Blah Dining Society at The Oberoi, Bengaluru: The Path Less Travelled with Chef Anirban

This was one of the best Indian meals I’ve had, leaving me awestruck the way very few meals do. This kind of meal doesn’t happen more than 2-3 times a year. 

It’s ironic that I ate this meal the day after I posted an article about how most tasting menus abroad just don’t cut it for me. But this meal had everything that is missing in most Michelin starred restaurants.

The meal was aimed to celebrate lesser known ingredients from different parts of India, to create a true synthesis between traditional Indian food and the modernity of fine dining. The challenge was doing it in a way that felt cohesive and soulful, not gimmicky like adding truffles to khichdi. 

To be honest, I didn’t think a meal at The Oberoi would be able to pull off this delicate balancing act. Five star hotels always work with a construct of luxury that is linked to the financial value rather than the value of time and rarity. But this meal broke the mould and created a meal that was luxury in a truest sense. It transported us to places and experiences that were unique, all through a meal on a plate.

Silkworm, jhol momo foam, tomato pitika bao

There were dishes that surprised us with the choice of ingredients like the silkworm cooked with butter and garlic, with an almost crustacean like texture, and served with jhol momo foam, and a stunning tomato Bao stuffed with tomato pitika. I’m half Assamese and this was probably the most extraordinary interpretation of traditional Assamese food, both tribal and plains peoples, that I’ve ever heard of or seen, let alone tasted. 

Pandi curry 

Then there were the dishes that dived deep into core flavours and tried to intensify and present the essence of it. Chef Anirban’s take on the pandi curry used North Eastern pork (which is much more flavourful than the pork in Coorg) and served it with a pandi curry sauce that blew our mind with how intensely flavourful it was. And there was a hilsa cooked using Japanese techniques and ingredients that I still can’t get my head around. Boneless Hilsa mousse, hilsa pickle , tempura crust, Lacto fermented hilsa eggs and ankake sauce. This is as Japanese as it gets except for the choice of fish. And yet it reminded me of the classic mustard ilish that Bengalis love so much. 

Ilish maach with Japanese ingredients 

But the highlight, the soul, the beating heart of this meal was the Vasudeva Kutumbatam. Chef Anirban actually spoke with the temple priests at the Jagannath temple in Puri to learn how they cooked two of the dishes from the temple’s legendary chappan bhog. The first dish was Karmabai Khichdi, a no onion no garlic Khichdi said to have been made by Jagannath Prabhus Godmother every morning at 8 am for Prabhu to start the day. The second was Ada pakhala, a simple sona vari rice dish cooked with ginger and green chilli in an absorption method. Both the dishes were cooked in clay pots over an open fire for hours with ghee. 

Karmabai khichdi

Ada pakhala 

This course felt like a spiritual experience, dishes filled with love and inspiration, with respect and Bhakti, dishes that filled me with gratitude, dishes that were an absolute privilege to eat. 

Truth is I don’t have words to do justice to this meal. The effort, the thought, the humility, the soul, the intelligence, the creativity, the imagination, the love.. everything that went into creating of this meal was reflected in the flavour, the emotion, the experience of what we ate. 

Bandel cheese cannelloni 

I know that the Oberoi group works with a bunch of legendary chefs like Vineet Bhatia for their high concept Indian formats. But this was food that is light years ahead of Ziya or most of the world’s most famous Indian chefs and restaurants. With all due respect to the legends of Indian cooking, this is an interpretation Indian food that only the likes of Prateek Sadhu and Manish Mehrotra can match in terms of quality of thought and execution.

Edible oyster shells with sea buckthorn pearls 

I urge the Oberoi hotels to seriously consider a restaurant that showcases this cooking. This is your answer to Avartana, waiting to happen, just better, much better. The Oberoi Hotels keeps winning awards for its hotels being among the best in the world. Isn’t it time one of your restaurants did so as well? 

The meal:

• 
  
  Tapioca 'musica' with black garlic with three dips: Thai teardrop chilli confit / Smashed tofu with Asutraluan fingerlime /Shillong grown foraged vegetables butter
• Smoked NorthEastern Pork with pandi curry sauce, Jasmine Rice kadumbuttu
• 
  
  Kuzu toast with pioppino mushrooms from green apron farm
• Silkworm cooked with butter and garlic, jhol momo foam and tomato pitika bao
• Goyna Dal Bori with tomato chokha
• Boneless Hilsa mousse cooked with Japanese flavours, hilsa pickle , tempura crust, Lacto fermented hilsa eggs and ankake sauce
• Roselle and beetroot cannelloni, romesco sauce and bandel cheese mousse
• Elephant Apple pate de fruit with tigafashi spiced black rice crisps
• 
  
  Naati chicken moussleine on truffle cured chicken breast, snowgarlic and leftover vegetable veloute
• Vasudeva Kutumbakam 
• Oyster shells with seabuckthorn pearls , valrohna chocolate mousse
• 
  
  White chocolate mousse stuffed olives with fingerlime