Sometime's its best not to describe the cuisine. Just leave it to the chef and let him decide. Actually, let him just go crazy. Take the World Tourism Day for example. With the theme of Sustainability Tourism, there were many ways to make this work. The chef here simply went crazy. Some dishes were global concepts with local ingredients. Some were Indian dishes fused with European dishes. Some simply had no description.
Let's take the Thakkali Rasam Ramen. Yes, you read it right. A beautiful thakkali rasam, poured into a wide soup bowl. Seeing what goes into the soup is now passé, but nori and egg in Thakali Rasam? True fusion here and one that was executed well. Flavours match more than we think they can. Nori in rasam, while doesn't appear to gel well, simply did so beautifully.
The next dish wasn't a surprise. Idly simply goes with everything and an Arrabbiata sauce is no different. With some parmesan cheese on top and idly podi and powdered cheese on the sides, these super soft idlies looked like they were meant to be born in Italy!
South Indian sundals in a Vietnamese paper roll was the next dish that cooled off the flavour over load of the previous two courses, but the Parota Nachos was a killer dish. No fusion here. Crispy flaky parotas layered with chicken tikka and cheese and simply, just simply refused to leave the taste buds long after the morsels left the system. The taste still lingers in my tongue now.
The momos with mutton simply couldn't live up to it's Parota cousin of the previous course and was a damp squib. The parota bashed up all the courses. The filter coffee tiramisu was our dessert and while I loved the presentation, I couldn't rake up the filter coffee flavour so it was just another tiramisu. Maybe the parota was to blame too. No flavour was recognisable for a couple of days.
The World Tourism day preview was held for us on Saturday and is open to the public for one day on Wednesday, 27th Sept as part of the buffet at Madras Pavilion, ITC Grand Chola.
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