It was our third consecutive long drive road trip in as many weeks and this time we headed over to Welcome Hotel Kences which is a part of the ITC group. We sat in the lawn for a couple of drinks and were welcomed by the blow of the breeze coming right from the sea side located just across the side. It was a sight to behold and the sea breeze made it a soothing experience.
After our tryst near by the sea with drinks for company, we decided it was time to eat and headed over to their restaurant called Swirl. The last two weeks were greeted with Ala carte options which were not so resounding. This time we preferred to go the Buffet way hoping that they'll be laying out quite a lavish spread.
The setup of the ambiance was pretty nice from the outset. The outside environment greeted with a nice rich look of a small water area surrounded with plants aplenty. On the inside it appeared cozy and comfortable with plenty of seating space and the items of the buffet placed at a central space.
Normally Sunday buffets in places such as this tend to usually have a massive spread with a magnanimous serving of broadened cuisines. That however was sorely missing. The spread seemed pretty pedestrian. Things you normally associate such as a Live counter wasn't witnessed. Options of Italian, Mexican or Mediterranean were hardly available. Neither were there South Indian tiffin fare such as Dosa, Idli etc or the Indian chaat variety of pani puri, pav bhaji etc. We thought there would be something special served to the table but that wasn't the case. The kitchen area was used only for the Indian bread variety to order for and nothing else.
Though the spread was limited which was quite unexpected but however whatever that was available and tried had nothing really much to complain about. There were couple of starters in the form of a panneer 65 and corn fritters. The panneer chunks were flavorful with a dash of spices added in and the corn was crunchy. There was one pasta item with mushrooms along with a moussaka which was decent and so were the noodles. On the main course, the panneer gravy was signature and so were their Black Dal which added as able folly to the Roti and Naan consumed.
They had a drinks counter placed right at the entrance serving butter milk, mint nannari and rose litchi. Had a small shot at them all and each of them had brownie points going for them. The salad counter however was pretty plain. They had 4 varieties of ice cream in the form of vanilla, chocolate, butter scotch and mango. Filled my dessert plate with one of each and ended up finishing the meal on a high.
The service side was helpful and greeting. However they seemed a little lacked out on manpower as many a time the used plates were taken away only after we had reloaded the new ones and had to ask them many a time to clear it. The pricing at roughly about 2k bucks inclusive of taxes per person seemed on par with other buffets of similar properties.
On the whole, it was a reasonable experience. They should definitely stack up their buffet with plenty more options available. Well one could always argue as what's the point by loading up dishes all of which would be hard to be consumed by the customer. But the point is not just that as having an extensive spread gives way to more variety. The one's visiting such places are spread across all age groups and hence more options can make it more enticing and appeasing. Also gives way for a more laidback and sombre time where one could at his peril be spoonfed with options to pick and choose.
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