One-month-old West Side Story is garnering much hype owing to its eclectic menu boasting authentic Western dishes along with their Indianised versions. Shrabasti Mallik samples the fare
There are perhaps a gazillion places in the city where you head for a quick bite or catch up with friends over a hale and hearty meal. But if you happen to have a group with each one having a strong preference to a certain kind of cuisine, the list narrows down drastically. Only a handful provides the world on a platter as we know it and the latest addition to the list is West Side Story, at Rajouri Garden. Well, the name is self explanatory — the menu largely boasts of western cuisine with a few eastern delicacies to balance the west overload. You name it — Italian, Burmese, Spanish, Thai — and the menu will have it (it’s almost as thick as those small textbooks we had in school).
Apart from the swanky interiors what took us by surprise was discovering that a woman chef ruled the kitchen, something we have not often come across often. Chef Amrita Mukherjee introduced herself with a welcome drink called the green eyed monster, made of green apple with a hint of lemon, which can be quite a relief if you walk in on a summer sultry day. But if you want something really tantalising we suggest their mango spice, which is whipped up using raw mango extracts in which Tabasco sauce and chat masala is added to lend it a spicy taste, very uncommon for a drink, we have to say.
It was after a long time that we decided to start our meal with a soup and went ahead with the smoked chicken, corn and Manipuri raja, mircha chowder soup, dodging past the usual sweet corns and tomato options. We were impressed with the creaminess of the soup, not a piece or shred of chicken touched our tongue. But what left an aftertaste was a mild spicy-tingly feeling. The chef told us that the taste comes from the Manipuri raja, which is a variety of chilli found in Manipur where it is calledbhut jolokia. “The creaminess is the puree sweet corn which we add into the soup which we finish up with cream,” she added.
What followed next was unique in a way because it is not everyday that you get to have a cold and hot salad in one helping. The ranch salad, consisting of fried chicken and salad, that we tried was in every way simple in their individual ways but together, it was one dish we would recommend meat lovers. “We wanted to come up with something unique. Fried chicken gives the crunchy feeling instead of soggy and when you have it with a helping of the salad, it gives a very different taste to the palate,” said chef Mukherjee.
We sampled a portion of the place’s Indian take on the classic Italian pizza, too. The mushroom rara pizza would definitely be favoured by the veggie lovers. It is one of chef’s special creations because she felt that her first preference of paneer makhani pizza is quite popular and is served in several places. Fish lovers, on the other hand, would truly relish the jaitaoni fish tikka (marinated with jaitaoni or black olives) and chicken lovers can smoothly dig into the Thai curry chickentikka (marination of Thai green curry paste, coconut milk, cream, yoghurt and ginger-garlic paste).
For the main course we opted for a simple combination of the Burmese curry and steamed rice. And it is a must try for those in love with simple curries. This coconut-based curry is a fusion of the Thai curry. “Coconut is a main ingredient used in Burma, Thai and Indonesian cuisine. We have used a lot of curry powder (which explains the distinct Indian taste),” said the chef. What lingered in our mouth long after was the taste of the brown onion and roasted garlic which added a slight punch.
The chef told us, “We have put multi cuisine to suit the palate. We have twisted many north Indian dishes like we have butter chicken spring roll, pickled paneertikka and chickentikka is favorite amongst Punjabi’s so we have tweaked with Thai cuisine and serving Thai curry chicken tikka. There are many other dishes which we have tweaked, modernised and are unique at West Side Story.”