Much is said about the Corinthian(s) Club. One of the newer clubs to crop up on the Pune club scene, membership is at a premium and it’s a popular venue for concerts, weddings etc. in the east/south pune area. I am not sure if the Corinthians Club and the Corinthians Boutique hotel are part of the same place. The website seems to be the same with two different home pages –
http://www.thecorinthianspune.com/index.asp and http://www.thecorinthianspune.com/index.html
We have wanted to take the promo tour since a long time and have contemplated getting a membership here. Visiting the place for lunch incognito without being accompanied by a salesperson seemed a good idea to scout the place. This is touted as a five star hotel.
There are several restaurants portrayed in the dining section – Salsa, Pyramisa, Oceanus etc. Salsa was the only place open for lunch for non-members. We decided to give it a shot to end the curiosity about this place. Needless to say, as the title of this post suggests, we were in for a disappointment.
The whole Corinthians club has an Egyptian theme. There are sphinx like motifs everywhere, palm trees and what not. Salsa, as the website says, is Greek – Mediterranean – even mentions the Balkans. Wow. Some reviews I read on the web talked of mezze platters and falafel, and that seemed right for a spot of lunch.
The place we went to was said to be Mexican, continental and Indian – predominantly Indian( so why the misleading webpage?). A buffet menu was offered for lunch at 550Rs. This did not include any drinks. Cocktails were 400Rs on an average. A huge price to pay when you order a margarita and are served something in a martini glass which is just tequila shaken with ice at best. No seriously, imagine 100F + temperatures, a lazy Sunday afternoon, driving through the heat, envisioning a limey green margarita – sweet and sour and salty – and This is placed before you..for something like 10 dollars.. Not a good start, to say the least.
The buffet menu was both vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian and almost everything had ‘Jain’ written before it. A clarification request yielded the response – the menu is mostly ‘Jain’ since most people visiting this place are ‘Jain’. I find this really surprising considering the huge population. But anyway, if you are particular about what spices go in your food, you should consider this. The server offered to make ‘everything’ (typical tall promise) fresh for me with the spices I wanted.
The menu was pretty sparse considering the price – a salad bar that had the usual green salad, devilled eggs, a pre-tossed Caesar, a salsa verde salad( unmentionable), some boondi raita, and that’s about it. There were some rolls and breadsticks.
There were two soups. The minestrone looked watery at best, and I ditched this considering the sweltering heat. The appetizers had some mutton seekh and some fish tikka. The fish tikka, I hear, was Ok.
Vegetarians has ‘nachos and cheese’ and veg seekh. The veg seekh was extremely salty, but was one of the few things that could be eaten as an appetizer. The ‘nachos and cheese’ were mostly a bed of corn chips, with some cheese on top, and baked enough to melt the cheese. It was not worth mentioning. There were some beans here and there on the nachos, mostly rajma which was pasty/undercooked. There was no cheddar like sauce, no salsa and the ‘cheese’ was mediocre at best.
There was a meat as well as soy shepherd’s pie. This was once again a pretty lame attempt. There was no soy or TVP mince as I expected in lieu of the ground meat and peas you would find in a meat pie, but just nuggets sprinkled here and there that were watery. The sauce was very tomatoey with a rosemary like flavor, no sherry etc.
The other entrees – a corn pepper subji, some white bland mixed vegetables with the grand name of ‘mughlai’ etc. were very ordinary. There was one vegetable which was their saving grace – paneer tikka cooked in a thick spinach sauce, kinda like palak paneer having paneer tikka in it instead of just paneer. This was specially cooked for us with onions and garlic.
There were only two desserts. One was like a mini gulab jamun in rabdi/basundi instead of in syrup. The other dessert was chocolate ‘pudding’, which was nothing but Dry sliced cake. Even the cake in the kayani bakery is richer than this. If my limited culinary knowledge of world cuisine is not enough to know that such a cake is also called chocolate pudding, someone please enlighten me. Both desserts were at room temperature. A cold one would have been nice considering the heat.
The ambience was good but was wasted in lieu of all other factors. There are statues of people playing guitar, sax etc., and there are a lot of black and white photos of people playing the sax. There was some nice jazz or latin jazz/salsa playing in the background. Which was difficult to hear due to a horde of noisy patrons. Half our time was taken up by a noisy table with voices that could be heard fifty feet away. The rest was taken up by a crowd with 3-4 babies, all screaming at the top of their lungs. Babies will be babies, but what to do when their erstwhile parents start playing music full volume on their cell phones??
A request to the staff yielded the response that they were helpless. I take points away from an otherwise well trained wait staff for this. They have to be assertive, and think of the common good.
When the check was presented, I was asked to fill out a feedback form. I almost shuddered, thinking of my experience at the Yellow Chili, but I still gave in and filled it out. I gave max points for service and ambience but remarked, rightly so, that the food could be better. The girl came back with questions on my comments, and I had to beg her to please leave me alone!!
