Fire, The Park Hotel, Connaught Place, New Delhi

[Rating:4/5]
We visited Fire at the Park Hotel Delhi last week, not long after it had introduced a new menu. The evening had all the promise of a memorable one. Ashish and Arindita for company, a lovely lady beside me and a fresh off the ‘fire’ menu! Excellent!

Ashish, by the way, is Dr. Ashish Chopra, a bigger foodie than any I’ve ever met, seen or heard of. Taking passion for food to the Nth degree, Ashish is a storehouse of knowledge on the history of food, food cultures in India and abroad and is in fact the author of 3 cook books. He is particularly fond of North Eastern (Indian) cooking and one of his books is exclusively on this subject – the first one ever to be written that specialised in the food and cooking of North East India. He completed his PhD in Conflict Management and I have no idea where he applies that knowledge. (Ed: Paragraph deleted due to lack of referable sources)

Our table was also delighted to include the presence of Chef Bakshish Dean, Director of Food Production at the Park and a truly inspired Chef. The man has been practising for 17 years and during that time, has written books which are now standard textbook reading for students of the Culinary Arts, won the Best Chef of the Year award, dabbled in the implicit and explicit aspects of molecular gastronomy and has headed a Culinary Institute in the past. I believe those are some pretty solid achievements.

On to Fire. Rated as the best Indian restaurant by the HT City Eating Out Guide for three years in a row, Fire has a warm and cosy ambience with attentive serving staff and comfortable seating. I will say the chairs require the presence of someone to pull and push it for you, as they don’t seem to be designed to allow you to do this yourself.

Chef Gaurav Gaur is the Executive Chef at Fire. We were delighted to learn from him that our repast for the evening was to consist of a tasting menu comprising 5 courses and 15 different dishes. He didn’t elaborate further and likewise, I’m not going to talk about the food right away. I will say however, each course was a pleasant surprise and we enjoyed the evening thoroughly.

I’m going to apologise for the photographs – the lighting was a bit dim and these are the best I could do. If any of you have any suggestions for better low light photography, please do let me know. In fact, I have a surprise gift for the best idea!

Our very first bite of food was an amuse bouche consisting of vegetarian haleem on a small, thin, traditional indian cracker. Nice – there’s more on haleem later in this article.

Our first course was Dal Dahi ka Shorba (chilled lentil and yogurt soup), Murgh aur Saunf ka Shorba (fennel scented chicken broth), organic multi grain rotis and Dal roti. The Dal Dahi ka Shorba was a refreshing mouthful with the combined flavors of chilled fresh yogurt and lentils. I wouldn’t recommend this to begin with – methinks it would be an apt ending to your meal instead. The unlikely combination of fennel seeds and chicken broth too was nice and quite different from the normal flavors you tend to expect from a chicken based soup. Most Indian flatbreads are made using unleavened dough. At Fire, all the flatbreads used yeast. According to Chef Dean, this type of bread tastes better and remains eatable even if it’s gone cold, unlike other breads, which tend to either get hard or leathery. I had ample opportunity to test this, as some of our courses had to wait till we got to them, what with our conversation occupying the prime slot. He was right. The organic rotis, among other grains also included amaranthus (amaranthus cruentus). Did you know amaranthus can be popped like popcorn, ground into a flour, made into a sweet called alegría and cooked as a porridge too?

The second course was a platter of starters. We were served portions of Dill Salmon Tikka (dill scented Norwegian salmon fillet), gilawati kebab (mace and saffron flavored mutton kebab), murgh karia pak chutney kebab (tandoori chicken tikka flavored with curry leaves and black mustard), banana stem, crisp sprouts and fresh coconut salad accompanied by tomato garlic chutney. The Dill Salmon Tikka was excellent – both in texture and flavor, and so was the murgh karia pak chutney kebab. The name is quite a mouthful isn’t it? Makes it difficult to recommend – I can’t imagine a diner telling someone the next day – “You simply must try the Murgh Karia Pak Chutney Kebab at Fire at the Park”. Most likely he’d say, “There was this excellent chicken kebab, but I just can’t remember the name”.

I’ve never liked gilawati kebabs and today was no exception. I like my meat to look and taste like meat. If I want puree, I’ll have porridge, thank you. While it was flavored well and was much better than what The Great Kebab Factory serves, I just don’t like gilawati kebabs. Perhaps you will. There’s an interesting story behind the invention of the gilwati kebab. Apparently this Nawab (minor royalty) who liked his flesh (animal flesh) hadn’t been taking care of his teeth and there came a time when he didn’t have any left. So he instructed his cooks to come up with something meaty that he could actually eat. The gilawati kebab was the result – a well flavored croquette that’s made using meat ground to a fine paste. The gilawati kebab at Fire was served on a miniature Ulte Tawe ki Roti, which literally translates to a roti made on an overturned griddle.

