Venue: Good Earth City Center, Sector 50, Gurgaon
Date: 28 February, 2016

Ever expanding Gurgaon never fails to astonish. One drives past an open space and after a few months that area is confusingly different. Tucked almost at South City II, close to Sohna Road, we were surprised to spot this new shopping mall Good Earth City Centre on a hitherto open ground. This mall houses the resto-bar Ancient Barbeque on the second floor. They follow the Barbeque Nation/Pirates of the Grill concept – unlimited starters, Indian buffet main course and desserts.

The area is like a huge dining hall not cluttered with unnecessary walls and partitions. The decor is fuss free and the restaurant well lit. They have tables on the adjoining terrace as well.

When we went for lunch on a Sunday afternoon, it was heartening to see that almost all the tables were occupied and umpteen birthdays were being celebrated.

Coming to the food, we had a number of starters, both vegetarian and non vegetarian, some of which were grilled on the stove at the centre of the table. Unlike many other similar places, among the non vegetarian dishes they had quite a few fish and prawn based starters. We liked Lemon Garlic Prawns and Fish Orly a lot. Crispy Corns were also delicious.

The flip side is their starters are so filling (what with a couple of drinks) that one lands up skipping the main course. It would be great if they can think of some non fried starters that actually open up the taste buds and allow the diners to have the main course.

As a compromise, we skipped the breads and had Hyderabadi mutton Biryani with raita for the main course. For us, this was the climax. We had given up on Biryanis in Delhi NCR, especially the Hyderabadi variety, as it is invariably mouth burning spicy. But their Biryani was mild on spices and full of flavour. We loved every spoon that our appetite allowed us to have and would highly recommend it to all Biryani fans.

For desserts we had, amongst others, Gulab Jamun and Zafran Sewaiyaan. Sewaiyan was so good that notwithstanding a full tummy, we had a second helping of this dessert. We ended this delightful lunch with stick kulfi. This was great too. In fact, overall, everything was above average, no complaints from us.

Ancient Barbeque also has a Noida outlet, you could try them there too.