Overall, this was disappointing. I can think of several places where I can get excellent food for this money. Sukanta can give me a much better and tastier Indian meal for one third of the cost. Anyone visitng this place expecting to go on a culinary mediterranean journey will certainly be in for a shock.
Showing posts with label restaurant review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label restaurant review. Show all posts
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Review: The Yellow Chilli Restaurant, Pune - Haven for spice lovers
The Yellow Chilli restaurant is situated in Lane 7 in Koregaon Park in Pune and is part of the Sanjeev kapoor brand. It means I suppose that Sanjeev Kapoor is the chef here and all recipes must be by him. The place has ample seating outside, and some inside. The place is somewhat crowded, perhaps due to many tables and people always walking around to and from the buffet tables. We went there on a holiday. This was my second visit to the place and some people in our party were going there for the fifth or sixth time.
The restaurant offers a lunch buffet for 375 without taxes, buffet + one soft drink costs 475, and then there is an option of unlimited beer with buffet for 899. The most irritating thing I find here is that they stop you at the entrance and ask you to fill out a form to write your name and your cell phone number, maybe ask some questions. This is kind of a dampener, 'coz you are all eager to go in and be seated and be wowed with something nice. There is an excess of people in various uniforms, and it is difficult to guage what they really do. After we were seated, we were offered the first two options, but not the third one of the unlimited beer etc. Perhaps they did not consider us able to shell out 899 per head? It is difficult to figure out the idiosyncracies of hotel staff, like why they do certain things.. Anyway, moving on..
The food options are limited here in my opinion. First of all, this is pure Indian food only, and there is no whiff of any alternate cuisine. There is one appetizer - veg or non-veg served at the table. For vegetarians, this has been some kind of fried potato both times -- a gnocchi sized small potato mixture deep fried. They have some salads etc. and a chat counter which is so-so. They generally have 4-5 vegetable curries and 3-4 meat/fish etc. dishes. The preparation is OK, and every thing tastes different, which is no mean feat, I suppose. The food is Very hot and Very spicy. I think they cater more to the local palette which seems to be their customer base. My own heat tolerance being low, I can hardly partake anything here without sniffling or without tears in my eyes. I think smaller children might find it tough too.
One factor that I use to guage any place is how long the food stays with you, or you have a 'heavy' feeling. I am not sure if any of you noticed, but sometimes you can eat a LOT, and then be hungry in 3-4 hours, and sometimes you eat very little, and still not want breakfast or lunch the next day. The food at Yellow Chilli seemed in this category. This could be due to a lot of oil or butter being used, or 'soda', or whatever.
Some other things were a bit 'wierd'. There were people taking soiled, half eaten plates to the buffet and using their 'used' hands to take more food on those plates. I think the restaurant should make an attempt to educate people about acceptable behavoir, at least in the interest of hygiene. It is common to write things on the menu or signs such as - use a fresh plate every time etc.
We were given a feedback form to fill out at the end, and the person kept hovering around us all the time. After submitting the card, he stood right there and read it all, and then questioned us on each point. Since I was in no mood to be given the third degree, I politely declined to explain, but the man persisted and kept questioning us. We finally had to ignore him and make an exit. This behavior was ridiculous. I think Mr.Sanjeev kapoor really needs to teach some soft skills to his employees.
Overall, the Yellow Chilli is a nice place if you are in the mood for hot and spicy Indian food, in a pleasant environment, but there are several other better options in this price range.
The restaurant offers a lunch buffet for 375 without taxes, buffet + one soft drink costs 475, and then there is an option of unlimited beer with buffet for 899. The most irritating thing I find here is that they stop you at the entrance and ask you to fill out a form to write your name and your cell phone number, maybe ask some questions. This is kind of a dampener, 'coz you are all eager to go in and be seated and be wowed with something nice. There is an excess of people in various uniforms, and it is difficult to guage what they really do. After we were seated, we were offered the first two options, but not the third one of the unlimited beer etc. Perhaps they did not consider us able to shell out 899 per head? It is difficult to figure out the idiosyncracies of hotel staff, like why they do certain things.. Anyway, moving on..
The food options are limited here in my opinion. First of all, this is pure Indian food only, and there is no whiff of any alternate cuisine. There is one appetizer - veg or non-veg served at the table. For vegetarians, this has been some kind of fried potato both times -- a gnocchi sized small potato mixture deep fried. They have some salads etc. and a chat counter which is so-so. They generally have 4-5 vegetable curries and 3-4 meat/fish etc. dishes. The preparation is OK, and every thing tastes different, which is no mean feat, I suppose. The food is Very hot and Very spicy. I think they cater more to the local palette which seems to be their customer base. My own heat tolerance being low, I can hardly partake anything here without sniffling or without tears in my eyes. I think smaller children might find it tough too.
One factor that I use to guage any place is how long the food stays with you, or you have a 'heavy' feeling. I am not sure if any of you noticed, but sometimes you can eat a LOT, and then be hungry in 3-4 hours, and sometimes you eat very little, and still not want breakfast or lunch the next day. The food at Yellow Chilli seemed in this category. This could be due to a lot of oil or butter being used, or 'soda', or whatever.
