With comfortable seating area and music for a cosy evening, Penthouse in the heart of the GK offers a range of dishes from hearty cuisines of the west, east and home. Riya Sharma checks it out
located in the hub of the N block Greater Kailash market, Penthouse is easy to find out but not figure out the way leading to it. As the place is situated on the second floor, the guard politely referred to us the way going towards the place. While walking the stairs, there was a vibe of entering into a fine and cosy cafe which to our ‘not surprised’ expression looked exactly the same. Once you enter, the place looks small having everything one might want to have for a perfect evening except space.
As we sat down on a comfortable leather couch, we had a quick glance of the place. Music - check, comfy sofas - check, bar - check, smoking area - check and some antiques just to add more vintage look to the whole area. The lights were really dim as we actually had to ask the manager to lighten them more, to which he in fact agreed.
After the decor inspection, it was time for us to get into the real business of eating.The menu is divided into three sections- from the West, East and Home. “As this is a Penthouse, we did not want to stick to only one cuisine. To give a a bit of everything, we chose this division,” said Franklin james, the manager.
From the east, we ordered pan seared tofu which came loaded with the toppings of bell peppers, spring onions added on the tofu. “These are mixed with a fusion sauce of sweet soya sauce which takes the bitterness of a usual soya sauce,” shared Pradip Jugran, the chef.
The next thing that we ordered from the west section was the mushroom croquettes and they actually looked like cheese balls, fried and crisp from the outside and really soft from inside. Served with a panada sauce, which is made from the mixture of butter, flour ad milk, the sauce was served in a shape of small gems. “We add chopped mushrooms, garlic and onions with a perfect proportion of cheese in it andfinally we fry it, that is how we get our mushroom croquettes,” added the chef.
As we wanted to try something from the home menu, we triedpaneer tikka satay. It was same as any chicken satay would be and the chef told us, “We make paneer tikka marination in the same way as we make tikkas. We take cubes of paneer, tomatoes, capsicum and onions and cook it in satay stick.”
Amid all the tasting and lovely music, we got to know from the manager that the place has a terrace seating to offer as well. As we requested to have a look, the manager took us to the terrace area, which to our surprise had a better seating area as compared to where we were seated. “The work here is almost done and we are only waiting for MCD’s approval,” told us the manager.
To utilise the time that we had given for our terrace viewing, meantime we had already ordered our main course. We had orient thai curry(vegeterian), they have non- veg as well. It was a plate full of vegetables chopped well and mixed with curry. The curry tasted similar like any of the manchurian gravy which was served well with right amount of freshly cooked rice. To try chicken, we went with chicken steak which wasn’t anything extraordinary but it was fresh and not anything new for the taste buds.
To end our evening on a sweet note, we experimented and rather than going with the usual ‘safe’ option like molten chocolate, decided to have wine poached pears. It came in a mocktail glass, where red wine was dripping in from the pieces of a pear. We could taste the wine and flavour of cinnamon in between every piece of pear we had. “We use sula wine, we take out the pears,peel them, and cook it in poached wine water,” concluded Jugran.