Three Kitchens Restaurant & Bar @The Ritz Carlton, Pune

Visited Three Kitchens at Ritz-Carlton today. Their Dinner buffet is priced at Rs 1600 plus taxes.

5 stars for service. Absolutely stellar service. We had a very sweet, helpful & pleasant server.

2 stars (very average) for food. When a chef at a luxurious 5 star over cooks-over grills prawns to rubbery texture, it's unforgivable. I've had way better Aglio Olio and the prawns in the Aglio Olio were also overcooked. Sigh! The food at the Chinese counter was cold. The burnt garlic fried rice was cold as were the Sambal Prawns. The mutton kebabs (starters) were hard. We would have preferred a juicier kebabs. The Chicken Tikkas, though, were nice. The only dimsum worth having was the Prawn Hargao, it was really very good. The Chicken Dimsum & Mushroom Dimsum were way below average. Simple restaurants make them way better hence it feels terrible when a chef at a 5 star messes up.

I also tried the Cream of Mushroom soup. It was anything but a Cream of Mushroom. A strong blend mushrooms with a bit of seasoning was all i could taste. The chef either forgot to add cream or decided it would be too expensive to add cream to a soup for a buffet meal. Two sips was all i could manage because of that strong hit of blended mushrooms. Just so you know, I love mushrooms but this was 'urghh'. Compared to the soup I had this evening at Ritz-C, a packet of Knorr Cream of Mushroom is way better. Harsh, i know.. but true!

The Antipasti section was great hence giving Ritz-C an overall rating of 3 stars. Good cheeses, excellent smoked salmon, good breads & herbed butter. The hummus was pretty good too. The pork with the balsamic drizzle was delish.

The dessert section, too, has much room for improvement. The quality of cakes are very basic & average. The only good dessert tonight was the Kaju Roll; very similar to a Baklava. It was very well made. I really loved it!

Ritz-C, you definitely need to put more heart into the 'cooked food' section.

P.S. I was at Ritz-C with my bestie for a peaceful evening hence only clicked one pic of the Antipasti plate. Did not bother with the lighting etc hence a very average pic. I had no intention of writing a review but as the evening progressed and i tried various things from the buffet and decided to pen this as an eye-opener with the hope that we get better food the next time we drop in.