Some other things were a bit 'wierd'. There were people taking soiled, half eaten plates to the buffet and using their 'used' hands to take more food on those plates. I think the restaurant should make an attempt to educate people about acceptable behavoir, at least in the interest of hygiene. It is common to write things on the menu or signs such as - use a fresh plate every time etc.
We were given a feedback form to fill out at the end, and the person kept hovering around us all the time. After submitting the card, he stood right there and read it all, and then questioned us on each point. Since I was in no mood to be given the third degree, I politely declined to explain, but the man persisted and kept questioning us. We finally had to ignore him and make an exit. This behavior was ridiculous. I think Mr.Sanjeev kapoor really needs to teach some soft skills to his employees.
Overall, the Yellow Chilli is a nice place if you are in the mood for hot and spicy Indian food, in a pleasant environment, but there are several other better options in this price range.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Review: Indijoe's Pune - Multi-cuisine buffet that ends with chocolate
I had heard about this restaurant, belonging to a big nationwide group(BJN), and had heard various accounts of the diverse cuisine that they offered. Their website calls it an American style diner, but the next paragraph touts it to have Mexican, Italian, Lebanese etc. type of food. http://www.bjngroup.in/restaurants/indijoe.html
While I did not see any, or many 'American' type of dishes, I can only conclude that it wasn't included in that day's menu, or maybe they have a different a la carte' menu in the evening.
But to begin at the beginning - This restaurant is located in the Jewel Square mall next to the Taj Blue Diamond. For some reason, any reviews that I read had led me to expect a fast food counter, self-service kind of place, so it was a pleasant surprise to find a decent dining space. We got a long picnic style table with attached benches. A glass wall looked onto the terrace where they had a guy making pizzas and prepping vegetables. A tiny bit of the koregaon park skyline was also visible - mostly some tree-tops. We went there on a saturday morning around noonish, and along with one or two other diners, got first dibs on the buffet.
There was an extensive drinks menu, with various cocktails and beers. I don't think I saw wine. Mocktails included sodas, iced teas and some fruit based drinks. The buffet was laid out in a smallish area, but the vegetarian stuff was labeled well. There was a salad section - not a salad 'bar' - that had a bowl of lettuce and some tossed salads. There was a 'mexican cucumber salad' that had some cucumbers etc. tossed in some chilli powder, not particularly mexican tasting. There was a simple salad of sprouts, onions and tomatoes dressed in lime juice. Then there was something with cottage cheese and pineapple in a creamy thick dressing that I gave a wide berth dreading the obvious presence of mayo. There was one salad called tomato mozzarella scallopini, which was thinly sliced tomatoes and mozzarella with some basil. This was just about ok tasting.
There were some assorted breads - dinner rolls and some french type bread and some cubed cheese. There was a tray of chat with some chutneys that I did not taste.
One positive thing was that there were an equal amount of vegetarian and meat dishes. There were two big pots of soup - cream of broccoli and almond turned out to be very watery with a broth like consistency. The soup tasted right, so looks like it was made that way by design. Needless to say, it was not impressive.
There was some thin crust pizza - not too great -- the sort you would get in Cici's e.g. There was one vegetarian and one chicken pizza. There were two vegetarian appetizers - cashew cutlets and vegetarian seek kabab. The Veg seekh was typical -- dry and minty and not something I usually go for. The cashew cutlets were mostly potato based with a cashew inside and deep fried. The meat section had Chicken wings.
There was a lasagna called Cajun grilled vegetable lasagne. This was a creamy concoction with no noodles and lots of vegetables. There also did not seem to be any or much cheese, so I can only assume that the creamy sauce contained the cheese. But there was no clearly visible ricotta layer that you will generally find in a lasagna. There were lots and lots of vegetables which made me happy - thin layers of grilled eggplant, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, beans, mushrooms, baby corn etc. etc. The overall taste was tomatoey and comforting, but once again, I failed to understand what cajun elements or spices it contained.
There was some grilled fish in abundance and a sea-food salad that kept my carnivore companion happy. There was some sort of non-veg thai curry too. The oriental section contained burnt garlic noodles, ginger rice and some green veg thai curry. Although assured by the server that it was totally vegetarian, i detected a slight itch like thing when my throat protested, so that got a wide berth too.
There was a live pasta counter that was not very impressive. There were 2-3 already cooked vegetables, that the chef added less than a spoon of to the pasta. There was a choice of red or white sauce. The dish when put together was ok - not really great.
Moving to desserts - they had a diner style revolving(fast) display where they had mini desserts or 'shots' already assembled and you just had to pick a cup or two. There was a lot of cut fresh fresh fruit (no error), and viola - a chocolate fountain. This is the first time I encountered one in real life and I was thrilled to bits. ( Later my bubble was burst when someone told me how ubiquitous a chocolate fountain is in Pune - it seems even places like Big Bazaar have them). There were some pound cake pieces and marshmallows with skewers that you could dip into the fountain, and dip I did. The chocolate was super rich and super sweet - the kind that makes your eyes glaze and takes you on another plane. I could have gone with a darker, more bitter taste, but I suppose this is mostly to attract the kiddies.
