Entrance of Zaffran

Zaffran, means saffron in Arabic, a fine Restaurant serves Mughlai, Lucknowi and Awadhi food in Bristol Hotel, Gurgaon. A faultless blending of wooden furniture, muted lights and luxurious carpet on the floor gives a feeling of Luscious and Royal expenditure. To add more charm into this, they have Live Music chairing with two mesmerizing singers Kumar Bappa and Madhavi Bose  singing Ghazals, Indian Bollywood songs and some requests made by their customers. Zaffran undoubtedly offers flavorsome Mughlai cuisines along with heart touching Live Music. Zaffran is located on the 4th floor of the Bristol Hotel with the capacity seating of 40 showcasing the Live Kitchen at one end and Live music crew on another corner. I personally loved the wooden incense and the carpet as part of the interiors. Definitely something to talk about.

 Over to the Cuisines, to be honest being not so crazy for Indian and Mughlai food, I and especially my wife really enjoyed having the meal at Zaffran. For the starters we ordered Achari Fish (Roasted Basa Fish served with chopped spiced up onions and tomatoes) and  something newly added into the menu Dhoodhiya Kebab (made of milk products, coconut and spices) and accompanied by the complimentary Munchies (Bhelpuri spread over Papri). Dhoodhiya kebab was not so spicy and of our taste though it was rich in tastes and might impress the vegetarian folks, but we admit it as one of the rare and different vegetarian starter all together. Achari fish was typically the taste we like to have when it comes about the non-veg starters, something roasted, juicy and crispy. Fish was perfectly cooked maintaining the crispiness of it which makes it a good choice to have. 

                                                                                                         

With Maincourse we ordererd Nalli Ghost (Lamb cooked in Awadhi gravy with Chef's secret spices), Paneer Khurchan (Julliennes of cottage cheese, capsicum, tomato, onion in masala gravy), Dal Zaffran (Whole black lentils simmered overnight with traditional spices and finished off with butter and cream) escorted by the Butter Naan. Nalli ghost was a complete example of chef's mindfulness and respect towards it, because it was super fine in term of spices, tenderness and taste, it impressed my wife to a certain extent but for me Dal Awadhi was the show stopper and I couldn't stop my self spooning it. Not to forget about the Paneer Khurchan which was again an exclusive dish and can be recommended for the Vegetarians. Zaffran's menu offers variety of Awadhi, lucknowi food, some of the recommended would be Nawab-e-tastari kebab, Galouti kebab, Murg Baltee.

Talking about the Service would again going to fetch more points for Zaffran, servers were very attentive and always there to assist you. Service was quick and remarkably professional. We intensely enjoyed the food and will hold the memory of Live Music and the good time spent at Zaffran.

Now coming to the last but very important factor when we dine i.e. price. Price of Zaffran will be considered expensive by some (Doodhiya Kebabs were 650/plate with 6 kebabs in plate and so on!) But wait! we are dining at a restaurant of a 5 star hotel which has been there for long enough.

If you are feeling generous, want to take someone special to a peaceful restaurant to enjoy scrumptious meal over romantic or on-demand Bollywood music, go there once.They are also running a Punjabi Food Festival in Zaffran  in case you are die hard Punjabi food fan.

We also covered other sections of The Bristol Hotel like their coffee shop, bar and night club. And more on that in separate posts.

fOOD aur mOOD's Verdict: Must visit place to enjoy Mughlai Food and the Live Bollywood Music.

TIME TO RATE THIS PLACE

 

Food: Excellent
Ambiance: Royal with Lucknowi Touch here and there
Service : Good
Rating: 4/5
Next Visit: Will be visiting again soon
Recommend this place: Yes, absolutely! because of two reasons food and music.
Tips: Must try - Nalli Gosht

Disclosure: fOOD aur mOOD was invited to Zaffran and meal was sponsored, but our commitment is to you find the place where you can have good time like we do, hence an honest review!

Thanks,
Varun

Eden Kitchen & Bar offers Chinese, North Indian, Lebanese, Mediterranean cuisines. This restaurant is in Shoprix Mall, Noida Sec 61.  It could be be one of the decent options to have dinner or lunch with family and friends if you are in/around NOIDA. Lately, I had a chance to visit Eden Kitchen and Bar for dinner with my wife on our marriage annivesary.

Both of us were craving to have Chicken Chettinad (a South Indian delicacy) and we decided to to go that same place where we had it first. We went to Shopprix Mall (Noida Sec 61) but didn't find the same restaurant. Eden is a new restaurant here which is comparatively more spacious (two floors) than the previous restaurant we visited. As the first floor was packed, we were offered a table on the other floor. I would say that they have done a pretty good job with the interiors, not able to recall anything which left us amazed, but still can be considered as well-thought-of interior design.

