| Photos By:: Adil Arora
 After three excellent wine dinners centered on French cuisine, members of the Delhi Wine Club were looking forward to the January wine dinner at the highly acclaimed Thai restaurant at the Radisson Blu on Highway NH-8, near the airport. However the Government had other ideas. Out of the blue, a blanket ban on import of food items was imposed due to some customs related issues, ostensibly as the elections were being held in Delhi in early December. Not only did it send the menus of scores of specialty restaurants dependent on authentic imported ingredients into an orbit but for us it meant that a lot of essential herbs and spices peculiar to Thai cuisine also went off the market.
Though our dinner was scheduled for December 23, almost three weeks after the elections, the current tussle with the customs department meant that there was no certainty that normal imported ingredients would be available in time. The pragmatic and pro-active F&B Director of the Radisson, Sumit Bansal suggested an alternative venue to President Subhash Arora with whom he had been coordinating for the last several months.
 The idea of shifting to The Great Kabab Factory appealed to our Club President. It had been a while since we had paired Indian food at our wine dinners. All the more inviting was the offer by Sumit Bansal to allow us the use of the Savanna Bar for our aperitif section of the evening, assuring us a four piece band at no extra cost. It was indeed an offer we couldn’t refuse!!
The Savanna Bar is probably one of the most unknown and under rated watering holes in the Capital city – its bar must be one of the longest in the city, the seating is plentiful and there is great atmosphere with the band playing. Members were offered chilled flutes of Marchesi De Frescobaldi Danzante Prosecco on arrival – the Danzante, a DOC from the Veneto region, is one of my favourite sparkling wines. It is smooth yet crisp on the palate and beautifully balanced. I found it equally matching up to the superlative Peshawari Murg Tikkas and the Shammi Kababs –in fact I had to restrain myself, keeping in mind the whopping line up Subhash had planned for us for later.
After Subhash’s introductory remarks, we strolled across the lobby to the Great Kabab Factory (TGKF)– a large airy glass fronted eatery with a bank of open kitchens manned by chefs supervising industrial quantities of chicken, mutton ,fish and assorted vegetables through the barbeque process. It was a Monday night but the place was full, which in Delhi, is quite an achievement; Sumit had go out of his way to reserve the prime tables for the DWC members.
 Pairing wines with Indian food is not an easy job given the mélange of spices and flavouring agents used in our foods. Red wines with a lot of heavy tannin are not very Indian food-friendly, and the same is true of heavily oaked whites. The spices in our foods not only numb the palate but also tend to amplify the tannic, oaky character of these wines thereby knocking out any subtlety or nuance in the wine .
However this time Subhash did things differently when it came to pairing the wines. He decided to make the evening more interactive by organising three wines-white, rose and a red-all the three wines at the same time and letting the members decide which wine worked best for them with a particular dish. It also simplified the serving process leaving the staff to concentrate on plying us with unending platters of food.
We had barely sat down when TGKF fired their first salvo with the melt- in- the mouth Galouti Kababs with the Ulta Tawa Paratha and followed them up in quick succession with some Nimbu Hari Mirch Murg Tikkas, the Kokum and Curry leaf flavoured Fish tikkas and the Khatte Mirch ke Jhingey – all done to perfection and accompanied by excellent chutneys- the tomato- garlic- raii was outstanding.
I found the Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling Columbia Valley – a light bodied American Riesling from Washington State- to have a nose of apple and lemony, peachy flavour mingle with reasonable acidity. Though not an ideal match, it still went better with the white meats than did the Rose- the Beachouse Rose, a South African 100% Pinotage from the Western Cape. The Rose was a tad heavy with its 13% alcohol content and went better with the Mutton Barra Kababs as did the Montes Star Angel Syrah.
 A break for a sorbet and then the procession from the kitchen continued in the form of a Yakhni Pulao accompanied by a Bhunna Murgh and a rich Paneer Mirch. Interestingly, I found the Montes Star Angel to be a great accompaniment to the black Factory Daal and khadak rotis! Most members by now were more than satiated but more was yet to come in the form of a range of Indian sweets in the form of hot crisp jalebis with rabri , some rasmalai and a couple of other dishes I just didn’t have the space for !
No doubt about it that the variety of food under our noses that evening was simply mind boggling but the best part of it was the uniformly high quality – something very difficult to do when churning out such gargantuan amounts of food to serious eaters. Our member Lavina Karkhwal ravished about the delicious finger licking food whilst Arun Dang was very impressed with versatility of the chef’s tandoori marinades. It was a unanimous refrain that after a long time it was an evening where the food overshadowed the wine.
 The food service was traditionally Indian with the waiting staff treating every one of us as a baraati from the groom side and a VIP guest. They just won’t take no for answer and kept on exhorting us all to try and try more of the kebabs and rest of the dishes.
It was only towards the end of the evening when the chefs led by the Executive Chef Srinivasan, came out of the kitchens to accept a loud and heartfelt accolade from our members did we realize we had a TV celebrity chef cooking for us that evening. Whilst most of us were lazing around in a well fed stupor, an eagle eyed Arvinda Arora instantly recognised Indian Master Chef Merajul Haque in the chef’s line up. Chef Merajul had appeared on a couple of episodes representing India in the Indo-Pak food face- off and won valuable points for India.
 Our thanks to Sumit Bansal for organizing a dinner of truly gastronomic proportions and we look forward to our next wine dinner also at the Radisson at their Thai restaurant Nueng Roi– the customs people at the Delhi Airport permitting!
Arun Batra
Arun Batra is a Delhi based food and wine enthusiast and a long-time member of the Delhi Wine Club Gallery Menu |