The check, when it came was not much - two buffets costing around seven hundred odd. I think this place was likeable overall. The music was very loud, as seems to be the norm in Pune. The food was above average. The overall ambience was ok. The service was good - there when you need it but otherwise unobtrusive. The one slight disappointment was not finding anything mexican on the menu.
We left the place with a heavy step and a solemn promise that we always make to ourselves while leaving any buffet - No More Buffets!!!
While I did not see any, or many 'American' type of dishes, I can only conclude that it wasn't included in that day's menu, or maybe they have a different a la carte' menu in the evening.
But to begin at the beginning - This restaurant is located in the Jewel Square mall next to the Taj Blue Diamond. For some reason, any reviews that I read had led me to expect a fast food counter, self-service kind of place, so it was a pleasant surprise to find a decent dining space. We got a long picnic style table with attached benches. A glass wall looked onto the terrace where they had a guy making pizzas and prepping vegetables. A tiny bit of the koregaon park skyline was also visible - mostly some tree-tops. We went there on a saturday morning around noonish, and along with one or two other diners, got first dibs on the buffet.
There was an extensive drinks menu, with various cocktails and beers. I don't think I saw wine. Mocktails included sodas, iced teas and some fruit based drinks. The buffet was laid out in a smallish area, but the vegetarian stuff was labeled well. There was a salad section - not a salad 'bar' - that had a bowl of lettuce and some tossed salads. There was a 'mexican cucumber salad' that had some cucumbers etc. tossed in some chilli powder, not particularly mexican tasting. There was a simple salad of sprouts, onions and tomatoes dressed in lime juice. Then there was something with cottage cheese and pineapple in a creamy thick dressing that I gave a wide berth dreading the obvious presence of mayo. There was one salad called tomato mozzarella scallopini, which was thinly sliced tomatoes and mozzarella with some basil. This was just about ok tasting.
There were some assorted breads - dinner rolls and some french type bread and some cubed cheese. There was a tray of chat with some chutneys that I did not taste.
One positive thing was that there were an equal amount of vegetarian and meat dishes. There were two big pots of soup - cream of broccoli and almond turned out to be very watery with a broth like consistency. The soup tasted right, so looks like it was made that way by design. Needless to say, it was not impressive.
There was some thin crust pizza - not too great -- the sort you would get in Cici's e.g. There was one vegetarian and one chicken pizza. There were two vegetarian appetizers - cashew cutlets and vegetarian seek kabab. The Veg seekh was typical -- dry and minty and not something I usually go for. The cashew cutlets were mostly potato based with a cashew inside and deep fried. The meat section had Chicken wings.
There was a lasagna called Cajun grilled vegetable lasagne. This was a creamy concoction with no noodles and lots of vegetables. There also did not seem to be any or much cheese, so I can only assume that the creamy sauce contained the cheese. But there was no clearly visible ricotta layer that you will generally find in a lasagna. There were lots and lots of vegetables which made me happy - thin layers of grilled eggplant, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, beans, mushrooms, baby corn etc. etc. The overall taste was tomatoey and comforting, but once again, I failed to understand what cajun elements or spices it contained.
There was some grilled fish in abundance and a sea-food salad that kept my carnivore companion happy. There was some sort of non-veg thai curry too. The oriental section contained burnt garlic noodles, ginger rice and some green veg thai curry. Although assured by the server that it was totally vegetarian, i detected a slight itch like thing when my throat protested, so that got a wide berth too.
There was a live pasta counter that was not very impressive. There were 2-3 already cooked vegetables, that the chef added less than a spoon of to the pasta. There was a choice of red or white sauce. The dish when put together was ok - not really great.
Moving to desserts - they had a diner style revolving(fast) display where they had mini desserts or 'shots' already assembled and you just had to pick a cup or two. There was a lot of cut fresh fresh fruit (no error), and viola - a chocolate fountain. This is the first time I encountered one in real life and I was thrilled to bits. ( Later my bubble was burst when someone told me how ubiquitous a chocolate fountain is in Pune - it seems even places like Big Bazaar have them). There were some pound cake pieces and marshmallows with skewers that you could dip into the fountain, and dip I did. The chocolate was super rich and super sweet - the kind that makes your eyes glaze and takes you on another plane. I could have gone with a darker, more bitter taste, but I suppose this is mostly to attract the kiddies.
The check, when it came was not much - two buffets costing around seven hundred odd. I think this place was likeable overall. The music was very loud, as seems to be the norm in Pune. The food was above average. The overall ambience was ok. The service was good - there when you need it but otherwise unobtrusive. The one slight disappointment was not finding anything mexican on the menu.
