One of Pune prettiest and most romantic rooftop locations is Kabana, at Conrad. The location is serenely gorgeous, and the mean meals their chefs cook up is the reason why I frequent it so often.
For the winter months, Kabana is hosting the ‘No Frills Just Grills’ festival and a few of us were invited to try the menu.
It has extremely interesting meat options like NZ Lamb Chops, Salmon Steaks, Scampi, Pork Ribs and, of course, Chicken. Vegetarians need not be disappointed as they have grilled veg options too. These non-veg and veg options have to be paired with marinades and sauces of your choice.
To whet the appetite, they began the meal by sending out yummy Caramelized Onion Swirl Buns with a Sun-Dried Tomato & Goat Cheese Dip. Warm bread smeared with a delicious dip is such a joy to eat.
Our grills for the evening were Barbeque Pork Ribs,
Caribbean Jerk Chicken, Salmon Japanese Teriyaki, Scampi Chimichurri and NZ
Lamb Chop Peri-Peri. The salads and sides served that evening were, Tomato
Burrata, Herb Quinoa, Baked Sun Chokes, Baked Jacket Potatoes with Sour Cream,
Cajun Corn on Cob and Herbed Rice.
I’m mentally allergic to salads 😝
hence I gave all the salads a miss but, I did dig into the silken
Buratta. I could have polished off that creamy ball of sinfulness all by
myself. *greedy grin*
I had a bite of the Sun Chokes, but my hardcore
carnivore palate could not handle the vegetable. The others at the table liked it, though. The Herbed Rice was also quite nice but, the stars (among the sides)
were the Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream and the Cajun Corn on Cob.
The recipe of the Jerk Spice rub used for the
Caribbean Jerk Chicken is Chef Hemant’s recipe and I have yet to have a Jerk
Chicken better than this!
The Salmon Japanese Teriyaki was beautifully flaky
and the subtle flavour of the marinade allowed the salmon to shine.
The Scampi
was cooked correctly but I found it under seasoned. The marinade lacked salt.
The Barbeque Pork Rib was delicious! It had a lovely smoky flavour and aroma, but the meat
wasn’t cooked to fall-off-the-bone texture which was disappointing. It was sad
to see pork meat going waste over the bone when ideally, I would have loved to
bite into it and rip it off the bone.
The NZ Lamb Chop Peri-Peri was cooked to perfect
succulence and the peri-peri marinade complemented the chop beautifully.
The meal ended with Pumpkin Pie with Pistachio Mousse
Nougat. It was yum, but I merely had a bite or two as I’d eaten too much of the
main course.
The menu for this festival is so well curated that I
could not get enough of the deliciousness. I returned to Kabana, twice in the week
that followed. Once for some quiet ‘me’ time and another time in tow with a
friend.
I/we ordered the Home Fries with Blue Cheese Dip (apologies, no pic for this as I was too hungry) but
as I like to control the flavour of the blue cheese as suited to my palate, I
told them not to drizzle blue cheese over the fries; I requested the blue
cheese dip be served separately. Chunky home fries fried crisp on my request
with a dip so accurately flavoured with blue cheese: give me a book or a movie
and I can spend an entire evening sitting at Kabana sipping cups of tea and
hogging on these babies. We also requested for Cajun Corn on Cob which was just
as delicious as it was when I'd had it the first time.
For the mains, we reordered the Salmon and requested
the Italian Lemon Butter sauce on the side. The combination was superb!
We also
reordered the Caribbean Jerk Chicken. It was so moreish. My friend fell head
over heels in love with the dish! They usually grill a chicken breast, but my
friend is not a fan of that cut (actually, nor am I) which is why I requested
the chef to grill a chicken leg instead. The chef readily agreed to do that. It
is a mark of excellence when a restaurant, a hotel, a chef, happily says, ‘yes
ma’am, we’ll customize it for you’. To me, that is stellar service! Such
service gives me a major reason to return to a restaurant/hotel time and time again.
The current menu will be on all through December. Come
January, the ‘No Frills Just Grills’ menu will change. Do give the festival a try. I cannot wait to go back to try more stuff from the current
menu and I’m so looking forward to the deliciousness they bring forth in the
January menu. Having been a regular at their restaurants I know exactly what
their chefs are capable of; I cannot wait to be amazed. 😊
To sit back, put my feet up, enjoy the cold winter chill and eat delicious
piping hot grilled meats; ah the small pleasures of life! Sigh!
Address: Kabana-Conrad, Mangaldas Road, Pune.
Tel: 020 67456745
Some more drool-worthy photographs...
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