If I were a musician, I would have written a song called Come December. I love this month for a variety of reasons, and high on the list is the weather. It starts to get cold in December, but the days are still sunny – unlike the dreary and foggy days of bone-chilling January. And while we did have a foggy spell this month, it’s still been bright and cold.
And, of course, when the weather changes, so does the food on the table. If summer is for all kinds of light vegetables (well, along with, say, a juicy kabab or two), winter is for everything that warms the soul and the body. And that is why Chef Veena Arora of The Spice Route in The Imperial Hotel has worked out a new menu for the season.
Now I have to say right here that this is one of my favourite restaurants, and it becomes all the more special this month. One December evening many, many years ago, I had a magical meal at the restaurant with our friends, Raj and Gouridi, who was visiting us from Calcutta. The weather was a bit balmy that year, so we had chosen to sit outside in a small enclosure by a lotus pond. And what a lovely time we had!
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Another reason why the restaurant is special is the magic that Chef Veena wields. She specialises in the cuisine of Southeast Asia, having grown up in Thailand. I always enjoy our food conversations – and of course her creations.
The “Winter Collection Menu” at the restaurant focuses on seafood. The delicate flavours, Chef Veena believes, will help us keep warm this winter.
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Well, they will certainly keep us happy, for some of the dishes on the menu are delightful. The meen rasam, for one, is delicious. Rasam, as the chef explains, is not necessarily a vegetarian broth, as many believe. The meen rasam had all kinds of goodies in it – little shrimps, squid, fish fillet pieces and so on. Nicely tangy, it is a good way to start the meal, along with the yum thalay, which is a Thai salad consisting of various kinds of seafood, redolent with the fragrant flavours of Kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass.
What didn’t work for me was the yera arvat anjj, stir fried tiger prawns with ginger and chillies. The spices are the ones that are used for the much loved Andhra dish, chicken 65. But while the prawns were certainly well spiced, I found them a bit too dry and hard. What I enjoyed the most was the rendang udang – prawns cooked in coconut milk with lemongrass and roasted coconut. The flavours were just right – neither too strong, nor too mild. And the prawns were nicely juicy.
I enjoyed the khao phad thalay, too – stir fried rice with seafood. The dish has the hot flavours of the spicy sriracha sauce, which I really like. I thought the Sri Lankan sole curry would be hot – but it wasn’t. It was tangy, though, and went well with the hot rice dish.
Chef Veena knows about my fondness for tenderloin, so she had prepared a dish of stir fried slices with green beans, mint and spinach in a Thai oyster sauce and chillies. And this, of course, was lip smackingly good.
It was, as you would have guessed, an excellent meal. The weather was pleasant and the winter dishes were warm and welcoming. December had folded me in a hug.
(On till January 31, 2017. Meal for two without alcohol: Rs.10000 plus taxes.)