There are two restaurants at the Park Hotel in New Delhi: Mint is the more general purpose establishment. It doubles as the breakfast room and offers a range of buffet style dishes and they're all very good indeed. Fire, on the other hand, is the a la carte offering, an Indian restaurant offering a wide range of dishes from various regions of the country. It is absolutely wonderful as I knew it would be; the quality of the food at the Park Hotel (currently celebrating its 50th anniversary) is top notch.
It's a fairly large space with marble floors and interesting lighting (decorative light bulbs hanging down from the ceiling). I stopped by on a Monday night at around 8pm. The restaurant started off being sparsely populated, but more people turned up as the evening wore on.
The menu is extensive, starting with ''farm fresh salads'' such as Burrata aur bhatt ka salad, which is burrata, arugula, tomatoes, black soybean, mizuna, seed mix, honey and beetroot dressing. You'll have to look up some of those ingredients because I didn't order salad on the basis that salads and fresh fruit are out of bounds for me in India, so many people advise against them, but I'm sure that here in the Park, it's fine, I just don't want to take any chances. That said, when I last went down with the galloping oobi joobys, in Brazil, I was staying at the recently refurbished Sofitel hotel and I was eating fresh fruit every morning. I also took a dip in the sea across the road in Copacabana Bay, which I understand is not very clean, so it could have been the sea, not the salad. Either way, I spent the night sitting on the throne.
I did, however, take a chance on the soup, opting for Ankurit moong aur chicken ka shorba. It arrived in two parts: a huge, out-sized tea cup with the ingredients resting in the bottom (chicken, lemon grass, wild mushroom plus chicken strips and sprouted moong, whatever moong is). The waitress poured the soup element of the dish in to the huge cup and I'm guessing the idea was to make it look like she was pouring tea into an enormous cup. The soup was very, very tasty. I'm not normally somebody that would order soup with a meal, but I wanted to make the most of this restaurant as I knew the food was going to be good. It was, and so was the value at Rs195, which is just over two pounds in UK currency.
Outside of soups there was a wide range of starters ranging in price from Rs395 (that's roughly four pounds). I went straight for a main course and ordered Fire's signature tadka vegetables and Lahori chicken (chicken cooked in a rich creamy gravy of onion and cashew and boosted with cardomom, cinnamon and mulethi). I considered the Hyderabadi haleem (a timeless stew made from mutton braised with wheat) but decided to stick with chicken. Lahore murgh as it was known cost me Rs595, so roughly six pounds. I can't find a pound sign on the keyboard hence the reason why I'm spelling out the converted price. I ordered a Malabar parotta speciality bread that cost me Rs245, which was just under three pounds.
Without exception, the entire meal was faultless. The service was a little slow, illustrated by a hot plate that was cold by the time the food arrived, but overall, the experience was worthwhile and I would recommend this restaurant and the hotel to anybody who asked me where to eat and where to stay in New Delhi.
The meal was accompanied by a bottle of still mineral water and rounded off with a camomile tea. Totally chilled. I put the bill on my room, but it was just over twenty pounds in English money. I loved it, you will too.
I didn't take any photographs because my iphone wouldn't do the excellent food any favours.
It's a fairly large space with marble floors and interesting lighting (decorative light bulbs hanging down from the ceiling). I stopped by on a Monday night at around 8pm. The restaurant started off being sparsely populated, but more people turned up as the evening wore on.
The menu is extensive, starting with ''farm fresh salads'' such as Burrata aur bhatt ka salad, which is burrata, arugula, tomatoes, black soybean, mizuna, seed mix, honey and beetroot dressing. You'll have to look up some of those ingredients because I didn't order salad on the basis that salads and fresh fruit are out of bounds for me in India, so many people advise against them, but I'm sure that here in the Park, it's fine, I just don't want to take any chances. That said, when I last went down with the galloping oobi joobys, in Brazil, I was staying at the recently refurbished Sofitel hotel and I was eating fresh fruit every morning. I also took a dip in the sea across the road in Copacabana Bay, which I understand is not very clean, so it could have been the sea, not the salad. Either way, I spent the night sitting on the throne.
I did, however, take a chance on the soup, opting for Ankurit moong aur chicken ka shorba. It arrived in two parts: a huge, out-sized tea cup with the ingredients resting in the bottom (chicken, lemon grass, wild mushroom plus chicken strips and sprouted moong, whatever moong is). The waitress poured the soup element of the dish in to the huge cup and I'm guessing the idea was to make it look like she was pouring tea into an enormous cup. The soup was very, very tasty. I'm not normally somebody that would order soup with a meal, but I wanted to make the most of this restaurant as I knew the food was going to be good. It was, and so was the value at Rs195, which is just over two pounds in UK currency.
Outside of soups there was a wide range of starters ranging in price from Rs395 (that's roughly four pounds). I went straight for a main course and ordered Fire's signature tadka vegetables and Lahori chicken (chicken cooked in a rich creamy gravy of onion and cashew and boosted with cardomom, cinnamon and mulethi). I considered the Hyderabadi haleem (a timeless stew made from mutton braised with wheat) but decided to stick with chicken. Lahore murgh as it was known cost me Rs595, so roughly six pounds. I can't find a pound sign on the keyboard hence the reason why I'm spelling out the converted price. I ordered a Malabar parotta speciality bread that cost me Rs245, which was just under three pounds.
Without exception, the entire meal was faultless. The service was a little slow, illustrated by a hot plate that was cold by the time the food arrived, but overall, the experience was worthwhile and I would recommend this restaurant and the hotel to anybody who asked me where to eat and where to stay in New Delhi.
The meal was accompanied by a bottle of still mineral water and rounded off with a camomile tea. Totally chilled. I put the bill on my room, but it was just over twenty pounds in English money. I loved it, you will too.
I didn't take any photographs because my iphone wouldn't do the excellent food any favours.
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