THE MEDITERRANEAN ROUTE now has more flavours than ever. Afraa, the fine-dining restaurant and lounge in Salt Lake, has revamped their buffet menu offering more choices, adding more diversity to the unified shared tradition of the region. The new buffet menu that has a global appeal brings in flavours of Bengal, North India and China, and there are plans to introduce Anglo-Indian and French cuisines soon.
The buffet, apart from offering an array of salads and cold accompaniments, will satiate the foodie in you with soup, appetisers, a delectable selection of veg and non-veg recipes from the main section and, of course, dessert. We started off with the appetiser counters and were delighted with the ten options — five in each veg and non-veg section. The Crispy Fried Black Salt Babycorn was a surprise and Swarup Chatterjee, Chef de Cuisine credited the panko crumbs for the extra crunch. The black salt too added a zing to the babycorn. If you are a puchhka fan, you will love the variant available here at the veg counter, accompanied with five assorted flavoured water. From the non-veg spread, we sampled the Wok Tossed Fish n Chilli-Soy and enjoyed the spicy starter. Slices of thin crust pizza too slipped on our plate and later in our stomach. Ditching the salads that comprise four variants — mayo-based, dressing-based, green salad and grain superfood based — we headed straight to the main course. Among the vegetarian spread, we tasted Baked Vegetable Lasagna that melted in our mouth. Later, we paired steamed rice with the spicy Paneer Handi and Kasmiri Aloo Dum, treating our taste buds to the traditional recipes from Northern India. If you want more on your plate then you can opt for Mutton Biryani or Mixed Veg Pulao for another round of Indian culinary magic. Grilled Fish with Lemon Butter Sauce with its succulent fish and mild piquant sauce teased our taste buds further before we decided to dedicate time and space to desserts.
Certainly spoilt for choice, on recommendation, we settled with Molten Lava Cake and enjoyed every ounce of the chocolaty dessert. However, the ice-cream counter with eight different toppings was successful in enticing us and we succumbed to the strong appeal of blueberry and raspberry sauce, calling it a day with vanilla ice-cream.
At `899 ++. The buffet is open from 12.30 pm to 3 pm (Monday to Saturday) and from 12.30 to 3.30 pm on Sundays.