01 February 2013, 02:39 PM IST
"Aha", "Eureka", "Wah wah" resound in my mind whenever I discover and partake of an experience of consistent excellence. And this has happened only a few times while I've been on my countrywide rounds as jury for 'The Foodie Awards' (Kunal Vijayakar's TV show on Times Now). From Kashmir to Kanyakumari we've been flying around, eating and judging. Be it in the freezing snow-clad Gulmurg or the balmy south India… the lookout is always for excellence. I am delighted to get a taste of it in Delhi and to share it with you.
DELHI DAZZLES
I am not a fan of multi-cuisine restaurants, but this one blows my mind and delights my palate. Reason? It is of international standards and it manages to be both (that's right) a multi-cuisine and also a specialty restaurant. A culinary landmark, easily the best in the country. How does it do it?
It sprawls gleaming in 10,000 sq ft, has four skilled expat chefs who cook up authentic Japanese, Chinese, Italian and Mediteranean. There is Indian fare too. So, Threesixtyone is actually three specialty restaurants in one (not separated by walls) and it is surrounded by an acre of a serene reflection pool.
Leading the four expat chefs each a master of his cuisine is maestro Chef Ravitej, awarded Best Chef of the year by Hotelier magazine.
Chef Hiroshi Isomura's traditional and contemporary sushi and sashimi delight, as do contemporary appetisers by live teppanyaki tables.
Chef Hu's Cantonese soups, hand pulled noodles and dim sum are light and right. While the fiery, spiced Sichuan specialties by Chef Tang are memorable too.
Homemade pastas, thin crust pizzas and grills, and here's the most heartwarming part, the baking of fresh bread every hour from the oven served right to your table during mealtimes.
It's impossible to even begin to list the amazing and authentic dishes here without going into several pages. Suffice it to say that both the gold medalist general manager David Mathews, (with a master's degree in International Hotel Management from England) and Chef RaviTej are obsessed with quality. And this shows up, be it in the sourcing of ingredients – from the world's largest fish market Tsikiji market in Tokyo, to getting the right spice from Kerala, the appropriate govindobhog rice from Bengal, tomatoes from Italy for the pizza or in the classical and contemporary cooking techniques – sous vide to traditional char-grilled, steaming to tandoori.
Even the sections of this award-winning Oberoi, Gurgaon restaurant are amazing, be it the Wine Library, the sushi 'sit at' counters, Teppanyaki tables, three mouth wood-burning oven, Indian kakori grill, roomali and tandoor, Pan Asian wokkerie and more.
HEALTHY COOKING TIPS
Having worked in leading national and international restaurants, Chef Ravitej Nath has cooked for top CEOs, royalty and celebrities at various award-winning restaurants. He combines "delicious with nutritious". I request him to share his tips…
1. Get a good non-stick cookware set. You can do away with almost 80 per cent of your oil consumption daily. That's around 30 mins on a treadmill everyday!
2. Substitute polished rice products with red unpolished rice, brown rice poha, brown rice pulao or as regular boiled red rice.
3. For most recipes published, you can trim the amount of fat by around 20 per cent without affecting taste or quality. Some tricks are substitute skim milk for whole milk, soups can be delicious without any cream, use low fat yoghurt when a recipe call for full fat yoghurt.
4. If you do use oil, use rice bran oil or canola oil in food preparation instead of pomace olive oil or vegetable oil.
5. Consume naturally grown vegetables and fruits as much as possible. Pesticides and chemical fertilisers are present in products even after washing. These are available pretty easily nowadays at organic stores.
HOT, SWEET & SOUR
Chef Ravitej's Pickled Sea Bass recipe
Batter
* Wheat flour 100gms
* Potato starch 100gms
* Salt to taste
* Chilli paste ½ tsp
* Oil 10ml
* White pepper powder 1gm
* Water
Method
Mix all ingredients and make thick batter
Sea bass fillet
* Make three gashes under the flesh of the fish fillet
* Marinate fish with salt, white pepper powder and dust with corn flour
* Batter fry the fish
SAUCE
* Tomato sauce 2 tbsp
* Pickled chilly (chilli soaked in brine) 4 nos
* Ginger chopped 05gm
* Garlic chopped 05gm
* Sugar 1 tbsp
* Vinegar 1 tbsp
* Chilli bean paste 1tbsp
* Salt to taste
* White pepper powder 1gm
* Spring onion 05gm
Method
* Make a paste of pickled chilly, ginger and brine
* In a wok, heat oil add garlic and chilli bean, cook for two minutes
* Add pickled chilli paste
* Add tomato sauce, seasoning, sugar and vinegar
* Taste hot, sweet and sour
* Garnish with chopped spring onion
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