When it comes to cooking styles, one of my favourites is barbecue. But in Delhi NCR there is a serious dearth of good barbeque restaurants. Though there is a change nowadays, people are coming up with small barbeque outfits at home as well. Still, it’s a tiring job, so I am always on the lookout for options outside. One of the recent ones is The Ancient Barbecue or TAB.
TAB is located in Noida, Sector 63, next to Haldirams. It is a huge outlet with 120-odd covers. The interiors and the use of space that chef-cum-owner Dharmender Singh has made use of are impressive.
The concept is simple and easy on the pocket. It’s a buffet system where the starters are mostly barbecued on a grill placed right in the centre of a customised tale.
Around seven starters are offered in the veg and non-veg sections, followed by a lavishly laid out buffet comprising soups, salads, main course and desserts.
As I waited for the grills to be ready, Dharmender whipped up a surprise mocktail — a watermelon-based drink with a dash of mint in it.
It was refreshing and an apt concoction to beat the heat. By the time the drink was over, the grill had started to smoke. I pulled at the banjara chicken tikka to start with. It was a nice spicy tikka with masalas rubbed in.
The fish tikka which had been on the grill for the last ten minutes got a bit over cooked, and so the fish became a tad dry. Among the vegetarian starters, the pineapple tikka with a hint of cinnamon and red chilli was a surprise dish that I greatly enjoyed. The juicey pineapple chunks went really well with the marinade. Then there was keema tart, with a mince of lamb and a crispy tart, a nice finger starter.
In the buffet, apart from the corn palak with missi roti, another delicious selection was a chicken dish made in Andhra style, with cumin seeds giving it a good robust flavour.
Among desserts, the chocolate brownie seemed tempting but it was the beetroot halwa, an out-of-the-box dish, that proved to be just too good.
Meal for two: Rs.1200
