Today I went out for an errand and like the good old days, dropped by the Ginger Hotel for lunch… After my last visit, as mentioned in the post about the same, I was hoping to visit again to try something from the new menu and here we are… 🙂
Before browsing the menu, I asked for a glass of Watermelon Juice and it arrived as shown in the pics below… Clearly, its nothing but slightly sweetened pure Watermelon juice and I felt that it came from a Fresh Watermelon… It felt very refreshing indeed considering the hot sun outside…
From the menu, considering the fact that I was alone this time and that my breakfast at home, was slightly on the heavier side, I didn’t want to order much as the full size portions of most dishes would’ve been too much for me then… So, to be safe, I chose to go for one of their Thali combos and among the choices, I chose the Non-Vegetarian version of their Indian Thali and it consisted of Rice, Roti, Dal, a Chicken Curry and Salad as can be seen in the pics below…
Now lets talk about each of the items… First of all, the salad as can be seen in the pics below is a Green Salad consisting of Cucumber, Carrot, Tomato and Onion served with a slice of Lemon… As expected, it was served plain ie, without and seasoning which is fine cause, the purpose of such salads are basically to accompany other dishes rather than to be eaten on its own, though there are purists who prefer to do so…
As expected in the North Indian style Thali, it was a bowl of Basmati rice which I felt was quite fragrant and slightly seasoned as well with salt…
Coming to the Dal, the lentils did have a slight bite to them and the overall curry was quite thick and incredibly flavourful with the fragrance of Coriander along with flavours of the Turmeric, Asafoetida (if I am not mistaken), Chilly Powder and of-course, tempering which seemed to have cumin in it… The only problem was that it was too salty for my taste…
The Roti was the typical dry kind, which I suspect has been cooked on the open flame without any added oil (the Phulka method)… Though dry, it was indeed incredibly soft and fluffy… Seasoning was spot on for this one…
Coming to the Chicken Curry… Well, this Curry essentially reminded me of the Kadai Chicken, though usually with Kadai Chicken, there will be chunks of vegetables whereas, here, there were only two pieces of Chicken… But the taste felt quite similar with that mostly Onion with Tomato based gravy with the ground dry spices that has the flavours of Coriander Seeds and Fennel at the lead… Overall, even though I liked the flavours, unfortunately, just like the Dal, it again, was too salty for my taste… The Chicken was well cooked though with the meat coming off the bone easily…
While having the meal as a whole, an interesting thing was that even though the two curries were too salty for me, when I mixed them with the Rice and tried eating with the Salad, the overall salt level and flavours felt balanced, which was indeed a surprise… If you ask me, personally, I think the overall experience would’ve been better if they had included a Veg Raita instead of the Green Salad…
That’s it for now… Though the salt level was not right for me, I think its a nice meal overall with quantity just right, for a person… I have informed the manager about the salt issue (apparently its a new Chef they have there) and so, hopefully, when I have this again, that problem wouldn’t exist and I’ll get to have a better experience… Fingers Crossed… 🙂
