Have you ever faced a situation where the new plan you’ve devised is seen as barking mad by your own team? Chef Mathangi Kumar found herself staring at a similar predicament when she decided to change 80 per cent of The Mayflower’s menu.
Indeed, when the menu you are used to gets changed, cooks seldom are comfortable with it right from the get-go. Nonetheless, Mathangi has steamed ahead with her plans, literally.
“They thought ‘this woman is crazy’ when they saw the new dishes I had devised. But all that changed when they went ahead and started making the dishes,” Mathangi tells us.
So, what’s new at the popular diner on Kasturi Rangan road? Well, Mathangi has added new sections for dimsums and dumplings, fromage, pasta, sourdough pizza and more and all of this seems to be a hit among the diners, for the house was packed when we arrived at the place.
The moment we dig into the Classic Vegetable Dumplings, we realise why, for the dish with the khao suey curry, peanuts, roasted garlic and fried onions is bloody delicious! Equally good were the Crystal Dumplings with cream cheese and water chestnut aided by chilli oil.
But the next dish made the experience even better, for it was a twisted take on Chennai’s very own Milagai Bajji. Stuffed with cream cheese and cheddar, the bajji was deep fried to perfection and the spicy aioli it is served with made the dish all the better. Definitely a must try.
We also tried the Crispy Lotus Stem and Cacio e pepe, both of which were lip-smacking. The dish with the Spaghetti was as simple as a freshly picked blueberry and was as tasty as well. Crushed black pepper and parmesan cheese with the pasta is all it is made of and if you like cream sauce, this mildly spicy dish is the one to go for.
Of course, there is pizza for those who can’t live without it. La Tasca was the one we tried and it was another dish which made us brim with joy. It had Alfredo sauce, mixed mushrooms, artichoke, caramelised onion, spinach, toasted walnuts and goat cheese and was a blast in our mouth.
There are loads more dishes on offer, but one can’t have more than a specified quantity, despite willfully breaching the ceiling, no matter how much he/she tries. We really wanted to give the Sichuan Salt and Pepper Wings and the Fried Chicken Burger a go, but ran out of tummy space. That Chocolate and Raspberry cake, although rather tempting, was out of bounds as well. There’s always next time, eh!
All of the dishes we tried were deliberately made different, so as to not follow the usual trend, chef Mathangi tells us. If being different can be this delicious, bring it on, we say!
INR 195 onwards. At Poes Garden, Alwarpet.
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