Paying an ode to the most glorious days of our lives, The Classroom is a restaurant that would surely take you for a walk down the memory lane. By Team Viva
We all still have that child somewhere in us and also the numerous memories of school days. And sometimes in this fast paced life, that’s one place we seek revisiting the most. The Classroom at sector 29, Gurugram, definitely helps in reliving those moments and refreshes our most cherished memories. As you enter, the first thing that hits you is nostalgia, as the name suggests the restaurant decor is around classroom. We were transported back in time to the school going days and that itself was the most pleasant feeling.
Interesting snippets and photographs adorn the walls. The classroom effect is very much visible in the decor right from blackboards with some amusing messages to the books used as lampshades, very innovative really. They even have a recreation zone complete with snooker, foosball, darts, and even few swings.
After walking around the Classroom, we settled down for our meals. The restaurant has a really exhaustive menu both for food and beverages. We started with the palak patta chaat. Crisp fried spinach well mixed with yoghurt, sweet saunth and green mint chutney. There was no excessive chutney poured as the topping which kept the spinach crisp for a longer duration. Next on our table was veg biryani arancini with peanut salan dip and tomato chutney. The rice was cooked in mild Indian spices covered with bread crumbs and deep fried. The covering of the crumbs was crunchy but we found it tad low on flavours as the dips didn’t complement the arancini balls. Since the rice was already cooked in mild spices, we supposed the dips would be more spiced up. However, the dish was not much impressive.
The restaurant has four in-house brews. We opted for a wheat beer. The beer needed much improvement as the competition in the vicinity is very high. Nevertheless, the food makes up for it.
We continued our meals with The Classroom maska chicken served with a rumali, a nicely done tandoori butter chicken in an innovative style. The chicken, marinated well in spices, had a prominent flavour of mint chutney. Yes that’s right. The chicken was grilled to perfection and was served shining by the melted butter poured on it. The chicken was succulent and the taste of butter with each bite of the dish made us want to have more of it. However, the rumali roti seemed not necessary with the chicken. Moving on, we ordered for the steamed version of vegetarian momos. The momos were average and were served along with sweet chutney. The combination didn’t work well for us.
Next we had the Andhra chicken which was mildly spiced but with the right coastal flavours. The juicy pieces of chicken were marinated with tangy and hot spices and the tomato and coconut milk in the curry with lemon juice and poppy seeds were well cooked to neutralise the spiciness of the chicken. Comfort food as childhood, that’s the metaphor at play here.