Baan Tao, Hyatt Pune is hosting a Japanese food festival all this week, till the 26th of March, featuring celebrity Chef Shohei from Japan. They organized a Masterclass with the Japanese culinary expert last weekend, where he demonstrated some amazing techniques.
The array of sushi presented is never seen before in Pune. Fresh beautiful cuts of meat in exquisite little rolls resulting in explosions of flavor in your mouth.
Here is a little glimpse of what’s on offer
We started off with a couple of asian inspired mocktails, including a Dragonfuit flavored ice tea
Nigiri Classic: Perfect cuts of salmon, tuna, yellow tail with cooked vinegared white rice
California maki: Crab stick, cucumber, avocado, tobiko
Crab Cake Sushi: Arguably, my personal favorite of the evening!
Apart from the Sushi, we were also presented with a couple of his signature dishes.
Teriyaki chicken: Chicken breast, teriyaki sauce, grilled eggplant and leeks : a sweet sticky sauce, succulent pieces of chicken and the seared eggplant gave this dish a unique umami flavor – nothing like I have ever had before.
Teriyaki Chicken
Cotton tofu in mushroom sauce: Something for the vegetarians. I am personally not a fan of Tofu, but the sauce it was served in was mild, yet well seasoned.
Matcha Tea Cheese Cake: Matcha is finely ground powder of specially grown and processed green tea, characteristic of Far East Asian celebrations. This cheese cake not only looked breathtaking, but tasted absolutely heavenly.The Matcha Cheese cake paired perfectly with the coconut icecream and the sugar mesh.
The Japanese food festival is on till the 26th March at Baan Tao, Hyatt Pune. The sushi dishes are available as AlaCarte, as well as part of the Sunday buffet.
I was invited for a blogger’s table tasting. For all intents and purposes, The Usual Disclaimer applies.
This Sunday evening saw #theBTeam heading to the newly inaugurated Bombay Diaries at CityPoint, DP Road. This is located right next to Mainland China, where Oh! Calcutta and Bombay Brasserie used to operate a few years back.
Bombay Diaries runs on a very Mumbai oriented theme. With waiters dressed as Mumbai taxi drivers and the captains managing them dressed as traffic police officers, it has a very fun vibe overall. Completely open air, they also have live music playing on a daily basis. Beautifully lit up, the decor feels pretty chilled out for a nice evening with drinks and dinner.
Waiters dressed as Taxi Drivers and the Captain is the Traffic Cop!
Bombay Diaries is the brain child of Chef Deepu Alamchandani of the Cafe Mestizo fame, so great tasting food is a given! The surprise here are the range of cocktails – super innovative, with an excellent price point (all between 150-300 for cocktails). The cocktails are served in quarter (180 ml) sized ‘desi daru’ / ‘tharra’ bottles, and salt rimmed chai glasses, leading to a very cool feel
Cocktails : Chulbul and Chikni Chameli
Going with the Mumbai feel, the drinks are Bollywood themed. The collective favorite, Chulbul (150/-), a grenadine, lemonade flavored vodka based cocktail, with a strong flavor of jaljeera – felt like a kala khatta soda and was brilliant. Multiple rounds were ordered for this one.
Giving Salman company was Katrina, as Chikni Chameli (150/-), a strawberry, cucumber vodka based cocktail. This was lighter, but just as enjoyable.
Cocktails: Drink Master Gogo
Drink Master Gogo (150/-) came to the table with a ‘Dhakki Chiki Dhakki Chiki Dhakki Chiki Dha!” This took us back to the Andaz Apna Apna era with a Rasna flavored vodka mix! My personal favorite, this is a must have!
Cocktails: Bombay Thumakda
The Bombay Thumakda was a surprise for me. It is described as Strawberry, Roohafza, milk concentrate, vodka. I am not a fan of rooafza, but this was superb! Almost on the lines of an Irish Cream, this truly proves that – Doodh hai wonderful, pi sakte hai roz glassful! 😉
Cocktails : Paaji ka Panja, Bol BacchanCocktails: Desiwala MojitoCocktails: Rangeela Driver
The other cocktails we tried were also pretty innovative and delicious. Each cocktail is also available in a mocktail version, so the sole teetotaler was happy too.
Mocktails
Giving excellent company to the drinks were a whole range of delicious starters
Mutton Seekh Lucknowi
Mutton Seekh Lucknowi – This was my favorite! Boasting some beautiful smoky flavors, these tender skewers of mutton were a delight to eat.
Smoking the Seekh KababsTBD Special Murg Tikka – From the Diaries
TBD Special Murg Tikka – Succulent kababs of chicken, stuffed with chicken kheema and melted cheese. Absolute delight to eat! Break open one and you can see the cheese oozing out. Sigh….
Stuffed Paneer Tikka (From the Diaries)
The stuffed paneer tikkas are, in simple terms, a bread pattice with extremely soft paneer tikkas. An excellent option for the herbivores inclined
Murgh Seekh Galafi
The Murgh Seekh Galafi is a chicken seekh kabab, served on a wooden truck! The kababs were succulent, though slightly overpowered with elaichi
After the heavy barrage of appetizers and cocktails, we finally mustered the courage to move on to the mains. We started of with the Dal Bukhara. Dal Bukhara, the grand-daddy of the Dal Makhani, is a creamy, slow cooked black dal with rajma / black bean. It is characterized by the smoky rich flavor it carries due to the traditional coal fires it is cooked on. The Chef at Bombay Diaries managed to incorporate the smokiness into the dal using a chulha, giving it a near-authentic flavor. This is a #MustTry at Bombay Diaries.
Dal Bukhara
Paired with the Chilli Cheese Garlic Naan, the Dal Bukhara was at another level all together.
Chilli Cheese Garlic Naan
Another spectacular vegetarian item I tried here was the Kurkuri Bhindi Masala. Crisp fried Bhindi over a layer of delicious thick gravy – this is a must for every bhindi fan!
Kurkuri Bhindi Masala
One dish I had my eye on was the Nalli Nihari. And I was not disappointed. Perfectly cooked mutton, rich, creamy, thick sauce, chock full of a pure mutton flavor. You could distinctly taste the flavor of marrow in the sauce.
To end this glorious evening, we were served some delectable soft sexy voluptuous Gulab Jamuns and some surprisingly not too sweet Gajar ka Halwa, putting a perfect end to a kickass dinner!
This write up is based on my experience at a Blogger’s table invite. The Usual Disclaimer applies.
*Bombay Diaries is operational from 5 pm onwards, with live music on a daily basis.
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