One dish from the treasures of Mughlai cuisine which has always fascinated, and also tempted me to break all my diet plans, is kabab. I wait for winters throughout the year so that I can get my sigri out from the store and grill some nice seekh kababs.
So obviously then, an invitation to review Dawat-e-Kabab food festival from WelcomHotel Sheraton, Saket, got me drooling. One thing which I particularly like about the ITC group is that they research a lot to bring out hidden recipes before presenting to diners a food promotion. Playing a major role in the endeavour is food historian, Salma Husain, who as a food consultant to the hotel, has really worked hard to get some precious recipes of the Mughal era. This time, for Dawat-e-Kabab, Salma has teamed up with Chef Vipul to lay the dastarkhwan. The menu is simple, has a variety of kababs paired with roomali roti.
As a surprise, I was offered a vegetarian kabab to start with, which of course was done to perfection. A nice cute looking paneer tokri stuffed with potatoes .Though the paneer was a bit over grilled which took out the moisture from it, the flavours were intact.
Following it was bhatti ka murgh, delicious and succulent. However, the patthar kabab was the winner for me as it was bursting with flavours and had a nice texture as well. Kaleji on skewers was another delicacy which had a nice aroma and the flavour of mustard in it. It surely had that Mumbai influence which is in Salma’s deft hands. One thing which touched me the most was her warmth and motherly affection. When I would finish a kabab, she would say, ‘Beta aur lijiye’, which reminded me of my mother and made that kabab taste even better.
The other two vegetarian kababs — one of anjeer and the other of potato — needed improvements though. The anjeer kabab was sharp and the potato shammi was bland for my taste.
Chef Vipul also made me taste the burrah which was tender and flavourful.
For people who want to end up eating a main course dish, Chef Vipul offers a curry of the day along with the kababs on promotion. It was chicken ka salan for me, and it was delicious. The aroma and texture of the salan was amazing.
Dawat-e-Kabab is one of the rare promotions where the menu is created after a lot of brain storming with the original Persian cook books rather than just been copied from Internet search engines.
DAWAT-E-KABAB Price: Rs 1750 plus taxes 0n Till: January 25
