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Showing posts with label hotel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hotel. Show all posts

Sunday, 7 August 2011

Cream Centre @ Cypress hotel

Very few places have bowled me over with their vegetarian food.

Cream Centre is one of them (Kebab Factory is the other).  These two make up my top two places to eat veg. food. The food here is simply delightful. The experience is also delightful.
Cream Centre is pure veg. by the way, Kebab factory is mixed veg. and non-veg.

Ambience
The ambience at Cream Centre is new age and swanky. More over the restaurant is also very clean and the service is awesome. You can go here anytime with family, friends and dates too!

Cream Centre sets the Gold Standard on service. The waiters were good and courteous and also orders were served in record time, with very little waiting. The tables were also cleared of used cutlery almost as soon as they were done with. Kudos to the staff! Curry on the roof needs to learn very quickly from these guys!


Main Course
Starters :-
I tried the "Three-in-one starter", which consists of batter fried baby corn, batter fried onion rings and American cheese balls with corn. The baby corn and the onion rings were simply mind blowing. The red sauce served with them was also amazing. The onion rings and baby were however rather oily so could not be eaten without the sauce. The cheese balls were completely avoidable. No like.
The onion rings if ordered solely, is served on a steel pole. Nice concept.

Burrp.com has rated the Nachos at Cream Centre as the best Nachos ever. They were definitely good.
Tortilla chips with melted and thin cheese and salsa sauce. Very nice. The salsa sauce seemed to be made in house as it did not have the kind of sourness that the bottled variety has. The tortillas were masala tortilla. Basically the Nachos were "Indianised". A must have!

The Tandoori Paneer Tikkas were also amazing. The Paneer pieces were very soft and lightly flavoured.
Cream Centre sets the gold standard for how fresh and soft Paneer should be served. I don't think I have had Paneer like this in Pune before.

The Channa Bhatura served is in Punjabi style where there is a hint of the taste of tea in the Channa. A little spicy but tasty none the less. The best part was that the Bhatura was less oily unlike other places were you can taste and get sick of the taste oil in the bhatura. Their bhaturas can be eaten plain, straight away. Another A+ for Cream Centre.

They also have the chota sizzlers, and believe me, they really are chota. Quarter the size of a regular sizzler, and packs a tasty punch. The paneer chilli sizzler is mind blowing. It consists of Chilli paneer gravy served with rice on a sizzler plate. Of course, the paneer was awesome again. Another must try.

The drinks are also served in large glasses which makes it worth the price.  Also the iced teas are not the packet Nestea kind and are made in-house. Usually, the peach flavour iced tea is better than the Lemon flavour however, the reverse was true this time.

Price
Three-in-one : Rs. 150
Sizzling Paneer Chilli : Rs. 210
Channa : Rs. 120
Bhatura : Rs. 45
Nachos : Rs. 195
Lemon Iced Tea : Rs. 110
Peach Iced Tea : Rs. 110
Fruit Punch : Rs. 155
Tandoori Paneer Tikka : Rs. 190

Place is certainly not cheap, but great value for money as the taste is worth it.

If only they had non-veg. also.

The next day I got a "Thank You for visiting" email from Cream Centre. I also got a call about my comments on the feedback form about the baby corn and onion rings being oily and that I could have got it changed.

Now that is what I call service.

[Please note. it may sound like they bribed me for such an awesome review; I assure you I was not. Try it out for yourself!]

Address : Hotel Fern Survey No.2081 Lane No.10,
                Near Kalpataru Residency Opposite Solaris Gym
                Kalyani Nagar Pune - 411 014  
Tel: +91 (20) 40180000
Timings: 11AM to 11PM

Their website.




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Puran Da Dhaba @ Hotel Pride Executive [Buffet]

After hearing much praise for the North Indian food at Puran Da Dhaba, a visit by yours truly was a must. On my visit it turned out that they had buffet dinner that night and not a-la-carte.

Ambience
The decor is very nicely done. A replica of the dhabas as seen in the north complete with baithaks, the look a feel of low lying brick walls, the vessels used to serve food and drinks,  the vessel used for the tasty preparations on buffet table, the mutka glasses etc, all add to the originality of the concept of Dhaba. The entrance area is also made to look like a road with a sabzi mandi, baithaks, and road signs. For entertainment there is a live band playing (at least on a Saturday night), a mehendi designer for the ladies and also an Astrologer. The live band sings old Hindi songs, some ghazals and they even take requests.

A very nice place to sit with family or even friends for a long duration whilst having dinner, slowly and steadily.

Dinner
Starters :-  Aloo tikki, Chicken tikka, Fish tikka, tandoori banana and pineapple. Th Aloo tikki was very nice. The chicken tikka was standard, kind of like how you get it every where else. The second batch of chicken tikkas however, were not boneless. This was a bit annoying. The fish tikka had a very strong fish smell, hence I did not like that. The tandoori kela was really good but the tandoori pineapple, really BAD!.

Main course :-
Shorbas available were dal and Palak Shorba, chicken Shorba. I am not a very big fan of shorbas since they are very watery and usually tasteless. The dal palak shorba however, was better that the chicken shorba.
--> Benarasi Dum aloo :-  very nice with the roast flavour and masala.
--> Lasooni Paneer : very weak taste and thin gravy. Not impressed.
--> Moong Dal : I did not like this at all. Too thin, watered down.
--> Benarasi Kukkad (chicken) : Nice chicken gravy with  soft chicken pieces.
--> Sweet Lassi :  very nice.
--> Chai : Awesome chai. Just needed to be a little warmer.
--> Gosht Biryani : Overall I did not like the Biryani. I think there was some more flavour required. I think I got something from the bottom  of the vessel which was slightly burnt. The mutton pieces were quite soft though. I have had better.

Desserts
--> Doodhi halwa : Brilliant! To kill for.
--> Gulab Jamun : So-so. It was the sugar coated type. A little more sweet than required.
--> Kesar Barfi : Not worth a special mention.

Price

Rs. 575 per head +  taxes
Coke Rs. 75 + taxes
Cocktails in the Rs. 250-325 range + taxes.
Service tax also charged.

Roughly Rs. 800 - 1000 per head with drinks.

Overall not very impressed with the buffet dinner. I hope a-la-carte is better. Will find out soon enough. Will post about it then

Puran Da dhaba on the Web.




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