After those team meetings and project installations coagulating
to gift a day with depressing work load at office, I was all set to drive down
some 20 kms pushing the sticky city traffic to a place where I was exceedingly
excited to be invited. And after entering into that place which seemed to be
the true ‘sanjivani booti’ I was waiting for and after receiving that rather
loud welcome from my fellow bloggers and food reviewers I was feeling all
refreshed and ready for that amazing food tasting session!
I was warmly
welcomed by the hosts and was asked to take a seat which was imperative for my
tired soul. This event was a Bloggers’ Meet hosted by Thinkquisitive at Palazzo
named ‘TQ Kolkata Bloggers’ Meet’ and I was rather privileged to be there
sharing the thoughts, ideas as well as puns and jokes with other fellow
bloggers and foodies! This was an awesome initiative for bringing in the
bloggers together for such an event which was supported by Uber as the Travel
partner and Kaos as the Sweetness partner.
Now let us come to the venue which is one of the best club
lounges I have been to in last few months. And I am sure this is one of a kind
in this area. It is there on the busy Burdwan Road (though somewhat hidden) beside
the Talwakar Gym. The place has got valet parking, so I didn’t have to worry
much about that chapter. The entrance is not that big or elaborate, but when
you step in and walk through the nicely decorated artsy alley, with lovely
framed paintings on the wall and with that ornate well-lit ceiling décor you
are bound to get the feel that you are at the right place! And then when you open
that heavy door to step into the lounge you will surely feel the kick to live
the night to the fullest. The classy interior décor with the DJ churning out some
awesome music that’s playing loud, making your tired soul to leave right away
through that door! You get some amazing cocktails, hookah and food at this
place that is sure to help you unwind and rejuvenate. This is one ideal party
location where you can bring in your friends or loved ones who enjoy clubbing.
This place also boasts of a huge screen just on the wall
close to the comfy couches where you can chill and relax sipping your favorite
drink while watching live sports. The dimly lit ambiance prevails throughout
this place except a bit separated out dining area which can be termed as one
open yet private room for two large groups, we were seated in this area while
we had the food or rather the dinner but I will come to the food later (in this
review). There are two other areas apart from the two already discussed. One is
the large bar counter just opposite the DJ. The strategically-lit bar counter
has got several high chairs as usual which are very comfortable and sturdy to
be honest. You can spend hours on those chairs for sure unlike many places. The
floor in front of the DJ platform is bathed with strobe and rotating disco
lights where you can loosen up and try out your favorite dance moves caring
little about the world. The music is mostly hip hop and dance numbers (and yes,
aptly loud) just perfect to get grooving. The other section is beside the DJ
platform where you have high back leather couches to settle down and unwind. Overall
the place just gives you that overwhelmingly impressive ambiance to settle down
real fast and revitalize your inner self.
Coming to the food and beverages, since this meet has been
organized during the Indian Premier League (IPL) season and so like many other
places Palazzo is also keen on elevating this experience of watching IPL from
the cricket stadiums and the TV screens to your dinner table. Let the battle
between Kolkata and Mumbai determine which dish you wanna have for dinner!
That’s pretty interesting as well as fun filled. Like Fantasy premier leagues
this eating game off the field will surely help you enjoy the IPL in ways more
than one. Like we were all interested to taste the dish named after the Kolkata
team – KKR before trying the other dishes :) Even the cocktails were named
after the elements and notable cricketers linked to the IPL. Now to be honest,
I was bit late to reach this place and so I could only taste a couple of
cocktails (from this IPL Cocktail Menu) which were both remarkable. I tried the
drink named ‘Korbo Lorbo’ (named after the tagline of the KKR team) and to be
honest according to all the invited bloggers this was the best drink on this
IPL cocktail menu. It had an overall tangy orangish flavor which was a
wonderful concoction lemon and orange juice, jalepano infused Tequila Bianco,
tomato juice, orange liqueur with a bit of sprite and finished with the garnish
of orange slices, overall it was the perfect stuff to give that kick in a sweet
refreshing way, hope you’ll love its magic! The drink named ‘Gayle storm’ was
also beautifully prepared, with a mix of lemon juice, vodka, rosemary infused
ice cube, rosemary sprig garnished with a slice of lemon.
Then we moved on to taste the food items, the menu was named
– IPL pre-plated main course menu which had eight dishes named after the eight
cricket teams playing the IPL this year. Here are the eight dishes tried:
a) As said earlier, we started with the dish named after the
Kolkata team; the dish was called: ‘The Eden Platter’. The platter had a
combination of three items namely the Kolkata special kathi rolls, yellow
fusion rice along with conical traditional vegetable and fish chops. Though I
would have loved the dishes to be more authentic but this version of kathi
rolls were dearer to me, frankly I loved every bit of the kathi roll with those
chicken chunks, bell peppers and onion bits and maybe I overate those rolls! It
was absolutely amazing and the covering was not at all oily which I really
liked. The fusion rice was good with the minced capsicum and the veg/fish chop
was nice but the kathi roll totally eclipsed those in my opinion. It was worth
a try!
