The last time I visited Hotel Ramada Plaza on Ashoka Road, was a year ago, to review their multicuisine coffee shop called Lutyens. The place looked a bit dingy in terms of the set-up and despite all instincts telling me to turn back, I stayed on to sample the food which turned out to be excellent.
So this time when I got to know that a new Oriental restaurant Jasmine has opened at the hotel, I went prepared to focus only on the food. But I’ve to admit that the cheerful ambience with open spaces, a neat layout and the subtle décor was quite impressive at the outset. So I began to wonder if the food would be as good. Thankfully it was. But before we go on, let me give you a sense of the place.
The restaurant serves Oriental fare, complete with Hunan, Schezwan and Cantonese dishes. The wait staff, sporting Shanghai-styled traditional gowns and jackets, look Chinese but I would bet my money anyday on some of them being from Manipur. The kitchen walls are all transparent glass, the kinds that make you wonder if chefs ever suffer from ‘performance anxiety’ with diners playing audience to kitchen goof-ups.
We ordered for Fish Salt & Pepper (Rs 895) and Marinated Diced Chicken with red chillies (Rs 625) to start with. The chicken was good, the fish, though cooked well, could have been crispier to match the expectations from a salt n pepper dish. And the fact that it was quite expensive didn’t help. We skipped the soup, though there was a good variety to choose from. We then ordered for Stir Fried Bok Choy with mushroom (Rs 425), which is actually a healthy side dish in Cantonese cuisine, but looking at the rather large portions of everything, we decided to supplement it with just one main course dish of Lamb in Hot Garlic Sauce (Rs 675). The Bok Choy was fresh and the shiitake mushroom added a lovely flavour. The lamb was average, but better than what’s served in most Oriental restaurants in Delhi. We requested for the leftover starters to be packed and weirdly enough, the doggybag was thumped at the table by the wait staff while we were still having the main course.
Since our entire choice that afternoon was largely non-experimental in nature, we stuck to the safe choice of Date Pancakes with Ice-cream (Rs 375) for dessert. Though the pancakes were fried and kept us from patting our backs for ordering the healthy side dish, the taste was so good that for once we didn’t mind the calorie-guilt it came along with. Net net, barring the high prices, Jasmine has everything going for it. Worth a visit.
{{/usCountry}}Since our entire choice that afternoon was largely non-experimental in nature, we stuck to the safe choice of Date Pancakes with Ice-cream (Rs 375) for dessert. Though the pancakes were fried and kept us from patting our backs for ordering the healthy side dish, the taste was so good that for once we didn’t mind the calorie-guilt it came along with. Net net, barring the high prices, Jasmine has everything going for it. Worth a visit.
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