Venue: Connaught Place N Block Outer Circle
Date: 27 February 2017

Foodies in Delhi NCR have a reason to rejoice. Ardor 2.0 at Connaught Place is holding an ongoing Nawabi Food Festival to cater to the tastebuds of Delhiites for their much loved cuisine. We were invited for a sneak peak at the launch night and we attended this Nawabi Food Festival in presence of food bloggers and media channels like Aaj Tak and Hindustan Times. The star attraction of the evening was Masterchef India finalist Dinesh Patel who created his signature dishes in the presence of guests and media. Masterchef India contestants Dinesh Patel and Mirvaan Vinayak also dined with the guests.

Ardor 2.1 has an old world feel to it with dim lights and antique style furniture. The ambiance is conducive for some after work quiet dinner as well as a family get-together.

They have quite a few starters in their specially curated menu for Nawabi Food Festival. We loved Murg Shahi malai tikka, seek kebab and fish tikka and it went well with our cocktails madira e sultani and aam panna sharab. Another cocktail lota mojito literally came in a lota. Almost as big to serve a dal makhani, it was refreshing and very summer like. The cocktails were virtually devoid of alcohol and are suitable for teetotalers. If you want some hard kick with your food, you can order beer that is also there on the menu. For vegetarians they have starters like Paneer tikka, Brocolli nawabi phool and sabz khoya kaju tikki. The last one was fantastic and would be our recommended starter for vegetarians.

The maincourse items in the menu are also full-on Nawabi. Biryani, Nawabi subz pulao (Sweet n salty rice embellished with veggies and fruits), Kormas, Shahi dal makhni, tadka dal kaju tukda, there is something for everyone. We did miss not having some salad with the dishes. A salad would balance the heavy Mughali/North Indian food and add the much needed freshness and crunch of the veggies to meat items and fried starters.

We ended this Nawabi dinner with typical Indian desserts – Phirni, dal halwa and gajar halwa. All these dishes were divine.

What’s a nawabi dinner without some live music? Live ghazal singers performed some famous numbers from their list as well as on request from the guests. This musical performance enhanced our gourmet experience many folds.

We recommend Nawabi Food Festival at Ardor 2.1 to all Mughlai food fans.