Salads aren’t really my thing, but I did appreciate the crisp texture and flavors of the banana stem and crisp sprout salad with shredded coconut, flavored with garlic, lemon and salt.

The third course was Haleem, flavored with lemon, ginger, coriander and fried onions. Haleem is a delicious and very popular Muslim dish that can be said to belong to the Indian sub-continent. It always includes cracked wheat, lentils and meat. The meat can vary from lamb and beef to chicken, though chicken is very rarely used. A fairly complex preparation that takes between 3 to 8 hours to cook, Haleem usually has close to paste like texture, with variations that include chunks of meat and chunks of meat on the bone. Personally, I prefer the variation that has chunks of meat on the bone. The Middle East has a similar dish – harees, which is popular in the Khaleej region that has influenced or has been influenced by Indian culture and cuisine. Haleem is always served with bowls of ginger, coriander, brown fried onions and wedges of lemon. The Haleem at Fire was the pasty variety and though I didn’t care much for the texture, it did taste good! Did you know Haleem is a very high calorie dish and is quite popular during Ramzan, when people eat it to break their fast? I couldn’t think of a better way really!

The final course was a veritable feast. Chef Gaurav likes feeding people apparently. We were served Masala Gobhi (chunky cauliflower in a spicy gravy), beetroot ghosht (lamb cooked in a beetroot and masala gravy), tomato pappu (spiced lentil curry), Kerala chicken stew, appams (fermented ground rice hoppers), rice and Goan prawn curry. Phew! Did I mention Indu had dropped out a while back and was watching us stuff ourselves with a mixture of disgust and desire?

The Masala Gobhi was just as the menu mentioned, “homestyle cooked seasonal organic vegetable” and while it tasted good, I’m not sure why anyone would order it. Then again, I’m a die hard carnivore, and the Masala Gobhi was cooked quite well. By the way, don’t you think there should be a way to distinguish organic from non organic vegetables? Otherwise you only have the restaurant’s word for it. Considering genetically modified vegetables can be grown in an organic manner, perhaps vegetables can be modified such that they react differently when grown organically. I’m thinking cyan cauliflower, orange okra, pink potatoes, olive oranges, magenta mangoes and so on.

The beetroot lamb was good, the cut and texture of the meat was just right in my opinion, though Chef Dean did feel it could have been a little more tender. What I did think was that the ‘beetroot’ in the name was a bit of letdown. Neither the color nor texture seemed to have been influenced by the beetroot. I also think the flavors were a little muted. It was good nonetheless.

The Tomato Pappu is a lentil curry flavored with curry leaves. It is Fire’s signature dish and being so, I think they would do well to make it seem a little less ordinary. Don’t get me wrong here – it tasted good, but then, a dal is a dal is a dal and if it is one of your signature dishes, little tricks to make it less ordinary would go a long way.

The Kerala chicken stew was a little different from what I’m used to. We tend to make it with chicken, potatoes, french beans and carrots, with slightly stronger flavors and a gravy that’s usually thinner than that at Fire. The Fire version was a  thick brilliant white gravy with some very tender chicken. The flavors were very subtle but came through clearly.  This was eaten with the appams. If you haven’t eaten appams and stew yet and are in the mood to splurge, I suggest you try the fare at Fire.

The Goan prawn curry was very good. While it did taste more like Malayali food than Goan, the prawns were good sized and cooked just right. The gravy was neither too smooth, nor too chunky and just right, with very distinct and clear flavors. We had this with rice and I enjoyed every bite!

Finally we came to dessert, where we sampled Paan ki Rasmalai, Sangom Kheer and some fresh fruits. The Paan ki Rasmalai was stuffed with Gulkand and was brilliant! The Sangom kheer was made with black Manipuri rice, milk and jaggery, but came across as a normal Kheer, sans the black rice. Chef Gaurav also served some Chocolate truffle with tellichery peppers and little kacha golas, both of which were nice.

Double espressos and tea ended an excellent evening for us. It isn’t everyday we can get such excellent food and company together at the same table and this made the experience all the more memorable.

Sid
PS:Fire is hosting an Indian Street Food festival in July – you must check it out!

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