Review: Relish a delicious spread of the Middle Eastern cuisine at Taj Krishna’s The Souk Experience

Over the past few years, Taj Krishna’s Encounters has been synonymous with delicious food and chic ambience. As summer sets in, the fine-dining restaurant is hosting a week-long food festival, The Souk Experience, serving the best of Middle East cuisine. Curated by Chef Simon Chakour, the special menu offers mezze platter, three main course options and desserts. We made our way to the plush hotel to sample the menu. 

To beat the heat, we sipped on a glass of fresh watermelon juice, as we spotted the cold mezze platter making its way to our table. We first tried the hot pita bread with Muhammara — fiery red pepper with walnuts is served with pistachio dip brought all the way from Beirut. The Moutabel was one of our favourites from the platter, courtesy the smoothness with a subtle yet detectable hint of olive oil and sesame.

Among the other appetisers, we loved the Falafel (fried chickpea, garlic and onion nuggets), Cheese Fatayers (oven baked bread pockets filled with cheese) and Kibbe (Syrian preparation of deep-fried lamb and cracked wheat shells filled with meat and pine nuts). The star of the meal, however, was the Chicken Shawarma — small pieces of moist chicken, fresh tomatoes, onions, lettuce and a delicious garlic sauce in a soft pita wrap. 

From the main course, we opted for Lamb Tagine with Roz d Feen (mint and chickpea pilaf). Although the rice variety is plain with a little hint of mint, the mildly spicy preparation of lamb with lime, olives and saffron sauce adds flavour. Vegetarians can pair their pilaf with Vegetable Tagine. 

We chose to round off our meal with the traditional sweet from the Middle East, Baklava and scrumptious dates topped with almonds. The liberally sweetened diamond-shaped pieces with pistachio and nuts had us going for seconds.

Buffet at Rs.1,550 per person. 
Till March 11.