Date: 18-29 July 2018
Venue: Crowne Plaza, Mayur Vihar

We thought we had seen it all, done it all in the food segment. Bingo – there was an invitation from Crowne Plaza, Mayur Vihar for an Indonesian Fiesta on the table. Now this was new! The good chef Diwas Wadhera wanted variety for his regular diners and decided to give an Indonesian twist to their buffet. We were all excitement as to how this would go.

The restaurant Infinity is on the ground floor of the hotel. Soft colours, high ceilings, clean lines and no particular regional décor made it indeed a neutral space to enjoy a meal. Also, we found the waiters friendly and accommodating. While paying attention to our requirements they did not hover on the table. This was such a relief.

The menu curated for us comprised starters, soup, main course and dessert. South Asian food particularly in the Malaysia Indonesia zone involves a lot of frying. To that end it is similar to Indian style of cooking. Also, we share the love for spices with cuisine from this part of the world. The starters involving fried shrimps and spring rolls in Indonesian style had fair amount of spices. A very good thing about all the dishes was that they came with a serving of salad and sambal – a hot relish made from a variety of ingredients. This helped to balance the taste, flavour and nutrition in the dish.

The main course comprised of pan-seared sole and mee goreng, fried rice with South Asian twist.  The fried fish was a piece of beauty. It had been seared to perfection and the crispy skin added to the texture. This dish in our opinion was the king.

It was Indonesian till here. But Chef was very flexible and also offered risotto to just change our palate. The salmon risotto was cooked to perfection and it what we needed to take a break from the spices in Indonesian cuisine. But only for a while because the dessert again was Indonesian – black bean pudding along with balls made of sticky rice coated with desiccated coconut. The whole desert was a new explosion of tastes in our mouth. The bean pudding, in a beautiful shade of violet, was little hard and we could feel the texture in our mouth. In combination with the coconut sweet, it satiated our sugar craving. This dessert was on the whole mild and sat very well after the heavy dinner.

Talking about desserts, we could not resist and tasted some items from their regular buffet. The caramel pudding with its egg-butter fused flavours, was a hero and so were the dry cakes. We finished our dinner with coffee. Do try their cappuccino and latte. Our experience with coffee at five stars hasn’t been too great but the fantastic coffee was a pleasant surprise. The caffeine kick was bang on with just the necessary kick we needed for the long drive back home.

To sum it up, the affair was Indonesian at the core but moderated to local tastes. Sometimes South Asian flavours can be challenging for us Indians to relish. Hence, while the Indonesian buffet at Crowne Plaza saw a generous use of pandan leaves, lemon grass, kafir lime and galangal, there was no smell that would put us off. The cuisine was something which was not completely alien to us and yet nice and fresh.

In case you want to have a new culinary experience this glorious monsoon weekend we do suggest the Indonesian buffet at Crowne Plaza Mayur Vihar on till July 29, 2018.