We left the place with a heavy step and a solemn promise that we always make to ourselves while leaving any buffet - No More Buffets!!!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Review: Seasonal Tastes at the Westin Pune – an overall unremarkable experience
This blog has been mostly about posting recipes but many a times, I have thought of including a section for restaurant reviews. This has mostly been when I have been awed or highly impressed by any particular restaurants, or to write about places that are all time favourites. After spending a disappointing afternoon at the new Westin hotel in Pune, I decided to get down to it and narrate what I saw and felt. There are plenty of review sites and most of them require you to go through the tedious process of creating logins. But why go through all that when I have my own blog? Now I can only hope that the google gods smile on me and this review comes up in searches to provide people with some useful information. I personally did not find a lot of detail available on the web for this place, and I am hoping to provide a level of detail that will provide people with a better picture of what to expect.
Its been a long time since we had an opportunity to spend some good time as a family and were looking forward to going out some place nice in Pune. There seems to be a proliferation of new restaurants in Pune, most vying for the label ‘multi-cuisine’ and ready to charge you an arm and a leg for it. I also find that frugality or ‘value for money’ seems to be out of fashion, and people seem to take pride in dishing out the big bucks. That’s perfectly fine since this is a free world J
Since this was a special occasion, we wanted to go some place nice and the search narrowed down to three places – Westin, Barbecue Nation and Sen5es. The challenge was having good vegetarian choices and also Indian vegetarian choices. Barbecue nation was ruled out since none of us could bear the thought of having a hot grill on the table, and having to sweat and cook our own food. Isn’t that what we do in our own kitchen anyway? Westin was chosen over Sen5es since it had a buffet that was described in their own words as ‘lavish’ and ‘best in town’. Even taken with a pinch of salt, it seemed to provide more choice than Sen5es which has an eclectic but very limited menu. I personally love Sen5es and as this review will soon portray, it definitely turned out to be much better than the Westin.
‘Seasonal Tastes’ is the casual 24 hour café type place in the Westin that has a ‘big’ buffet. I have never had the chance to visit a Westin anywhere else, even in the US I am more partial to the Marriots or Holiday Inns or Wyndhams etc. The Westin building itself is huge and can be spotted from miles around in the area. There were elaborate security checks where even the bonnet of our car was opened, purses were scanned through an airport style scanner and there was also some body scan type thing. Men folk were frisked. All the restaurants are on the second floor, and Seasonal tastes was situated at the far end of the lobby towards the right. The décor is modern to put it simply. The place is spacious with tall windows that offer a panoramic view of the surrounding area, mostly the urban landscape of the surrounding buildings of Kalyani Nagar.
I had reserved a table and requested for a good quiet spot. But no one there seemed to have our reservation and the only reply given was ‘I am not aware of it, someone else must have taken your call’. We finally got a table with four chairs somewhere in the middle of the floor, while there were several booths facing the windows and facing a pool that were empty but not given to us because they were ‘reserved’. This was our first experience with the mis-management. As I had found earlier from some reviews and from calling the restaurant, the buffet was 900 odd rupees with taxes, coming up to 1200 approximate ( 25$ approx). There was a separate flat charge for alcoholic drinks – only wine/beer. Our server appeared and was totally untrained and unable to explain anything at all. He informed us that if we wanted soda or coffee, there was a separate non-alcoholic package for 300 rupees roughly. There was no separate menu for any other drinks, like cocktails or scotch etc., or there did not seem to be any option for ordering just one soda or one lemonade etc. After being told we would take the non-alcoholic package, the server kept asking us what beer we wanted. After a lot of time spent in trying to explain alcoholic versus non-alcoholic, we gave up and just asked for water. This was a very disappointing beginning, as we would have expected a better mannered and better trained person in a 5 star hotel. This was no different than trying to explain something to a high school kid at the McDOnalds counter.
Although the buffet promised everything under the sky, I had reconciled myself not to expect anything on the lines of a vegas style buffet, and had blotted out images of the MGM Grand or the Rio buffets from another lifetime.
The counter closest to us was the salad/sushi bar. The sushi was unremarkable. There were two kinds – veg/non-veg. The veg rolls had either carrot or cucumber in them, certainly no avocados. The Wasabi was a bit watery but easier to spoon. But hey, sushi in Pune!! Wasn’t that something?? Moving on to the salad bar, my hopes of having some crunchy romaine or baby spinach or micro greens were dashed when I saw some solitary green leaf lettuce leaves in a small bowl. There were a lot of marinated things in oil like garlic and olives etc. The olives were simple green and black olives that you get in a can, and not kalamata or any other gourmet type olive. There were a few pieces of fresh cucumber in a small bowl ( smaller than a cereal bowl) and some various marinated veggies like peppers, mushrooms etc. There was some shrimp and other meats I did not look at and I suppose there were boiled eggs somewhere. They had two kinds of gazpacho in shot glasses – tomato and pepper. Both tasted fine, but were almost room temperature. They would have tasted even better chilled. There was a mushroom pate also served in a shot glass which was creamy and earthy tasting. There was some kind of jelly like strawberry or cherry at the bottom of the glass which I did not much care for. There were some sauces in small bowls that were unlabeled but no dressings in sight. I later saw some bottles on a very high shelf – asian sesame, tahini, etc. There were 4 or 5 bottles, and none of the usual suspects like ranch, honey mustard, Italian, blue cheese etc. I drizzled something from the bottle labeled asian sesame, but it turned out to be mostly sesame oil. There was a glaring absence of plentiful raw veggies on the salad bar. There was some broccoli which was steamed but had almost turned black.
