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Photos By:: Adil Arora
 Around the turn of millennium, if you talked about sushi and sashimi at social gatherings you would be invariably given a disgusted look and the words “raw fish- yuck”!! But the Delhi diner has come a long way since then, primarily due to the travel bug which has bitten most middle class Indians with a vengeance. This exposure through travel to world cuisines has had a trickle-down effect on our Capital city which now boasts a host of eateries offering Far Eastern cuisines. (Delhi Wine Club which has been a leader in experimentation with new cuisines with diverse wines had of course, organized a few dinners at Sakura, the then top-rated Japanese Restaurant of Delhi, as early as 2004).
One of the first in the trade to recognize the potential of Japanese and other Oriental cuisines was a young chef called Vikram Khatri who immediately after graduation from Bangalore chose to work with the expat Japanese Sushi chefs at the Nikko Metropolitan Hotel (as it was known then) which had opened Sakura, the Capital’s first Japanese restaurant. Nine years of learning how to slice, sear and do other magical things with seafood from the expert Chef Nakamura and followed by a stint in Sydney, the Mecca of seafood and Chef Vikram was picked up by the successful serial  restaurateur AD Singh to start Ai in the City Select Mall.
Ai had a very successful run for a couple of years purveying value for money Japanese cuisine, plenty of awards and recognition rolled in but sadly it had to close down to move location. Last year, it reopened in the avatar of Guppy by Ai in Lodhi Colony market – the latest and hottest location for a dining outlet. Ever since Guppy by Ai opened, our Club President Subhash Arora has been very keen to have a wine dinner there but somehow for logistical and other reasons it kept getting postponed till a date of April 7th was finally announced for the 225th event of the Club.
Subhash had a tough task in front of him. Unlike European/Mediterranean cuisines which are amenable to virtually the entire wine spectrum, Japanese food on the other hand needs wines to accentuate the focus on the subtleties in the food. So a lot of big flavour-driven and highly tannic wines like the Cab Sauv or a Shiraz find themselves a bit out of step with Far Eastern cuisine. Subhash’s palette of choice was further limited by the Club policy to source the wines for our wine dinners from one importer only in order to minimize logistical issues.
 The four wines chosen by Subhash for the evening were Prosecco Cardinal Treviso Brut DOC (Veneto), Argento Pinot Grigio (Argentina), Carpineto Dogajolo Bianco (Tuscany) and Kressmann Solo Merlot (Bordeaux). I had neither tried nor heard of these labels so I did view the selection with a bit of suspicion –the DOC of the Prosecco notwithstanding. But I was proved wrong – the selection was very enjoyable and married very well with food the Chef dished out. It was here really that one realizes the unspoken value of having such a knowledgeable guy like Subhash as our President as frankly it is the wine list that sets the tone for the evening and putting it together and matching it with the strengths of the chef is an art not many have developed, let alone perfected.
A good sign as one walked into Guppy by Ai with its kitschy pop art décor was the fact that the restaurant had taken care to chill our wines correctly – these small touches make a vast difference. There are few pleasures that beat a chilled flute of Prosecco greeting you on a warm summer evening. The Cardinal Treviso was a shining example of the produce of the Veneto region and proved to be an excellent crisp drink with a pronounced fresh mouth of apples. It was indeed very popular with our members and luckily Subhash had ample supplies on hand and for a change the Prosecco stocks did not exhaust during the aperitif session.
The pass-around snacks were plentiful and varied, ranging from rice paper rolls to rock corn tempura, two types of sushi rolls, edamame pods with sea salt and tenderloin tataki which was the pass-around that I thought was the best – soft, juicy and succulent. To do a tenderloin tataki with Indian tenderloin means you have to be 100% sure of the quality of the meat and I think Chef Vikram has found a good tenderloin supplier.
On to the sit-down section of the evening where, with last minute acceptances, we were a full house with the overflow spilling into the bar section. It’s good to have such support from our members as the most ideal situation for us is to be able to generate enough numbers to book out a restaurant in its entirety as that suits our learning experience cum dinner model the best.
The Argento Pinot Grigio, which was served along with a clear mushroom soup, was a young and understated version of a Pinot Grigio. A straw coloured dry wine with some pineapple on the tongue, this Argentinian product lacked the fruity nose and body so typical of Italian Pinot Grigios.
 The second white of the evening, though just an IGT classification, the Carpineto Dogajolo Bianco 2012 was definitely a couple of notches further up the taste and overall quality charts. The 40% Chardonnay component gave the wine its fruity aromas, the 30% Sauvignon Blanc the crispness and acidity and the 30% Grechetto a nice smooth finish. The Dogajolo was an excellent companion to Chef Vikram’s signature dish of Miso Blackened Cod. The miso marinade added a sweetness to the silky and buttery taste of the cod. Simply and elegantly presented, the dish highlighted two of Chef Vikram’s guiding principles – keep it simple and use the best ingredients.
As there was a red wine, the Kressmann Solo Merlot, to follow I decided to also sample another of Chef Vikram’s signature dishes – the soy honey Pork Belly served with a miso mustard sauce. The dish was decadently rich with the fat just melting in the mouth- the mellow Merlot was a good choice as it didn’t overshadow the pork.
An assortment of sweet goodies like cakes and brownies rounded off a really enjoyable meal on a truly sweet note. Our thanks to some truly great effort put in by Chef Khatri and his team in the kitchen to give our members a glimpse of his talents which got him the 2010 HT City Chef of the Year award.
During dinner at our table, an interesting point of debate came up – why shouldn’t we think of having a Japanese dinner complemented by an assortment of Japanese Sakes or rice wines. After all, this line of thinking reasoned, we are a Wine Club and it shouldn’t matter if the wine is made from grapes or from rice!! What say you to that? I say Ai!!!
Arun Batra
Arun Batra is a Delhi based food and wine enthusiast and a long-time member of the Delhi Wine Club
Tags: Chef Vikram Khatri’s, Guppy by Ai |