A winter brunch at the poolside Deck at Hyatt is not a bad idea to spend time with some well innovated Indian food dishes
You may think poolside parties are essentially for the evenings unless you are doing a wedding function around the water body. Winter brunches by the pool, however, are not exactly an idea that strike hoteliers. The Deck at Hyatt has been courageous and innovative at the same time, spreading its mostly sold out Sunday brunches around a jagged pool stared down by the imposing staying quarters on either side.
The Deck is a small few-table layout which can get adequately cosy if the cold breeze is not rushing in from the north as it happened last Sunday. That, however, does not take away from the innovative spread on the counters on one side of the pool.
The young sous chef Shivendra Singh is always attentive and all smiles as he talks you into the goodness of savouring what he terms good and flavourful Indian food. Indian cuisine at brunches doesn’t strike the style chord as per public perception but Shivendra insists it is the food people get back to after meaningless meanderings often not interesting pallates.
As you bite into the melt in your mouth cheese dahi bhalla, skewered on to a charcoal bed of embers, you tend to push the pasta in your thoughts aside, as also the New Zealand lamb chops which have become must-stop-by options for brunches all over the place.
But at The Deck, the experimental dahi bhalla is quite a sellout and rightly so. It has been conceived with imagination and goes well with both style and taste values.
Shivendra explains how this good old dahi bhalla is quick fried, drained of oil and refrigerated for consistency before a portion of it is carefully scooped out to fill in home-made Indian condiments flavoured cheese, sealed and then tandoored to tickle your tastebuds in a very differently-abled Indian way.
Sitting on the same skewer is the more traditional and conservative paneer tikka which comes into conversation with its achari flavour and sheer softness of being.
Modern-health-statements lounge dominatingly on the salad counter with the quinoa and greens making their superfood presence felt in the company of flavoured olive oil even as the usual salad & lamb mince makes for a hearty treat.
The good thing about The Deck is that it does not overwhelm you with its food spread but believes in constantly tickling your tastebuds with carefully chosen dishes. Yes there is the pasta bowl you can get to in case you are in an Italian bent of mind, but really it is the few places where the Indian cuisine occupies prime spot on the Mains list of the Menu.
The Goan Coconut Meen Curry offers tough competition to the Rahra Gosht all the way from Mughal land.
Surprisingly, there is enough for vegetarians to pick from which is good and much needed in these animal kingdom days filling up plates in the food industry’s all the time evolving hatchery.
Not a bad idea to deck up the Deck but make sure that the sun is out and the breeze is not seething with cold anger. On second thoughts, even if it, there is a team to pull in the flame heaters to give you that warmth you need for enjoying food at a lazy pace, sipping the best wines and cocktails that the mixer glasses up for you.