b) Next I tried the dish named after the Bangalore IPL team,
the dish is called ‘Oriental Royal Challenge’. As the name suggests, if you
prefer Chinese then you can go for this platter. It has go golden fried
cauliflower / chicken Manchurian garnished with coriander leaves which was
really nice and it was served with Egg wrapped Shanghai noodles with chef’s
style Mexican risotto. Now I loved the presentation of these two pieces of egg
wrapped noodles topped with red bell pepper slices. The thin egg wrap was
perfect to be honest, though I guess the noodles could have been a bit more
spicy and intense according to my taste buds; but the overall stuff was amazing
and the looks are appetizing. The risotto was again amazing and went well with
the other elements in this platter.
c) Next dish was named after the Hyderabad team and it’s
called ‘Nizam-e-Khas’ and what better than going for Hyderabadi Biriyani when
you talk about this place. This platter had Hyderabadi Chicken Biriyani with
egg served on a sizzler platter topped with some amazing flavorful
potato-and-chickpea patty. It also had raita, salan and roasted papad along
with it. The flavor, color and presentation of the dish was really admirable.
The color of the biriyani was nearly orangish and was served with a handsome
full leg piece of chicken which was tasty and succulent. The patty on top was
also nice to go with the biriyani rice.
d) Coming to the platter named after the Pune team called
‘Pune Express’. It had chicken paw bhaji which were nice, tasty and soft along
with lemon rice served with amazingly refreshing papaya salad and a glass of
milk shake. The bhaji along with the paw was the highlight of the dish and it
was really flavorful and tad spicy with all those minced chicken pieces. The
lemon rice was nice and you can try some bhaji with it was well if you wish, it
will be the light on stomach kinda element of the dish along with that
refreshing papaya salad.
e) Now coming to the dish named after the new Gujarat team,
the dish is called ‘Gujarat Lions’ and it is basically a thin crust olla topped
pizza with Surang ki galouti kebab / chicken tikka. The chunky chicken tikka
piece on that thin crust pizza gave the lovely kick it needed. The pizza had
other toppings like bell peppers, babycorn, cheese and it was sliced into eight
pieces. Overall it was really flavorful and I’ll surely recommend it.
f) Coming to the Aamchi Mumbai dish named after the Mumbai
IPL team as ‘Master Blaster’. It had Bar B Q chicken served along with lovely
cilantro rice. Also the dish had those authentic Vada for the touch of Mumbai.
And yes, this was the best looking dish for sure with the best presentation! The
bar B Q chicken looked and tasted amazing while the vadas were pretty good, and
the cilantro rice was good to go with the chicken for sure, worth a try.
g) Now we come to the Punjab da team, and the dish is called
‘Punjab-di-Shaan’. The platter has got dhaba style dal served with soft
Amritsari kulcha. The dish also had Chicken kurchan and fusion Punjab-ke-kebab
along with green chilies, aachar and onions. The winner was no doubt the
Chicken Kurchan, the shredded pieces of the chicken was insanely flavorful and
the dish was tasty to its last nibble, maybe I was the culprit finishing the
entire dish and giving only a bit to the others :) The kebabs were okayish and
the dal was nice as well, but for the kurchan I will surely try this dish any
given day!
h) Lastly we will talk about the capital city, Delhi and its
IPL team; well the dish here was named Delhi Belly inspired by a Bollywood
flick which informally means an upset stomach accompanied by diarrhoea! We can
go for a better fitting name for the dish tagged with Delhi IPL team, but anyway
let’s talk about the platter now. It had Pilaf rice with Firangi subzi, it had
kaali dal makhani with tandoori chicken balls along with signature Delhi style
Tawa paratha dressed with olives and jalepenos. This dish was pretty filling
according to me, it has got both rice as well as parathas along with two sides.
So it should be opted for if you are pretty hungry and comfortable with North
Indian food. Taste-wise the elements were good and overall they give you a
satisfying and complete meal.
Also we tried fresh lime soda in the end, which was very
well prepared and was not overtly sweet, had the right amount of fizz and yes,
what I loved most was the tough black straw in there, much rare even at the
reputed restaurants in the city. This is appreciated!
So, that’s it about the food and beverages section that was
covered by me. I felt we were missing some dessert here and that was discussed at
the venue as well. And yes, the hookah that we tried in the beginning was nice
as well (though I am not a hookah person but tried one flavor here). Anyway this
was such an exciting fare that we had in front of us to sample and in the end
the sampling only left us so filled!
The service was very prompt and the servers were very
courteous and well informed. No issues with service, the hosts were very warm
and we could not ask for more. In the end we were handed goodies bag that left
us more than happy and content! Lastly I would again like to thank Thinkquisitive
for hosting this wonderful event; it was pleasure to be a part of this wonderful
evening. Palazzo is sure to grow as a gastrobar since it is serving some great
meals and food apart from amazing cocktails and drinks. Hope it will draw more
crowd and people will love clubbing here. It is one great place to unwind as
well as one paradise for foodies who like to concentrate more on food even when
they are couple of pegs down! It has got all the boxes checked, whether it be
ambiance, music, drinks, hookah, food, service – there is hardly a room to get
disappointed. So please do visit this den of happiness and experience a fun
filled evening along with your friends and loved ones!
Cheers!
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