Mumbai Food: Certain dishes are off a menu, though never off a table

There is always a captivate of savouring dishes not accessible to others; something with a singular book feel, a clarity of secrecy. Most restaurants have off-the-menu dishes, and reasons for their personal inlet can be anything from a cook wanting to warn his congregation to a miss of consistent supply of a sold ingredient. Here’s a curated list of dishes from opposite city eateries that chefs won’t straightforwardly tell we about. Regulars would know, of course, and now they are all yours to try.

Pita pocket
At: Henpecked, Kala Ghoda

Mini pita pockets are baked in a normal Neapolitan oven where a “torched wooden logs take adult a feverishness of a dome-shaped oven adult to 600 degrees”, says conduct cook Ajay Thakur. The feverishness transforms a elementary pita slot into what’s best described as a Mediterranean phulka. “We things it with plantation uninformed veggies or meat.” Thakur learnt to ready a plate during a outing to Dubai. “That’s where a thought struck me. Anything between pita breads is worshipped there,” he says. Since it’s easy to make, there’s frequency ever a possibility of it not being accessible if we ask for it.

Why off a menu? “It is good to warn your customers. Since a plate employs a singular technique, we like to keep it a tip special.”

Beetroot Ice Cream
At: Su Casa, Bandra

When cook Dev Rawat concocted a recipe for a Beetroot Ice Cream, he knew it wouldn’t be adult everyone’s alley. Rawat, who did not wish to breach with a strange essence of a unfeeling has, therefore, kept a plate tolerably honeyed with small sugar.

While he does suggest it, a orders don’t surpass 5 a month. “I have a gusto for a quirky, so it’s excellent if it’s not popular,” he says.

Why off a menu? “For any plate to have a place on a menu, it contingency do probity in terms of sales. Besides, it takes an surprising ambience to suffer roasted beetroot ice cream.”

Grilled Kangaroo Fillet With Grilled Baby Spinach and Potato Salad 
At: Estella, Juhu

It was during a outing to Australia that Chef Rohan D’Souza tasted a grilled kangaroo for a initial time. “I generally favourite a approach a Australian chefs play with beef preparations,” says a conduct cook during Estella. His oddity to learn new cuisines and examination with dishes encouraged him to replicate it during a restaurant. The plate is endorsed to guest depending on a accessibility of meat. “Mostly Australians formed in Mumbai name this,” he says. Served with grilled baby spinach, salsa café de paris and comfortable mustard potato salad, a grilled kangaroo strap tastes identical to buffalo meat, he says. “It has a smashing ambience that adds a lot of essence though being overpowering.”

Why off a menu?
“Kangaroo beef doesn’t come cheap. It’s about R4,500 a kg, and is a singular beef accessible usually in Australia.”

Bhut Jolokia Chicken Sandwich
At: Dive, BKC

Chef Munawar Taher Peerzade, who heads BKC’s Dive, mostly sees congregation reaching for a hankie box after holding a punch of a Bhut Jolokia Chicken Sandwich. He introduced a object on a appetisers menu when a grill launched early this year, though realised it competence not be everybody’s crater of tea. “I was forced to take it off, given not everybody has a threshold for spice,” he says. The bhut jolokia chilli is a hybrid chili peppers cultivated in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland and Manipur, not simply accessible in Mumbai. At a restaurant, a chillies are belligerent into a pulp along with other spices to whip adult a bottom salsa for a sandwich.

Why off a menu? “We get a oddity patron who asks for something fiery, so we realised it creates for a good off-the-menu chef’s suggest snack.”

3 Bean Paella
At: Luca, Lower Parel

This Spanish dish, we are told, is prepared in singular quantities during this newly non-stop grill in Mathuradas Mills. “There are several other bean-based dishes on a menu. This one is usually accessible underneath chef’s specials on specific days. It is, however, accessible to anyone who asks for it,” says conduct cook Shankar Kokkula. But it’s not an eat that can be customized. “It is meant to be had a approach it is made, given it is a chef’s special.” The plate packs in a punch of pulses, installed with haricot beans, black-eyed beans, kidney beans, immature peas and rice, served in a bowl. “It’s a free-style dish; we can supplement vegetables as per your choice and accessibility of ingredients. The core preparation, however, stays as is. We supplement paprika for that combined fire.” This is Kokkula’s possess spin to a Spanish staple.

Why off a menu? “I have been a fan of a Spanish sweetmeat and wanted to examination with it. we didn’t embody it on a menu given we wished that it be done accessible on name days.”

Honey Darsaan
At: Four Points by Sheraton, Navi Mumbai

It was as a rookie cook that Ashvini Kumar, now executive cook At Four Points by Sheraton, in Navi Mumbai, picked adult a recipe of Honey Darsaan, a Chinese Dessert done with boiled wonton noodles. Here, a noodles are drizzled with sugar and sesame seeds and accompanied with a dip of vanilla ice cream. Although a chef’s favourite, it mislaid out to other desserts during a menu revamp, and was transposed with Granny Smith Apples and Toffee Ice Cream. But like Kumar, there are a few guest who
dig a dessert.

“We get around 10 orders for a dish,” he says.

Why off a menu? “What happens with quick food desserts is that it’s an endless spread, and we can’t have them all on a menu, given it creates clutter.”

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