Fire Restaurant at the Park Hotel

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.

Mooching around New Delhi...

The poverty in India is depressing. Outside of my hotel there is a really old woman who lies on the pavement covered in rags. She has white hair and I wouldn't want to guess at exactly how old she might be, but I'd say easily in her eighties. I think about my mum, now 89, back home, recovering from a hip replacement operation, and I start to wonder whether the woman outside the hotel will live a long life, probably not. I'd like to think that she gets by, but what a terrible existence. The only good thing is that the weather here is warm, even in winter, but the temperature plummets at night, I'm told, although it can't be as bad as it is in the UK at the moment; it's been described to me as 'cold and crisp' but you can't fool me, it's fucking freezing, that's all I'm saying.

The old woman just about manages to beg. I'm not even sure if she can stand up as she seems to be swathed in blankets on the floor. In the UK I would fear for her safety, but here in India she's part of the furniture, so to speak, and is probably known by all and sundry. There are other 'beggars' who are a little more subtle. For a start they say they're not beggars as such and they claim that they're not after money, but I can tell by the way they talk that they want my cash, if not immediately then when I leave the hotel. They might subtely bring into the conversation that they don't earn much or that they're not at school because they need money for school books, all stuff designed to pull a little bit on the heart strings of those they try to attach themselves to. They don't dress too badly either, but it's obvious they're experiencing hard times, although one, Naresh, has a decent Samsung mobile phone so life can't be that bad, but I'm sure it is.

Out of the two people I've met, Naresh seems to be more genuine than the other guy, whose name I can't remember, but he spoke good English and claimed he was still at school studying English and then possibly computer studies. Anyway, he simply wouldn't leave me alone. He was constantly asking questions: Where are you going? What are you looking for? Questions I could have asked him. He provided directions to emporiums, he was always there. He was, it has to be said, good company and his English was good too, so we managed to converse fairly easily, but they're hard to shake off these people, they must be standing around waiting for people like me to emerge from emporiums, shops, what have you, and now I find that when I head outside, I look both ways to see if they're around. I've exchanged telephone numbers with Naresh, but I don't expect him to call me any time soon, although I'll probably see him later if I forget myself and walk in the wrong direction, they just appear out of nowhere. His back story is that he works at my hotel as a cleaner, but he's never in the hotel, he's always outside it, standing around. "Can I take you to my uncle's shop?" Well, no, I've done all my shopping now, I won't be buying anything else. I could have bought a made-to-measure suit for £135 – but decided not to; in many ways I wish I had because I desperately need a decent suit.

I had lunch today at a posh restaurant bizzarely called Kwality Restaurant & Ice Cream. It's on Connaught Place and was closed when I first peered through the window. Outside the place is described as a Tea Shop, but it was a top-end restaurant, so I ordered a chicken curry with rice and some mineral water. Not bad, but not brilliant, although, that said, the bill was only Rs2000 - that's about twenty quid.

Afternoon tea at Mister Chai...

It's Monday, my day off, and I needed to locate a hotel, the Shangri-La. The guy on the front desk says it was not far and gave me some directions (basically turn right, then left at the lights and it's there. Well, yes, sort of, and I did eventually find it AND I managed to avoid people hassling me on the street, a common problem here in New Delhi. It's a nice hotel, very grand, and I'll be there all day tomorrow. I liked it so much I stuck around for afternoon tea and a pastry, not forgetting a few biscuits (two to be precise). I ordered mint tea and a Black Forest pastry, which was very, very good and then I simply chilled out, perusing the map I'd picked up from the front desk of my hotel on Parliament Street. I'm annoyed that I missed the Taj Mahal, but I'm determined to visit the Red Fort some time tomorrow. I'll probably take a cab there. Either tomorrow or I'll fit it in somehow.

It's nearly time for dinner and I'll probably stay in the hotel like last night. As always, it's boring being alone. Oddly, I don't mind so much in Europe where everything is a little more familiar, but here in New Delhi where it's a little strange, it would be great to have somebody to wander around with; I reckon that two people will keep away the hasslers better than one. The hasslers are everywhere, waiting for an opportunity to ask a question and once I answer, they're with me for the entire evening. From now on I'm making a point of steering clear of them. I won't have to see them tomorrow because I'll be working all day and on Wednesday I have two meetings. On Thursday it's back to Indira Ghandi airport and a nine-hour BA flight back to Blighty.

New Delhi is a crazy city by European standards; what with the occasional monkey, the stray dogs basking in the sun on the pavements, the parakeets and the tiny squirrels, the hasslers trying to grab my attention, either to sell me something or ask me a question that they think gives them the right to be at my side ALL DAY LONG, it's fucking Crazytown. It's a real effort trying to shrug off the hasslers - that's pronounced 'hass' not ''hazz'' -  but they're friendly enough.

There a good smells and bad smells wafting around here too; sometimes the smell of fresh tar, which is pleasant, but then a waft of something resembling rotten eggs, and then a pleasant perfume. It's a city of contrasts on so many levels.

It's approaching 2000hrs and I really ought to be thinking of dinner. It's a shame that the Shangri-La hotel is just a little too far to walk otherwise I'd head there now and sample another of their food and beverage operations. I had my afternoon tea and cake in the appropriately named Mister Chai.

A colleague has just texted to ask whether I've had the shits yet. No was my response. And on that note, it's time for dinner!