Overall the salad bar was a 2.5 out of 5, points given mostly because there Was something akin to salad, that’s all.
There was a carving station with a deli counter that advertised burgers and sandwiches made to order. None of us wanted to go there. Somewhere down the line, I ventured to the burger station and opted for a vegetable burger with No Mayo – stressed 2-3 times to not put any mayo on the burger. I was not asked for any cheese choices or any other toppings like pickles etc., nor mustard. After a long 20 minute wait, I was served something unimpressive looking. Of course the first dreaded action on my part was to lift the bun and turn it over – it was slathered with mayonnaise. The server of course appeared clueless. One young person questioned another young person and they were happily exclaiming ‘Oh **, it was no mayo’ and laughing. So is the Westin employing trainees from schools or just neglecting to care about the service they offer? After declining to wait again to try my luck, I just opted out of the burger.
There was a teeny weeny Indian section, the reason for the limited Indian food being given as this was a ‘multi-cuisine’ buffet with ‘several other’ options.
There was a mutton biryani and London style butter chicken, no use to vegetarians. There was one daal and one mixed vegetable. It is a bit surprising that a big restaurant should serve something as mundane as ‘mixed vegetable’. The image it conjures up is a bunch of leftover veggies, and in recent times, the ubiquitous packet of frozen ‘mixed vegetables’ in my freezer. There was a paneer dish described as Paneer in a rich and creamy cashew sauce. It turned out to be huge chunks of paneer floating in a white watery liquid, something like half and half. I gave it a wide berth thinking that my neighbourhood small restaurant gave me a much better version of this ‘rich cashew gravy’ ( which is more a dessert than a vegetable, and something people in Pune seem to be fond of). So Indian food was totally ruled out. This was a big disappointment for one of us who only ate Indian Veg and no Paneer. Bread such as roti or naan was served at the table. This was brought almost 20-25 minutes later by which time, the one sole vegetable and dal had been discarded. The whole Indian experience then gets 1 out of 5 from me, so unfortunate since any restaurant in India should proudly be able to cook good Indian food.
There was a big station near the entrance where a lot of South Indian chutneys were displayed along with a sign of dosa made to order. We ordered one dosa from a snooty youngster who seemed to be too good for us. There were other cooked foods in chafers which I will run through real quick.
Bowtie pasta in some creamy tomato sauce – just average with no seasoning
Baked vegetables in a béchamel type sauce – lacking salt or any other seasoning
Huge container of crispy bacon
Pan fried snapper – seemed ok according to one of us who tasted it, but had the skins on the fish
Asian fried rice – Had eggs so ruled out for me
Stir fried vegetables – some vegetables in a watery soy based sauce
Seafood panang curry – Good according to one seafood eater among us – had shrimp, squid, clams and crabs
Some asian noodles
There was a sign advertising various noodles that could be made to order – Singapore, Korean etc. I opted for a pad thai made without any fish sauce or eggs etc. This was brought to my table and turned out to be spicy and tangy and hot. I think this was the one thing I actually ate with relish.
There were 2-3 cheeses – unlabelled along with some crackers that seemed to be more ornamental.
Now we come to the dessert section. There were fifteen plus items and were arranged artistically. There were some eggless desserts. Ras Malai was the only Indian dessert but it was soft and perfect. There was some mango and blueberry mousse in small glasses – average, new York style cheese cake – unimpressive , a few shortcake/ mascarpone type cakes with fruit topping etc. There was Tiramisu which was disappointing as it seemed to be actually made with layers of dry cake, thin layers, but dry layers of what seemed like chocolate cake. There was a chocolate pudding type thing with an exotic name which was good. There was ice cream with a lot of toppings. I had hoped for fudge or caramel sauce but it was not available. The ice cream was strawberry or blueberry. The ice cream was placed on ice like on a salad bar and a lot of it had melted. Ice cream toppings were good – chocolate chips, almonds, raisins, pecans, hazel nuts, gummy worms etc.
Inspite of this pornucopia of ‘options’ I didn’t really eat anything substantial. We mostly grazed on a few fancily arranged things, and then I filled up with a huge bowl of ice cream. The whole anticipation of eating something exotic prepared by a five star trained chef was dashed, and there was not even one sumptuous thing I could enjoy, as a Vegetarian. The omnivores in our group weren’t too pleased either. Overall the whole experience was disappointing and frustrating. Average food and below average service soured the whole experience. I think I have had better food paying 7$ at Golden Corral. Some would argue that it is unfair to compare a place in Pune with a place in the US, but I think it is warranted for a place like the Westin, which is touted as internationally acclaimed. Why shouldn’t a customer expect such a place to live up to some standards? I spent the rest of the day repenting we did not goto sen5es, wistfully recalling our stellar experience over there. Although this is not a comparison between the two, I mention Sen5es since it is the other place I had contemplated.
