Deccan Harvest - Magarpatta with Radio One

This review comes about as an invitation for a tasting by Radio One as part of their initiative to launch a coffee table book with reviews to some of the best restaurants in Pune. As part of this initiative they invite bloggers around the town for tastings at their partner restaurants with their RJs and support staff. It was thus, DOP’s pleasure to accompany MJ Tarun and Anjali from Radio One to Deccan Harvest, the multicuisine restaurant at Magarpatta.

Amongst the first things that was noticed as we entered the restaurant is the truly brilliant ambience of the place which combined an all glass, double heighted ceiling design to provide perhaps one of the most airy feeling restaurants in all of Pune. Combine this further with the fact that the restaurant is placed smack dab in the middle of the greenest part of Magarpatta (which is otherwise as urban, IT dystopian and boring as you can get) makes this a place you should go to when you want to revel in the megalomaniac pleasure of having a chill day while software engineers of all denominations go to work for 12 hour work days in their glass cages fueling aspirations that may someday lead to India emerging as something of a superpower.

Food description follows -

Starters

Nawabi Kumbh - These were stuffed mushrooms which as a concept is quite interesting because there isn’t mushroom where stuff can be stuffed. Now that we have the bad pun out of the way, we can get back to the food. The stuffed mushrooms looked really good but excessive decoration meant that they sacrificed correct serving temperature for increased aestheticism. The food could have been warmer. The creamy texture from the special Cashew paste was pretty pleasing. Seasoning was, in millennial terms, on point. The food was served on a bed of thinly sliced tomatoes which didn’t really compliment the Nawabi Kumbh if eaten together. If not eaten together, well what’s the point?

Murgh Noorani kebab - The plating was quite innovative as it was served in cutting Chai glasses. The meat was cooked perfectly, with all the moisture and succulence delivered, in line with the visual appeal of the dish. The mixed dry fruit paste on the meat along with the grated cheese gave it a subtle flavor which along with the residual jus of the kebab tasted quite marvellous. The ‘miss’ on this dish was the cherry on top which didn’t quite turn out to be the cherry on top.



Tandoori Chicken Bruschetta - Copious amounts of really well cooked Tandoori Chicken in a butter chicken gravy base made this one of the highlights. The interplay of textures between the crispy toasted bread and the softer, more delicate chicken was a winner. Excellent dish to go with your beers and your ‘Stranger Things’ binge watching.

Mutton seekh - This was THE dish of the day and to think we almost missed it because the guys at Deccan Harvest only bought it out almost as an afterthought which if you consider that they were putting up an exhibition of their wares would have been a tragedy of sorts. Extremely juicy seekh prepared in a manner we’re not quite used to. The light garlic masala coating added to the strength of the meat which was cooked to a perfect medium-rare. The mince was grainy which is different from the smooth texture which is what most seekhs usually roll with and to say it was well-appreciated might be something of an understatement. The accompanying chutney was served as the perfect counterpoint to the romancing of the seekh with its spicy, bitter, beautifully green overtures.
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Mains

Murgh Patiyala - The Chicken Patiyala was a wonderful looking dish which, if this is the normal day to day serving, promises to be a huge serving, good enough for three normal eaters or a small village in Africa. The lovely orange color to it tells you that it shall be a very efficient rendition of chicken in a gravy made with fresh cream, love and a decent dash of chillies. One of the best dishes that was served that day. Something you should immerse yourself in with soft rotis of the tandoori bent, friends and perhaps some time because this is the kind of gravy that might need you to take bites closed-eyed, with a look on your face that must suggest you’re doing something not exactly PG-13.

Bawarchi ki Khasiyat - This was the Chef’s idea of swinging both ways in strictly vegetarian terms. The dish however was a swing and a miss for us strictly non-vegetarian carnivores. Not implying that our spoilt palate is not conducive for the prosperity of vegetarian dishes, but this dish was average in the general sense. Even though the chef has in statistical terms increased his possibilities of a successful dish two-fold, since it was an amalgamation of two gravies, it ends up coming up short in what it achieves.



Potli Biryani - Potli Biryani is like that birthday gift which a child might receive where he thinks he’s about to score a PS4 only to realize that he’s received a hand-me-down, god-forsaken collection of hard bound collection of the Britannica Encyclopedia. Nothing wrong in receiving hardbound general knowledge books, but that’s just not what the kid was looking for at the moment. The biryani within the gorgeous maida-made wrapping was in strictly Biryani terms, a social outcast. It’s underlying problem was that it was too spicy, had more cashews than all of Goa and seemed more Pulav-like. The only saving grace was that it came with its own Box-office opening, quite literally. A great dish if you want to wow your friends with the gourmet equivalent of a Bhai movie.

Mixed Naan Platter: Abbas particularly likes Naan Platters as he think they represent some sort of United Nations of Naan which fills you with hope about Naan-conformism to the shared cause of Naans everywhere. This particular Naan Platter lived up to these principles admirably as they represent various Naans like Butter Naans and Missi Roti and even the normally uppitty Ajwaini Laccha Paratha with an equality that is intrinsic to the concept that all Naans are in fact, one and the same in their aspirations to live a life of peace and dignity with the gravies they are served with.




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Desserts

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Caramel Custard: Now, any caramel custard is usually first and foremost about the wobble. It gives us enormous pleasure to say that the wobble is strong with the Deccan Harvest CC. Then we move onto the coloration of the Caramel Custard and here too the Deccan Harvest CC has that beautiful caramel color of summer. It is a color that can please even the grouchiest of customers and with perhaps the only flaw being it lacks the deep dark abyss of color on the top of the custard which implies a slight burning of the caramel which in our opinion, makes caramel custards transcendent in dessert terms. This achieving of custard Nirvana is usually a joy to behold and the Deccan guys come really close to achieving this state of exalted bliss. An 8/10 caramel custard rating.

Kala Jamun with Ice Cream: There are dark horses and then there are Kala Jamuns with Vanilla Ice-cream. The Kala Jamun with Ice-cream henceforth abbreviated to KJWI was the one thing on the menu card we were logically prepared to hate simply because when it turned up it looked like the unholy union of Gulab Jamuns and Ice-cream in that lazy sort of middle class family way where the thought is that any Indian sweet combined with Vanilla Ice-cream is a sure shot success. We had rolled our eyes at the implications of this and settled in to taste ho-hum-ness in the last dish of the day. We were then very surprised, when the KJWI came, and it saw and it had us conquered with the most surprising tool once can conceive. Hershey’s chocolate syrup. We’re not kidding. Who knew that Hershey’s would be the unifying element between a Kala Jamun and Vanilla ice-cream but it is. It makes this thing sing. Who would’ve thunk that this would be such a fun win of a dessert? Certainly not us but it is and how. We recommend this, in quite vociferous terms for the sheer mindfuckery of its winning combination.



In closing, we have to conclude that the restaurant’s ambiance which when combined with some of the food on offer makes for a quite enjoyable sojourn into the pancreatic recesses of Magarpatta where normally, mere mortals do not go for fear of traffic and other infarctions.