The first thing that appealed to me about Chilis @ Ambience Mall in Vasant Kunj was the design. Just in front of the upcoming PVR property, Chilis has glass walls through which you can see the tables and customers biting into their food. There is a part though that is properly walled and has no transparency at all. My friend had recommended my Chilis for its burgers, and it came across to me as more of a burger chain. It was only after I had gone there later that I realized that it had a full-throttle continental menu. 

To begin with, Chilis reminds you of TGIF and once you are finished with the meal, it makes you forget TGIF (I, in any case, was never a TGIF fan). The menu comprises continental starters, burgers, fajitas and chicken, beef and lamb preparations. We were three of us and we ordered three different preparations: a portion of Fajita with shrimps, chicken and paneer; a Cajun Burger; and grilled chicken. Fajita was more than filling for one person and tasted good. The Cajun burger was slightly bland but did qualify to be yummy! Grilled chicken with rice was my favourite as it was well-done and not at all spicy. A bit of mashed potatoes could have added more life to it. But then that’s my personal opinion.

Speaking of the service, it was very average. We had to ask for water twice. They served us soft drinks before water. Ambience was very American. They had these nice lights hanging from the ceiling with a partial menu imprinted on it. The crockery was very impressive. Where we sat, it was slightly claustrophobic. May be they could space out a bit, or it seemed to because it was a full house.

Chilis, all in all, is a great place to have continental food. I am sure I’d be going there again to try out a few more delicacies I missed. For those with a sweet tooth, it promised a lot. Excellent place with average service.

Nestled in the greens along the MG Road, Tonino was an unheard entity for me till last evening. To begin with, Tonino is a great Italian restaurant that somehow banks largely on word-of-mouth marketing but enjoys great loyalty from its regulars. Everything about Tonino is absolutely magnificent, from service to food to ambience. It’s a bit hard to locate for the one unfamiliar with the area but for those who commute from Delhi to Gurgaon regularly will find it easily. It is somewhere between Chattarpur and Sultanpur Metro Station, near Andheria Mod. The moment you enter Tonino the first thing you notice is the name of the restaurant written in Italian. Even when you dine you hear Italian songs being played in the background. I also noticed a few Italians sitting on the table next to mine. But that’s not where the Italian fascination ends. On my visit there yesterday, Tonino had a Tuscan food festival going on. For the uninitiated, Tuscan is a beautiful countryside in Italy recently in the news for having British Prime Minister on a vacation. 

Since it was my first time at Tonino (I plan to go there many more times) I did not want to experiment with the festival food. The thing about festival food is that it can either disappoint to delight, so I went for the regular menu and chose to order a chicken dish with grilled vegetables and fettuccini pasta in red sauce. I am sorry I do not remember the exact Italian names and I’ll compare the food with whatever Italian food I’ve had, primarily at the Big Chill. First, the food is way different than what Big Chill offers (everything’s better than the overrated Italian restaurant). With minimal amount of cheese spice (though the waiter the claimed that it would be spicy) the pasta was light and pleasing to the palates. Since I am a greater fan of Spaghetti, I did not appreciate it that much. What floored me was the chicken dish that had just the right amount of everything. It was not exactly filling but would make for a decent light dinner that I have resorted to lately.

Apart from the food, Tonino offers great interiors. We were lucky to find a table at the fag end with a door-sized window on the side, offering a view of the greens. Since we had booked our table, there was a nice candle placed in the center which made for a semi candle-light dinner. The walls were replete with attractive paintings. The waiter was quite attentive and served with a big smile all the time. There’s not even one negative that I can think of as of now. Tonino is a strong recommendation if you like fine dining Italian with a tinge of upright ambience. And yes, when the weather is fine, you can enjoy a glass of wine sitting outside.

The weekend was some sort of a gastronomically journey even if I was down with some mysterious bug. I basically visited two restaurants, one on Friday evening and rounded off a filling weekend with an impromptu trip to China Kitchen at the Hyatt. The Friday evening trip to Saravanaa Bhawan was a planned with one with a few friends. The restaurant (they call themselves ‘Hotel’ Saravanaa Bhawan) Saravanaa Bhawan was heavily endorsed before we went there. Even before we could have a look at the menu, our overzealous friend ordered three portions of Malabar Parantha with cauliflower vegetable (arghh!). Seeing her confidence, we were convinced that there can’t be anything better to eat; in fact we were expecting some kind of divine food that rarely is eaten by us mere mortals.

