If you think Oriental food is only about Chinese cuisine, then you are mistaken. Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Singaporean, Indonesian and many more cuisines, which are still relatively new to the Indian palate, have a lot of interesting flavours to offer. And here’s your chance to try them all at the ongoing Oriental Food Festival at Flavours restaurant, Seasons — An Apartment Hotel, Aundh.

The restaurant welcomes you with a beautiful Oriental decoration at the entrance to set the mood. Hanging lanterns inside the venue make for a pretty picture. As we visited the restaurant and took our table, the one thing that struck us most was instead of ‘reserved’ tags, there were ‘promised’ tags. Probably just a policy decision but some thought has gone into it to make it stand out and make the guest feel different.

 

Starting our dinner with some hot soup to provide some warmth from the cold outside, we were left satisfied. The Hai Sin Thing, which is a seafood soup, had a generous amount of delicious prawns, and perfectly cooked. The Suan La Tang, which was hot and sour veg soup, tasted different and yummier than what is served at most restaurants. The soups were served piping hot so that they made them taste even better.

For starters, there was an option of sesame Sliced Fish and Xo Chicken for non-vegetarians. The fish was well cooked and enjoyable and the chicken, finger-licking good! The fish and chicken were cut into decent-sized pieces and were perfect as finger food.

For vegetarians, the Babycorn and Waterchestnut Salt and Pepper was something new and tasted awesome. The Vegetable Jade Roll was similar to a Spring Roll but tasted better and was tempting.

The live counter served freshly made Dim Sums in vegetarian and non-vegetarian options and definitely were the best I had in a long time.

The Salad Bar had a variety of options like the popular Thai Cabbage Salad, Gado Gado Salad, Fish, Bean Sprout and Noodle Salad and many more.

Moving on to the main course, there was Wok Toss Fish, Shanghai Chicken and Lamb Jhian Shai for non-vegetarians. I went for the lamb which came in a spicy black bean sauce. It tasted delectable and was just perfectly done.

Vegetarians will find a plethora of options on the menu — Tofu and Spinach tossed with Roasted Sesame Sauce, Thai Vegetable Green Curry, Spicy Stirfry Babycorn and Mushroom, Vegetable Dumpling in Chilli Garlic Sauce, Phak Phad Rum Mint (Black Mushroom and Mint), to name a name a few.

The Three Jewel Rice with pomegranate and raisins was a worthy accompaniment. The live counter served fresh and hot noodles in Hakka and Schezwan styles.

With our tummy full, we hesitantly moved towards the dessert counter just hoping to taste a little bit. But we ended up grabbing a plateful of everything and relished every bite. The Coco Mocco which is a coconut milk based liquidy dessert was heavenly. Traditional Asian desserts like Date Pancake and Banana Roll were equally heavenly. But the icing on our meal, literally, was the Red Pumpkin Mousse which had an amazing velvety texture, and was light and absolutely flavourful.

The Oriental Food Festival is on at Flavours restaurant, Seasons — An Apartment Hotel, Aundh till 19th Nov. If you love or want to try Asian cuisine, this is the place to be!

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Nupur