 620 ft2, while the suites range from 1,240 to 5,300 ft2. Yes, the largest three have private pools, cantilevered outdoor heated pool deck. Yes, living experience justifies its cost. The hotel is all about experiential luxury. ‘Height, light and space’ are the three magic words he uses as he proudly points out the special features of the property. Which includes what the hotel claims as the largest green wall anywhere in the world, about 10,000 ft2. But the smallest, ‘deluxe’ rooms have all the amenities from electronic safes to I-pod docking stations and media hubs.

The hotel has all the facilities of a top end business hotel, with large meeting and banqueting facilities, with a separate entrance of its own. Did I forget to mention the Piano bar or the Cigar Lounge or the butlers trained by the Guild of Professional English Butlers, the first Rossanno Ferretti salon in the country, the 150-odd black and white photographs of leading Indian monuments and numerous paintings by emerging Indian artists or the 24 hour spa or the 18,000 of conference facilities or an art gallery by Nature Morte? Take out some time when you come to explore NCR’s latest and last word in hospitality till date.