I hope this review is helpful to anyone who is thinking of visiting the Westin hotel. It is of course written with my perspective, based on my dietary restrictions and personal expectations based on prior experiences elsewhere.
Its been a long time since we had an opportunity to spend some good time as a family and were looking forward to going out some place nice in Pune. There seems to be a proliferation of new restaurants in Pune, most vying for the label ‘multi-cuisine’ and ready to charge you an arm and a leg for it. I also find that frugality or ‘value for money’ seems to be out of fashion, and people seem to take pride in dishing out the big bucks. That’s perfectly fine since this is a free world J
Since this was a special occasion, we wanted to go some place nice and the search narrowed down to three places – Westin, Barbecue Nation and Sen5es. The challenge was having good vegetarian choices and also Indian vegetarian choices. Barbecue nation was ruled out since none of us could bear the thought of having a hot grill on the table, and having to sweat and cook our own food. Isn’t that what we do in our own kitchen anyway? Westin was chosen over Sen5es since it had a buffet that was described in their own words as ‘lavish’ and ‘best in town’. Even taken with a pinch of salt, it seemed to provide more choice than Sen5es which has an eclectic but very limited menu. I personally love Sen5es and as this review will soon portray, it definitely turned out to be much better than the Westin.
‘Seasonal Tastes’ is the casual 24 hour café type place in the Westin that has a ‘big’ buffet. I have never had the chance to visit a Westin anywhere else, even in the US I am more partial to the Marriots or Holiday Inns or Wyndhams etc. The Westin building itself is huge and can be spotted from miles around in the area. There were elaborate security checks where even the bonnet of our car was opened, purses were scanned through an airport style scanner and there was also some body scan type thing. Men folk were frisked. All the restaurants are on the second floor, and Seasonal tastes was situated at the far end of the lobby towards the right. The décor is modern to put it simply. The place is spacious with tall windows that offer a panoramic view of the surrounding area, mostly the urban landscape of the surrounding buildings of Kalyani Nagar.
I had reserved a table and requested for a good quiet spot. But no one there seemed to have our reservation and the only reply given was ‘I am not aware of it, someone else must have taken your call’. We finally got a table with four chairs somewhere in the middle of the floor, while there were several booths facing the windows and facing a pool that were empty but not given to us because they were ‘reserved’. This was our first experience with the mis-management. As I had found earlier from some reviews and from calling the restaurant, the buffet was 900 odd rupees with taxes, coming up to 1200 approximate ( 25$ approx). There was a separate flat charge for alcoholic drinks – only wine/beer. Our server appeared and was totally untrained and unable to explain anything at all. He informed us that if we wanted soda or coffee, there was a separate non-alcoholic package for 300 rupees roughly. There was no separate menu for any other drinks, like cocktails or scotch etc., or there did not seem to be any option for ordering just one soda or one lemonade etc. After being told we would take the non-alcoholic package, the server kept asking us what beer we wanted. After a lot of time spent in trying to explain alcoholic versus non-alcoholic, we gave up and just asked for water. This was a very disappointing beginning, as we would have expected a better mannered and better trained person in a 5 star hotel. This was no different than trying to explain something to a high school kid at the McDOnalds counter.
Although the buffet promised everything under the sky, I had reconciled myself not to expect anything on the lines of a vegas style buffet, and had blotted out images of the MGM Grand or the Rio buffets from another lifetime.
The counter closest to us was the salad/sushi bar. The sushi was unremarkable. There were two kinds – veg/non-veg. The veg rolls had either carrot or cucumber in them, certainly no avocados. The Wasabi was a bit watery but easier to spoon. But hey, sushi in Pune!! Wasn’t that something?? Moving on to the salad bar, my hopes of having some crunchy romaine or baby spinach or micro greens were dashed when I saw some solitary green leaf lettuce leaves in a small bowl. There were a lot of marinated things in oil like garlic and olives etc. The olives were simple green and black olives that you get in a can, and not kalamata or any other gourmet type olive. There were a few pieces of fresh cucumber in a small bowl ( smaller than a cereal bowl) and some various marinated veggies like peppers, mushrooms etc. There was some shrimp and other meats I did not look at and I suppose there were boiled eggs somewhere. They had two kinds of gazpacho in shot glasses – tomato and pepper. Both tasted fine, but were almost room temperature. They would have tasted even better chilled. There was a mushroom pate also served in a shot glass which was creamy and earthy tasting. There was some kind of jelly like strawberry or cherry at the bottom of the glass which I did not much care for. There were some sauces in small bowls that were unlabeled but no dressings in sight. I later saw some bottles on a very high shelf – asian sesame, tahini, etc. There were 4 or 5 bottles, and none of the usual suspects like ranch, honey mustard, Italian, blue cheese etc. I drizzled something from the bottle labeled asian sesame, but it turned out to be mostly sesame oil. There was a glaring absence of plentiful raw veggies on the salad bar. There was some broccoli which was steamed but had almost turned black.
