Hawkersan - South East Asian with a Twist!

Hawkersan is a fairly new restaurant which has sprouted up in the front end area of the sprawling Somerset hotel in MRC Nagar. As the name suggests, it's predominantly Asian cuisine with a distinguishing feature.

The concept works on the model of a course meal and you have 4 & 7 course meals for lunch and 5 & 7 course meals for dinner. There is no separate menu as such and the option for you is to have a full fleshed course meal based on the number of items which you wish to choose.

It is pretty elaborate and their course meals do touch upon every item you would look forward to while consuming a wholesome Pan Asian meal. There are starters, soups, salads, momo or bao preparation, main course and desserts.

I tried the 7 course dinner meal and it felt thoroughly justified. Started off with a juicy watermelon cooler as a welcome drink to start proceedings. Then arrived a delicious corn lentil starter infused with spices which was filled with aroma. The Lung Fung soup was delightful. They also served a wholesome spring rolls in a attractive presentable manner. It contains all the essentials to make one fall for it. The jackfruit based bao I felt could have been a tad better. The texture of the bun was super smooth but however the stuffing could have been a tad better.

In the main course we got a soupy noodles bowl and a rice with thai red curry. The bowl of noodles was filled to the brim consisting of different kinds of chinese veggies and was kind of nice to slurp over. The real winner however was the thai red curry which was simply sensational. The essence of coconut cream will no doubt bowl you hook line and sinker. We ended our course by polishing a couple of dessert jars one comprising of water chestnuts and fruits soaked in coconut milk and the other an evergreen chocolate offering.

On the whole, it was a very pleasing meal. The service was ever friendly and also the intervals of time needed to bring the next item in the fray was just spot on. The pricing seems quite competitive for such an expansive spread. All in all, if you're looking for a lovely chinese meal without thinking too much about what to choose and what not to, you can certainly try this specialty offering of Hawkersan which has the kind of wholesome spread that can surely cater to your needs.

Broken Bridge Cafe - When fusion trances with innovation for the win!

It was a delightful young early weekday evening and we decided to spend time at Broken Bridge Cafe which is a part of Somerset Hotel. The ambiance gives a breezy woody feel with hues of brown decor in addition to the plant like greenery surrounding. It gives a chiselled feel and ignites the laid back dictum in all it's vigour.

This is a recently opened restaurant specialising mainly on fusion cuisine. The menu is a simple slider but they've innovated tremendously within this space to bring out a lot of unique experiments. Amongst the items which we had, the majority hit the dart right at the center and it was just in a couple of stuff that felt the need for improvement. The menu comprises of small plates aka starters/appetisers and large plates meaning to convey the main course dishes. There are no gimmicks or over the top tomfoolery happening at all and the menu conveys the point as to what it intends to offer.

In the small plates, the show stealer was undoubtedly the Curd rice fritters. Innovation reached varying heights with fried golden balls made to mimic curd rice with hinges of lemon pickle. This was truly one 'one of a kind experience'. They resembled your usual fried cheese balls ala starter but on taste you get the riveting effect of mushy curd rice and to boot also was served a mayo dip with largely lime essence. Audacious work of fusion but I must admit it worked very well. The kalakki (scrambled eggs) with goat jam on bread was another delightful starter. The panneer Makhni papdi chaat was nothing much to write home about. Just a touch of makhni gravy over papdi puri's which were just decent. The spicy corn cakes were kind of nice and I thoroughly enjoyed the palak and Goat cheese flat bread. If you're able to withstand the smell and rawness of goat cheese, then you're bound to love it.

For the large plates, we tried achari 3 cheese kulcha melt as well as mushroom & olives goat cheese kulcha melt. These were really nice spread with melted cheese which was really hard hitting. I loved the flavours of these kulchas which gave a lovely crunch while consuming them and they good enough just to consume stand alone though they also came along with fries,dip and ketchup for company. Also got to try the blue cheese naan which if you are fond of the aroma of it, it'll dunk you in big time and to go along with it a juicily sumptuous panneer tikka masala gravy.

In the dessert draw, the filter coffee baileys tiramisu ruled the roost. Served in an ever silver tumbler, it was simply jaw dropping drool worthy. The skim of tiramisu infused with layers of coffee powder had everything in it to make you dig unabashedly. The nutella custard and maltova crumble was alao equally relishing.

The prices seem par for the course and not really in the vicinity to pinch your pockets. The service was amicable, friendly and on the button. Overall, a really pleasing experience dining at Broken Bridge. If you like a little bit of twists and fusion in your food without the core getting compromised, you should definitely head over to this place for a resolute fine dining encounter.

Fromage - A cheese friendly affair!

Fromage pronounced as "Fraw-mazh" is the French equivalent of cheese. It's apparent from the name that the ever loved delicacy 'cheese' forms the significant part of the items in their menu. The restaurant is located as part of the 'Somerset' property and is a perfect addendum complementing the happening resto bar 'Radio Room' just by it's wayside.

The interiors are well played. Lovely toned blue doors adorn the settings and the white wall touch ups with meaningful portraits hung showcase the show of this place. It isn't over the top by any means and in fact gives a rosy picture with regard to the surrounding environment.

On the food, they have a menu comprising of a cuisine which has a European touch. Cheese is something which gets instills the Cheshire cat instincts within me and it was a pleasure seeing a card laid out with cheese in all it's splendour.

We were here to try a selective hand picked menu chosen for the day. We started with the soup of the day in the form of a Gouda cheddar which was quite interesting. The cheese was quite subtle but the presence of it could be felt all along.

In the starter section, we had three kinds of veg servings. We began with the delightful spinach, corn and cheddar tarts. These were sinfully cheesy and mouth wateringly mushy. The tarts were so damn soft that it was a feast biting into them with the cheesy liquid melting jocularly inside the mouth. This appetiser was gob smacking awesome. Next, we moved on to the Onion Jam Goat Cheese Rolls. This is as exotic as it gets. The combination worked wonders with the tangoing of goat cheese and caramelised onions in these golden fried rolls coming along with a lip smacking sweet tinged jam. This was another top notch appetiser. And lastly, we had the Tomato confit bruschetta with parmesan. This was a little lesser in awesomeness compared to it's predecessors but nevertheless quite good on it's own fettle. There were tomatoes galore and the shearing of parmesan cheese over crusty slices of bread was quite nice to consume.

The main course was all about Pasta's and it's brethren. The speciality of this place is the cheese wheel where pasta is made in spectacular fashion by scraping and cooking it inside those big sized oval shaped parmesan cheese wheel. The cheesiness was tingling along meltingly over the layered pieces of penne/fusili and it was quite a delight consuming them. You could feel the cheese in all it's fullest fury. Apart from the pasta, we also tried the veg Lasagne which was pretty good made in a tomato base with oodles of cheese spread along. Also was tried the Mac'n'cheese pasta. Though i found this slurpy, the salt content felt a little off.

On the whole, it was a really pleasing and satisfactory meal. You don't get to consume such high quality stuff of imported variety of cheese in many places within the city. And the quality and taste of majority of the items were resoundingly good. The service was amiable and ever ready to help us out. The rates aren't mentioned as the meet was over an invite. Even otherwise for the kind of offerings, the pricing is definitely on the competitive bracket. A shout out to Eazy Diner for hosting us and ensuring that we have an enjoyable meal. You would also like to check their application which will enable you make reservations at various top restaurant's within the country at ease via a click of a button. All in all, it was a meet full of fun and frolic with the satisfaction of a quality meal aced by Fromage.