As it usually happens, the Malabar Paranthas with the cauliflower vegetable was nothing more than ‘ok’ fodder for hungry souls that was gulped down with equal disdain and gluttony. The paranthas were full of ghee and the sabzi was something between sweet and sour/spicy. When one more friend of ours joined us, we experimented with Uthappam and Rava Masala Dosa, both of which were highly edible compared to Malabar Paranthas. Sadly, I hardly had any room to eat them by then. While food was quite good to end with, the service at Saravanaa Bhawan was disgusting. One startling incident was when one of the friends was eating her meal and the staff member, in some sort of rage of clearing the table, picked it up and conveniently put it in her large tub of unwashed crockery! Upon being told that our friend was still eating, all that she could afford was an unembarrassed smile, and carried on. Given the lacklustre service and inhospitable staff, we quietly accepted the fact that Saravanaa Bhawan is not the place to be expecting courteous staff (I had to ask for water about three times before it was served). It also seemed that they were in a hurry to have us off the table as there was a long waiting outside, but that hardly is a reason to hurriedly serve and start picking up plates while we are still having food!

My verdict for Saravanaa Bhawan: If you don’t find the food exceptional, chuck it. Sagar Ratna is 1000 times better!

From one end of poor service on Friday, I oscillated into the lap of extreme hospitality on Sunday evening at The China Kitchen. It was a very sudden decision and we were hungry for some good Chinese food. I went there purely by reputation. Whilst Hyatt has downgraded itself in some means, like charging Rs 100 for valet parking, its restaurants still rank very high amongst food revellers and critics alike (TKS is on my radar). The China Kitchen is nicely placed alongside the poolside and is accompanied with beautiful interiors and attentive, well-spoken staff.

As we sat right in front of the kitchen, we were immediately handed the menu. There was one section where you could make a meal for yourself at Rs 1888/person. When I asked the staff if it was applicable for dinner, he amusingly referred me to the ala carte section without addressing my question. Upon repetition of the question, he annoyingly said that it was minimum for 4 persons. Not really in a mood to argue, I settled for ala carte. We ordered steamed dumplings, which were well-done; chicken with black bean and mushrooms, which disappointed me; and veg fried rice, which was again a disappointment. May be I don’t have a taste for authentic Chinese! Given that it was in a luxury hotel, it didn’t cost too much. We ended up paying about Rs 2900 for three of us, and I never pay tips unless I am flattered.

My verdict: Eating Chinese in Delhi? Mainland China (I only go to the one in Rajouri Garden) is a winner anyday!
 

Ok, this is my second consecutive restaurant review, and I am happy reviewing restaurants than discussing Baba Ramdev here! It may be a coincidence that the restaurant that I am going to talk about today has a name that is reminiscent of yogis – Veda. Curiously named and designed by renowned designer Rohit Bal, Veda is an unassuming Indian restaurant located on the top floor of DLF Promenade at Vasant Kunj. Veda covers a huge space but the strangely it can be easily missed, due to its signage not being prominent. It is not odd that I had never cared to enter Veda until I dined there on my birthday evening!

What attracted me towards Veda was perhaps its USP – Designed by Rohit Bal. Not that I get carried away by these pretentious big labels or blindly take them to better than the lesser ones. I surfed through the menu on Zomato and found it worth a try. Unfortunately, none of my friends had been there, so I did not have any first hand feedback (there was one, but that was my friend’s friend and I don’t trust unknown sources when it comes to food, movies and books). There was hardly anything on the web apart from harping about Rohit Bal, as if he cooks the food there every day! Anyhow, to give it away right in the beginning, Veda was an OK experience at the end of it.

The moment you enter Veda what takes you over is the dim lighting, beautiful lights on the ceiling, aesthetic furniture and almost smell-less air. It does not have any intimidation that a designer boutique would generally carry, neither it is exorbitantly priced. A meal for 4 cost us about Rs 2400, though we could have eaten a bit more. Once you have adjusted to the light in the restaurant, you are easily taken over by the rich colors and ambience. We got a seat in the corner of the restaurant where they had a capacity of about 15-odd people. There was a curtain on the side so it was clear that Veda has space for private dining as well, which could be another of their USPs, given that Delhi restaurants often publically expose our eating etiquettes.

Coming to the service, they forgot to serve us water. At least 4-5 times, we had to struggle to have a staff member attend to us. Also, since it was my birthday, my friends had asked them to serve a surprise cake in the beginning along with a card. The timing of the cake was not as was told to them, which I learnt later from my friends. Also, the card had a few smiley stickers which were missing. I was not aware of the bad timing or missing elements so it went fine with me!

The food? Well, we ordered an Aloo starter which was quite okay and since we were too hungry we devoured it without worrying too much about the taste. For the main course, we ordered Dam Dahi Murgh which again has nothing to write home about but wasn’t bad either. Paneer Kundan Kaliyan was enjoyed by my vegetarian friends. It had huge paneer pieces with nice tomato gravy. The breads were pretty much usual.

In my opinion, Veda needs to work on service and food as much as they have on interiors. Even the Veda poster on the standee near the elevators has a Rohit Bal picture. If they don’t catch up on the former, I’m afraid people have many options in Promenade.

Disclaimer: Though I have nothing much to appreciate about Veda, I have a feeling I need to be there once again to have a wholesome feel of the place and food. I did not wear a critic’s hat when I was there the last time