It’s no secret that we at Indulge absolutely love chef Shubham Thakur and the magic he creates at his award-winning Delhi-based restaurant Megu by The Leela. It should come as no surprise therefore when we find it almost impossible to skip his pop-ups when he visits Bengaluru. This time around, the chef along with our own chef Shishir Rai presented Elegant Omakase at The Lotus Oriental (at The Leela Bhartiya City Bengaluru) and we ensured we freed up our schedules of everything to go sample his offerings.
We’re always amazed at how chef Shubham manages to tease our tastebuds with new creations always exploding with flavour, yet reminiscent of something he’s created before. A familiarity within an absolute new experience, what a heady indulgence! Can you blame us for being hooked? Anyway, niceties apart, we sat down in a corner — cause we don’t like to be bothered while we savour every bite — and the first dish to arrive was the amouse bouche, an old favourite; Shira Ae. With pressed spinach, tofu and sesame sauce, this Shubham signature never grows old. Also, it’s just so pretty!
We quickly moved on to two carpaccios — Tofu Carpaccio and Yellowtail (Hamachi) Carpaccio, the former served with a ginger ponzu and the latter with a daikon oroshi sauce. Now, carpaccio’s are chef Shubham’s thing. He’s never gone wrong with them and on a hot summer’s night, nothing could have been more refreshing and welcoming. Oh! And he aced it again! Keeping up with the indulgent raw foods, we were then served two tartars — Avocado Tartar with ginger soy and Salmon Tartar with tosazu soy. The fact that we were done with the dish, plates clean in less than five minutes stands testament to the flavours and quality of these two treats. Also, avocado anything and we’re sold! That said, have you been ever able to refuse anything made with king salmon?
We then quickly moved to a tataki course and the two options were the Peruvian Asparagus Tataki and the Tuna Tataki, both paired with a yuke sauce. For once, we were slightly disappointed with the asparagus, but the tuna delivered. Hearts broken, the next dish absolutely made up for it. We chose to only try the veg version in this course and we were thankful. The Rock Corn, or corn tempura in a togarashi mayonnaise was simple, texturally so different from everything else served that night and was the perfect way to take us into the next course, which was also heralded by a vegetarian presentation. This time, chef Shubham went miso-sexy on us and served us two variants — Miso Eggplant and Miso Seabass. The eggplant was grilled and served with a sweet miso sauce, benishoga and scallions; and reminded us why this vegetable is such a favourite across the world. The Chilean seabass was served with a yuzu miso sauce, a wakame salad and hajikame; and was sweet and succulent, just how fish should always be.
With our stomachs now quite full, we were happy we only had one more course to sample and we decided to wrap up our meal with the Mushroom Battera Sushi and a Toro Negi Battera Sushi. Leaving the best for the last, as always, chef Shubham showed us his craft by presenting this uncommon sushi format and both versions were perfection in a single flavour-packed bite! We decided to skip dessert, but to be honest, a presentation like this by chef Shubham often leaves you wanting to savour those umami notes for a bit longer. So, as we did just that and fell back into our chairs, satisfied and how!
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