As Smoke House Deli launches its new health menu, executive chef Shamsul Wahid shares with Riya Sharma that they spent several months pairing healthy ingredients from all over the world to curate this menu
How many times have you cheated on your diet only to savour and gorge on a lipsmacking, sumptuous mealIJ Every time, the result however has been the same — you compromise on your diet and health to get a piece of a chocolatey dessert or a meal that is full on calories.
But guess what, Smoke House Deli is all set change the notion of eating out and then feeling guilty about it. As they launch their health menu, they aim to take out the ‘guilt’ associated with eating out and replace that with a feeling of wholesomeness. Their executive chef Shamsul Wahid has curated a menu including a six course meal, with options available in vegetarian as well as non vegetarian to savour the taste-buds. So, now you can have a delicious meal following your health chart, without even thinking about cheating on your diet.
The menu has an abundance of meals and dishes suitable for health-conscious diners of all kinds. There are vegan and gluten-free dishes and also those that hold trans-fat and dairy.
Recently at a chef’s table, the chef prepared some of the dishes from his new menu. He completely agreed with us when he said that when we think of healthy food, we tend to assume it as boring and bland (which was not the case here).
“There’s a certain kind of food that is traditionally associated with words like nutrition and health, and they tend not to be very appetising,” shared the chef. He added, “In that regard, creating a health menu which was both nutritionally rewarding and delicious was no less than a challenge for us at the restaurant. I would like to share that it involved several months of research and development. The choice of ingredients was especially important as we kept the various needs that our guests may have while preparing the menu. We spent months pairing healthy ingredients from all over the world to arrive at a great tasting healthy menu that one can enjoy with absolutely no guilt.”
We started with mocktails, and keeping the summer weather in mind ordered the mocktail — Moremelons. The mocktail served with a lot of ice and melon juice was what all of us need to beat the scorching heat. The drink, needless to say with its fruity flavour, did wonders not only to our taste-buds but can be relished without thinking of added flavours.
Next, we tried the tomato millet risotto with chicken. We all have had different kind of risotto but this one with millets, made it extra special and, of course, healthy. One thought that crossed our mind while trying this one was that, all health-conscious people wouldn’t have to compromise on taste while eating rice free risotto.
Along with this, we tried the jerk spice chicken with red rice and millets. The chicken was roasted and the top layer tasted cooked to the right temperature as we took a slice of it. The red rice and millets complemented well with the chicken, a combination which we would not usually think of trying. “With the new health menu, the restaurant is giving diners an alternative lifestyle choice in the form of a delicious yet balanced menu with ample choice,” said Riyaaz Amlani, founder of Impresario.
With this, came our gluten-free dessert for the evening. We tried the chocolate fudge and cacao nib and nachni cheese cake which came together but in two dofferet pieces, one was our evergreen chocolate and the other one being the cheesecake. The taste seemed perfectly fine, not too sweet, we would say. And, it actually made us not feel the guilt at all as we gorged on it without thinking about the extra calories.