After making ourselves comfortable, we started looking at the Menu Card and were struggling to find something different and tempting, we decided to try something Lebanese but later been informed that it is not available. Finally, we settled for Tomato Garlic Fish, which was good in quantity and tasted just like a typical sweet and sour Chinese dish with a pinch of garlic and coriander on it. We found it satisfactory enough, possibly because we were simply famished. Fortunately, we got to have Chicken Chettinad and indeed accomplished our plan. Chicken Chettinad was definitely not that fine like we had in past, but still was good enough to try it with Plain Rice. 

Service was very ordinary and not something that was commendable. Rather, I did not like that restaurant was not busy at all, but waiters were not prompt and fast in attending tables. A professional and welcoming restaurants' staff should be friendly (that Eden's staff was) and attentive (that they were not). They were pretty chilled out even after finding their customers looking around for someone to take order.

I would recommend this restaurant only because of the quality of food which wasn't extra-ordinary but it was flavorsome and we liked the taste, nothing that made our taste-buds feel bad.

In short, we had the fOOd that slightly changed our mOOd.

Time To Rate This Place

Food: Good
Ambiance: Simple and Soothing, dimly lit surrounding.
Service : 15-20 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
Next Visit: Probably not!
Recommend this place:  Only if you are around sec 61 and looking for a place to eat with decent food quality.

Other options in Shoprix Mall, NOIDA

Food Court.

 Hard Rock Cafe, DLF Mall Saket, New Delhi

Hard Rock Cafe a famous chain of theme restaurants founded in 1971 by Americans. This is the second time I visited Hard Rock Cafe. My earlier visit was just to go and meet some friends and then back to some other place for dinner. I was impressed with the space and ambiance at that time and wanted to visit this place sooner. It happened this Sunday, because my wife had some work in saket and there i decided to check out Hard Rock Cafe for fOOD aur mOOD.

                                                                        I have read somewhere that hard rock cafe is famous for their burgers and sandwiches. So, it was pre-decided for me to try out the burger and i did order the Legendry 10 OZ Chicken burger (Rs.435/-) along with a special Cocktail as per the staff GG Screwdriver (Rs.500/-). My Wife decided to try Cobb Salad with chicken and bacon (Rs 265/-) and Berrilicious (Rs. 210/-) a mocktail.

Now coming to the taste straight away , i didn't like the chicken burger, It has a thick layer of chicken and some half cooked vegetable in it, served with mayonnaise and french fries. The presentation was just OK, nothing else. My GG screwdriver was another stuff which disappointed me, it was only a Orange juice and soda mixed in it...thats it! My wife was also not much impressed with the Cobb salad too. Though berrilicious was a nice drink as per her. We both ended up with a bit of disappointment in terms of food. It might because of the American taste or whatever, but it seriously didn't hit our taste buds. They might have something else to rock which they are famous for and i would like to go hard rock cafe again to try that!!

                                                          Cobb Salad with chicken and bacon

If we talk about their ambiance and interiors, you would come up saying "wonderfull". I like the ambiance personally and managed to capture some of the places you would like in hard rock cafe.

 

 

Indeed we had the fOOD which didn't changes our mOOD!!

Now, time to rate Hard Rock Cafe New Delhi!!

Food: Average
Ambiance: Wonderful
Rating: 7/10
Next Visit: Very Soon, to try something else.
Recommend this place: Yes and please try their burger, because they are famous for it!

Last Saturday i went to Jama Masjid along with my friend to buy crackers/fireworks for his marriage. And we utilized the time and thought to enjoy the food in karims, but at last moment we decided to go to AL- Jawahar (next to karims hotel, jama masjid ) as we never been to this restaurant ever. After having food in Al-Jawahar, I cannot compare the taste with Karims. This place is just an ordinary muslim dhaba with typical items list and taste. We had chicken kabab, Mutton Korma, Chicken Jehangiri and Tandoori roti..and for all dishes we got an ordinary taste.

Initially, we ordered Mutton korma, chicken kebab and roti and we got the food on our table in couple of minutes, but later we ended up ordering chicken jehangiri which took almost 15-20 mins to get served which was very annoying. I would not prefer anyone to avoid Karims over Al-Jawahar if visiting Jama Masjid/Old delhi. Here are some pics of the food we had.

Indeed, we had our fOOD which didn't changes our mOOD :(
.

                                                                    Chicken Kebabs (rs 42 per piece)

                                                        Mutton Korma (rs 270 full), poor quantity

                                        Tandoori Roti (rs 8 per peice), very nice and soft rotis

                                                     Chicken Jehangiri (rs 140 half)

                                                      Al-Jawahar from entrance



Now the turn rate this place according to me:

Food: Below Average
Ambience: Below Average
Rating: 2/10
Next Visit: I don't think so