It is good news for food lovers. So many restaurants are opening across Delhi and NCR, making it easy for those in proximity to access fine dining experience without needing to trudge to faraway sections of the city. One such experience I had recently was at the just launched K & K restaurant by WelcomHotel Dwarka, New Delhi. Aptly located near the airport which would definitely attract tourists, and hardly a ten-minute walk from a Metro station, K and K actually stands for Kebabs and Kurries, which seemed a tad odd to me as its atmospherics were too romantic. With 1100 candles lighting up the place and with hardly any electric lighting, it was a visual treat though. I was speechless when I learnt that the staff starts lighting up the candles at 4 p.m. and finishes by 7.
I preferred to sit next to the wall of candles, opting for the rather uncomfortable wooden chairs instead of the comfy sofas. The menu was a mix of select dishes from Bukhara and Dum Pukht, so the only challenge left for the Chef was to be consistent and replicate the famed master dishes. I started with appetizers such as tala gosht, seekh kabab, murgh angaar and machli tikka. The tala gosht was tender and seemed to me like pasandas, a delicacy from Awadh.
The seekh kabab had nice subtle flavours complimenting the texture of the kebab. Murgh angaar, having nice fenugreek marination, was again a dish to be cherished.
Clearing my palate with a sorbet, I inched closer to my salans, kormas, kaliyas and of course the biryani. I tasted gucchi badaami first and what a dish it was! A combination of Himalayan morels with almonds simmered in an onion gravy was a must have for any vegetarian visiting K & K.
Following guchhi badaami with dal Bukhara was a wise decision. Having the first lukma/bite of the overnight cooked lentil with hot taftan/bread was a heavenly experience. It was so good that I wanted to stop my dinner there but the carnivore in me wouldn’t. So I ordered handi kofteh and Burhani gosht and dum pukht biryani. The kofteh were nice but would have liked them a bit tender. It tasted good with naan-e-bahkumaach. The burrhani gosht with a spoon of garlic flavoured curd was again a dish worth trying. But on that day it was undoubtedly the biryani which was made to perfection. It oozed such aroma and was bursting with light subtle flavours. Nothing would have given me a royal feeling than ending the meal with gulab ki kheer made with fresh rose petals and milk.
Meal for two - Rs.3000
