*Melancholy persian music cues in*
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The Persian food festival is a crown jewel to add on the revolution of bringing world cuisine to our own city. Chennai has always encouraged good food, and never fails to rave about something that's proved on the plate, despite the cost or other ruling factors. This fest to talk about is a special set menu that is hand crafted by Chef Rehman that brings home the century old biryani and kebab, from the creators themselves.
It was pretty evident from the passion as the chef pep talks about the history of food and the sense of authenticity is instilled into your head so not to think otherwise.
Cutting short of the rant, I'd very much rave about food as the topmost priority. Welcomed by a carbonated butter milk that was rich in flavour, the true flavour of the chass was forcefully overrode by the humpy aeration which is a very innovative yet bold move to start the meal off, perhaps the way he conveys we're going full on pro. Typical show off chef!
Soup came to be revealed as Soup E Jao- a pureed tomato base filled with spices that's dressed with barley grains (that's well soaked and sparsely or not cooked) and wedges of boiled potato. The barley twitched on spot to complement the palate off the spice overheads, and the potatoes just went along. Who puts potatoes in a soup, and damnit it's totally nailed. There is a common assumption among the star hotels that heavier the silverware the better the diners perceive the food to taste. For such places my suggestion is to probably focus on the food as well because the cutlery here is damn light that's a bit odd to go with the otherwise heavy plates and crocks.
For starters a platter of kebabs were served on a bed of rice (apparantly asli Persian, read as quoted). I judge a veg platter by the quality of paneer, a well done paneer that was a bit hard to bite into. The seasonings were good, the texture was a tiny bit burnt. A tender paneer would have enhanced the texture a multifold. Mavoha tanur, a chunk of pineapple grilled with somac powder. It was grilled to cook the marinade enough while leaving the core still juicy. On the farther east of the plate was the gharth tanur - a succulent mushroom spiced with herbs (read predominantly saffron) and tossed in olive oil. The spices in oil gave out a generous tinge of sourness that formed an amalgam in the palate (drools as I write upon). Khubanni shammi was another masterpiece, as weird as the name sounds this is a typical aloo kebab hid inside with a slice of apricot. By now I've accustomed my palate to suit the Persian. Falafel cannot go wrong, classy yet bland. The bed of rice was spiced on the right side. A tinge of cardamom or such made me take a back stand, otherwise flawless.
Main course was two baskets of bread one topped with sesame seeds and the other was filled with herbs. Both of these were of excellent texture and soft with just a hint of spices that complements the naan but doesn't dominate in flavour. For the sides, Dal adasi was a stand out. The smallest of the cups is worth the drool, was Richy rich in butter that gave out a brilliant texture. Paneer fasenjan was a pretty much similar paneer gravy seasoned with pomegranate and walnuts to add up to the stock.
Service was top notch, a weekday lunch took us out of the table room pretty quick, hope to be here soon to try out the rest of the menu and their hospitality.
*melancholy fades out with a hymning in deep tone*