Casa Kitchen serves up some crafty vegetarian sizzlers at its ongoing festival

Surely the nip in the air and the Christmas cheer enveloping the city deserved something a little more stronger!

So when the 'lollipop' arrived, daintily arranged, I was a little flummoxed much to the delight of my hosts. 

Craftily made of mixed vegetables and a slice of sugarcane stick for the bone (hidden in a silver foil wrapping), it had fooled me alright at first sight.

Biting into the crunchy lollipop served with barbecue sauce, I had to accede, the restaurant had given a pleasant vegetarian twist to a conventionally non-vegetarian dish, and a tasteful one at that.

Another interesting (and tasty) dish was the crispy chilly broccoli -- a take on the ubiquitous crispy chilly baby corn -- crispy fried broccoli tossed in the in-house made conjinaro sauce.

Swarup Ghosh, General Manager, Hotel Casa Fortuna (of which Casa Kitchen is a part) said,  “At Casa Kitchen, we are constantly trying to revolutionise the dining experience for our guests. The sizzler festival took months of preparation and research to develop new vegetarian recipes."

Another innovative item was the Cottage Cheese Lasagne -- where the pasta sheets were replaced by cottage cheese, and multilayered with creamy american corn and exotic vegetables, and baked.

Shantanu Lahiri, Chief Adviser to Casa Fortuna, reiterated that one of the focus areas of Casa Kitchen was to make vegetarian dishes stand out on their own.

"Not only we have customers who are traditionally vegetarian but also customers who now prefer vegetables over meat, or avoid non-vegetarian food on select days." he said. "So we are constantly experimenting and evolving the menu to make it attractive to everyone."

And promptly another experimental dish arrived at our table -- a plate of sizzling 'sarsonwali phool' -- florets of cauliflower (phool-gobi) cooked in mustard sauce (sarson) served with steamed rice and fried onions.

As the varied sizzling dishes made their rounds of the table, they were a veritable feast for the eye too. With a combination of Indian and exotic vegetables, and accompaniments, and a flourish of sauces, the plates looked colourful indeed.

The menu for Escapade to Sizzlers has been designed so that you can have a sizzler for starter, main course and dessert.

Some of the specials on the main course were Cottage Cheese steak (minced cottage cheese patties served with parsley rice and Arrabbiata sauce), Paneer Mumtaz (cubes of cheese stuffed paneer served with exotic veggies in silky makhani gravy), Italian Tropicana (a combination of tomato spaghetti, cheesy potatoes and parsley penne), Schezwan Vegetables (vegetables cooked in Schezwan sauce and served with fried rice or noodles), and Soya Manchurian (minced soya patties cooked in Manchurian sauce and served with chilly garlic noodles).

And then of course, no matter how full I was, a sweet-tooth like me could not look the other way when the Custard Pie arrived (with a heart of fruit crumble laced with chocolate sauce). There was also Mountain Lava, a yummy melted chocolate sponge lava, for which I have to go back another day I suppose. 

Escapade to Sizzler is on from Dec 22 to Jan 1 at Casa Kitchen from 12.30 pm onwards. A meal for two will cost approximately Rs 1200 plus taxes.

For reservations: 033-40218050/8017088033; www.casafortunahotel.com

(Reporting by Uttara Gangopadhyay)