Damu's Heritage Dine - A unique culinary experience!

To be honest, our over all dining experience at Arunachal Pradesh was nothing much to write home about. That was until we came across Damu's heritage dining which kind of blew us apart. This indigenous dine in housed almost in the middle of nowhere nestled somewhere along the interiors of the charming Chug Valley simply won our heart's over.

This fine dining restaurant prides on artisanal Monpa cuisine which is largely cultivated in house and consists of a pastiche of items made from millet, barley, buckwheat et al. The food is served as a set course meal and for once being vegetarian didn't make you feel out of place. The food tasted fresh and felt totally organic. The ambience gave a very radiant and colourful swirl. It was a boutique style restaurant housed across 2 floors with one of the floors making you witness the fresh greenery at the outset whereas the upper floor had a better design but was within a closed frontier.

We chose the open green space and began our foray with an item termed as 'Phursingh Gombu' which is a traditional dish made from corn flour dough shaped like tartlets with a juciy black lacquer overflowing over it. The black liquid tasted a bit bizarre but felt very unique and kind of medicinal. I guess you need to get acquired to such a taste but nevertheless it was quite an experience.

Next up we devoured a delightful green soup made up of tonnes of herbs where we could literally see swoons of those greeny leaves engulfing our liquid soup. This one felt extremely soothing and comforting being so rich in taste. On the main course section we also got to try a noodles made out of buckwheat. It almost appeared like being crusty on the outset but was anything but that. It was flavourful and went well with the accompanying salad.

The 2 dishes which were outright standouts happened to be the millet based momos and the green leafy tacos submerged with kidney beans aplenty. Both these were simply lip smacking awesome and felt so nice on the palette. The spinach effect pulverised it to a notch high above everything else.

We were also served rice which appeared a little thicker than normal which went well with the kidney bean lentil gravy. We were given a similar version of the rice as a sweet laced with a touch of jaggery. Apart from this we also had a shot of millet based pancake with sweeteners dolloped on top.

More than the taste of the food, this fine dining escapade was more to do with the experience which just hit home and felt so comforting and heart warming. We were taken care of magnificently well and explained about the finer points of each and every dish along with also knowing about the history and tradition of such a cuisine. On the whole it was a delectable experience which one should not miss especially when traversing across this neck of the woods.

Mayflower - A melange of Multi-cuisine

Mayflower is a restaurant constructed out of an olden day house bungalow. It retains a lot of old world heritage and tradition and that seemed pretty appealing about the place. It is pretty spacious and you even have a compound space stacked up with books comprising the autobiographies of interesting personalities. The white pastel shades and the plants in the background give it an vibrant touch.

The restaurant is largely multi-cuisine tapering into a broad way of cuisines ranging from Continental, European, American, Italian, Asian, Mediterranean and many more. It doesn't stick to one particular nook and handling a finer variety of fare didn't seem to be hampering on the quality in any way.

We started our coarse with a broccoli soup. It was green and thick with laces of cheese stringed in. It had a rich taste and came well served up in a mug. On the appetizers section the dim sums comprising inset water chestnut, corn & broccoli were minced well and went really well with the range of dips. The crispy American corn as well as the lotus stems as the name suggested were crispy and well cooked. We also tried a Jamaican Panneer skewers which were a tad disappointing. The pieces were a bit hard and the taste didn't come out apparently.

The real show sealers were however on the main course section where virtually each of the items we encountered fought for bragging rights to be the best of the lot. The seven cheese pizza was marvelous. It was insanely cheesy with different variants and it was a joy pulling and playing with the pizza not to mention the delectable taste. We also tried an exotica pizza in addition as half and half along with another seven cheese version and this too was yum loaded with a mix of veggies and was also really cheesy. The one which smeared the aroma and roused the taste buds were however the khow-suey. It had a fantastic smattering taste with the Burmese aroma being really rich with a fine essence of coconut cream and this was insanely enjoyable. We also got to slurp a creamy pasta.This was a make your own version where we went with cream sauce, penne and a tinge of veggies. It was really cheesy with the contents floating dangling and dancing around and tasted fantastic.

In the desserts section, their stock is limited with just two specialized items namely the Orange Darsan Flambe and the Death by Chocolate. The former was quite nice with the orange essence over the crisp noodly pieces giving a lovely fine taste. The latter was decent but nothing much to rave about. I believe very soon there will be a few more specific stuff added to the attic. The drinks, beverage and shakes however are considerable in number. Among the ones tried, the Kit Kat shake easily stood out.

The service was friendly and suggestive. The pace of time taken to bring the items could be improved marginally as we had to encounter some waiting time. They are competitively priced and for the quality which you get as output seems justifiable. On the whole,a restaurant that specializes on a lot of stuff and also succeeds. Definitely worthy of giving a shot.