Venue: Sector 56, Gurgaon
Date: 22 July 2016

Gurgaon is home to some of the best buffets in NCR. We have been big fans of buffets brunches at Spectra, The Leela and Radisson Blu  in Gurgaon.  We recently had the opportunity to try another buffet place – Asia Alive at DoubleTree by Hilton Gurgaon and we went for an early dinner.

The decor was easy on eyes, seats spacious and the overall vibe relaxed. One can take their own sweet time to try out various options the restaurant has to offer. Going by the name Asia Alive, one may expect a lot of Pan Asian dishes in the spread, though make no mistake, they offer continental and Italian along with Thai and Vietnamese dishes. In fact a lot of items were Indian and a melange of dishes from other parts of the world that North Indians love.

We had a look around the spread and loved the fact that they have a separate section for weight watchers… low fat cheese, exotic veggies and herbs, perfect to make a nice and nutritious salad. In fact we loved the soup and salad spread the most. The soup station had two types of broth and a host of veggies and meat to choose from. We opted for Soto Ayam – An Indonesian chicken stock with lemongrass. This customized seafood soup was fresh, colorful and slightly tangy.

The starters were mostly Indian – a mix of chicken tikkas and veg/non veg kebabs. Though we liked these, they lacked uniqueness.  In fact the Indian main course was also typically north Indian fair – dal, shahi paneer, chicken/mutton in gravy, pulao, naan breads etc. The Indian cuisine was toned down in terms of spice and flavors probably to suit the taste buds of expat diners.

We liked the Green Thai curry with rice much better than their Indian spread. It was fresh, flavorful, sweet and spicy… very Thai.

From dessert section we had strawberry cheesecake, dal halwa and tiramisu. We liked these but their “Bread and butter pudding” overshadowed all the other desserts. It was gooey, yummy in a warm and comforting way.

We ended our dinner with cups of latte and cappuccino. This was awesome coffee with right amount of brew and kick of caffeine. We loved the customization of adding our names on top of the froth. That was cute and put smiles on our faces.