Overall the salad bar was a 2.5 out of 5, points given mostly because there Was something akin to salad, that’s all.
There was a carving station with a deli counter that advertised burgers and sandwiches made to order. None of us wanted to go there. Somewhere down the line, I ventured to the burger station and opted for a vegetable burger with No Mayo – stressed 2-3 times to not put any mayo on the burger. I was not asked for any cheese choices or any other toppings like pickles etc., nor mustard. After a long 20 minute wait, I was served something unimpressive looking. Of course the first dreaded action on my part was to lift the bun and turn it over – it was slathered with mayonnaise. The server of course appeared clueless. One young person questioned another young person and they were happily exclaiming ‘Oh **, it was no mayo’ and laughing. So is the Westin employing trainees from schools or just neglecting to care about the service they offer? After declining to wait again to try my luck, I just opted out of the burger.
There was a teeny weeny Indian section, the reason for the limited Indian food being given as this was a ‘multi-cuisine’ buffet with ‘several other’ options.
There was a mutton biryani and London style butter chicken, no use to vegetarians. There was one daal and one mixed vegetable. It is a bit surprising that a big restaurant should serve something as mundane as ‘mixed vegetable’. The image it conjures up is a bunch of leftover veggies, and in recent times, the ubiquitous packet of frozen ‘mixed vegetables’ in my freezer. There was a paneer dish described as Paneer in a rich and creamy cashew sauce. It turned out to be huge chunks of paneer floating in a white watery liquid, something like half and half. I gave it a wide berth thinking that my neighbourhood small restaurant gave me a much better version of this ‘rich cashew gravy’ ( which is more a dessert than a vegetable, and something people in Pune seem to be fond of). So Indian food was totally ruled out. This was a big disappointment for one of us who only ate Indian Veg and no Paneer. Bread such as roti or naan was served at the table. This was brought almost 20-25 minutes later by which time, the one sole vegetable and dal had been discarded. The whole Indian experience then gets 1 out of 5 from me, so unfortunate since any restaurant in India should proudly be able to cook good Indian food.
There was a big station near the entrance where a lot of South Indian chutneys were displayed along with a sign of dosa made to order. We ordered one dosa from a snooty youngster who seemed to be too good for us. There were other cooked foods in chafers which I will run through real quick.
Bowtie pasta in some creamy tomato sauce – just average with no seasoning
Baked vegetables in a béchamel type sauce – lacking salt or any other seasoning
Huge container of crispy bacon
Pan fried snapper – seemed ok according to one of us who tasted it, but had the skins on the fish
Asian fried rice – Had eggs so ruled out for me
Stir fried vegetables – some vegetables in a watery soy based sauce
Seafood panang curry – Good according to one seafood eater among us – had shrimp, squid, clams and crabs
Some asian noodles
There was a sign advertising various noodles that could be made to order – Singapore, Korean etc. I opted for a pad thai made without any fish sauce or eggs etc. This was brought to my table and turned out to be spicy and tangy and hot. I think this was the one thing I actually ate with relish.
There were 2-3 cheeses – unlabelled along with some crackers that seemed to be more ornamental.
Now we come to the dessert section. There were fifteen plus items and were arranged artistically. There were some eggless desserts. Ras Malai was the only Indian dessert but it was soft and perfect. There was some mango and blueberry mousse in small glasses – average, new York style cheese cake – unimpressive , a few shortcake/ mascarpone type cakes with fruit topping etc. There was Tiramisu which was disappointing as it seemed to be actually made with layers of dry cake, thin layers, but dry layers of what seemed like chocolate cake. There was a chocolate pudding type thing with an exotic name which was good. There was ice cream with a lot of toppings. I had hoped for fudge or caramel sauce but it was not available. The ice cream was strawberry or blueberry. The ice cream was placed on ice like on a salad bar and a lot of it had melted. Ice cream toppings were good – chocolate chips, almonds, raisins, pecans, hazel nuts, gummy worms etc.
Inspite of this pornucopia of ‘options’ I didn’t really eat anything substantial. We mostly grazed on a few fancily arranged things, and then I filled up with a huge bowl of ice cream. The whole anticipation of eating something exotic prepared by a five star trained chef was dashed, and there was not even one sumptuous thing I could enjoy, as a Vegetarian. The omnivores in our group weren’t too pleased either. Overall the whole experience was disappointing and frustrating. Average food and below average service soured the whole experience. I think I have had better food paying 7$ at Golden Corral. Some would argue that it is unfair to compare a place in Pune with a place in the US, but I think it is warranted for a place like the Westin, which is touted as internationally acclaimed. Why shouldn’t a customer expect such a place to live up to some standards? I spent the rest of the day repenting we did not goto sen5es, wistfully recalling our stellar experience over there. Although this is not a comparison between the two, I mention Sen5es since it is the other place I had contemplated.
I hope this review is helpful to anyone who is thinking of visiting the Westin hotel. It is of course written with my perspective, based on my dietary restrictions and personal expectations based on prior experiences elsewhere.
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