Gastronomic Delights At This Jungle...

Jungle Jamboree, located in Connaught Place is a wilderness hideout. It's a wild world out there, but with sobriety in their food and a knack for on-spot service up their sleeve, this Jungle is here to delight. I had a chance to visit this outlet of Jungle Jamboree on a dinner spree earlier this month.

While their life-size mascot statuette reminded me of Commonwealth Games' Shera and Baloo right at the entrance, I was also reminded of Pai Vista's Jungle - The Restaurant, which I had been to, in the past during my stay in Mysore, that had a similar theme.

Jungle Jamboree incorporates the best of Mowgli's Jungle and Ariel's Aqua World on its first of three floors. It also has demarcated, the ambience for each floor.

While the first one is a Buffet, with spacious seating for catering to patrons, the second one has a dedicated Kids' Area equipped with swings, games and lots of free space to roam, jump, and hop around - basically have fun. This floor also caters to Ala Carte preferences.

The third one is a lounge which one could probably pick for partying with friends or family because Jungle Jamboree's ambience ensures that you have a good time, with good company and good food, not to mention light music that keeps playing in the background.

While there has been a mushrooming of party places in Delhi quite lately, in the food sector, Jungle Jamboree is one of the few places where you can see families having a good time with jolly, goofy, ecstatic children and banter over great food.

As for the food, patrons can either opt for an all-you-can-eat buffet or Ala Carte as per their liking. But, one thing's for sure - with a number of similar outlets as far as their food concept is concerned, like Pirates of Grill or Barbeque Nation - I've had food at all three places now - and Jungle Jamboree is a clear winner with their variety in food and bang for the buck.

What appealed to me was their concept of a seven-course buffet (Indian Chaats, Soups & Salads, Indian Appetizers, Global Appetizers, Indian Main Course, Global Main Course, Desserts, and Paired Drinks) with quite a lot of variety, quick service and good taste. While a couple of courses were duly served by stewards, rest of them were self-service to a laid out buffet. There was also an on-table grill for skewered appetisers.

I would love to recommend their Lasagne and Paan Shots and Ice-cream. Lovely preparation with the Lasagne, the right number of layers and the perfect veggies stuffed, while the Paan dishes were nice on the Gulkand flavour.

The presentation and quality of the food were up to the mark and I had a nice time. Looking forward to a second visit, next time probably to their newly opening Rajouri Garden outlet. :)

Monsoony Mouth Watering Magnificence

A Party -- A Gourmet Party -- What for ?  Do we really need a reason for that! No, not at all. Friends just want to party and that's it.

 
    We, Delhites were sweating it out at Forty Five Degrees scorching heat and no respite was in sight except to cool ourselves in an AC Room. But nobody can do that for 24 hours a day. So, we were just praying and expecting the Sun to be a bit polite on us.

    And Wow! 'Surya Dev' probably asked his friend 'Indra Dev' to shower his blessings on us all. We experienced an unexpected cool shower and continued light downpour. The whole atmosphere changed. The scorching heat was replaced by clouds and cool breeze. This sudden change awakened my grey cells and some friendly feelings. Just like 'Surya Dev & Indra Dev'!

    I wished to host a legendary gourmet party on that very day. Thank God it was morning and I still had 7-8 hours to plan the party. I had to plan fast!

    I would've called up my friends but I wanted my invite to be a bit poetic. So this is the E-invite I sent them.

Oh Monsoon!

You come to life like a boon

But why do you leave so soon?

Oh Monsoon!

Titter - tatter drops on the window sill

And it does the roads with aqua fill

Giving a sense of an adventurous thrill

And inking it in our memories with our own quill

And so your onset calls for a 'Gourmet Party'

With everyone so hale and hearty

Finding within their best side arty

And being adjudged a 'Pants Smarty'

While rainbow hues seem befitting for such a theme

And come alive all such colorful dreams

With faces sporting a beam

As pals donning multicolored raincoats form a team...

   The next step was quite easy. My hall room was good enough for our informal yet classy party. The rainy feel worked by my side to the perfect ambiance and used my colorful family umbrellas as corner-of-the-room decorations. For Music, I obviously relied on all the lovey - dovey monsoony songs from our very own Bollywood.

    When we all pals meet, talks ensue and entertainment follows... And when we meet monsoon fun ensues too...

 
     So with none of us wanting to miss out on the rain fun with the 'Raindrop Race' and 'Lightning Chairs' with 'Puddle Fun' and 'The Best Dressed', 'The Craziest' and 'The Rainiest' as some titles, I banked upon The Best i.e. The One And Only ITC Kitchens Of India's sumptuous dishes with some of my own tried and tested 'Rainy Day Bests'. And here we embark on our Culinary Trail...

• The Ice Breakers were our very own Blue Lagoon, BlueBerry, Blue Curacao, Asian Pear Sparkler Mocktails with cute little topping umbrellas along with the tried and tested all time favorites -- Assorted Pakoras to suit every palate -- be it Chatpata Cheese, Mirchila Mushroom, Slurpy Spinach or oily Onion with an assortment of Kitchens Of India Chutneys.
  
  
  
  

Basmati Rice Pulao enriched with Veggies and Nuts alongwith Red Kidney Beans Curry.

Malabari Chicken Stew with Malabari Paranthas served with onion, tomato, corn & cucumber salad.

To top it all, we had steamy Jodhpuri Moong Dal and Hazoori Petha Halwas.

     An amalgam of aroma of Kitchens Of India, sound of falling raindrops mixed with our favorite tunes, the sight of a cloudy sky and children merrily jumping in puddles of aqua added lots of enigma to our legendary rainy day Gourmet Party.

This post is my entry for the 'My Weekend With Gourmet Food' Contest organised by ITC Kitchens Of India in association with IndiBlogger.

Legendary Gourmet Weekend Encounter

* EW ERA YRGNUH *

* EVIG SU DOOF *

* ESLE EW LLIW TAE UOY *

* EW ERA TON NI A DOOG DOOM *

       Shrilling shouts started surrounding us, we gave a look around and were shocked to see six of them surrounding us -- my family and me. They were quite strange looking, wearing so called "clothes" of some strange material, having weird looking head gears, weapons in their hands and shouting an alien language repeatedly (as written above).

       Actually, last weekend, we went for a weekend long picnic to a forest reserve to find ourselves being close to nature. Probably, nature made it go overboard as we never expected to be surrounded by aliens who came from God knows where! We were baffled and frightened by their harrowing looks and screams. On top of it we were unable to understand their language. We looked at each other to gain strength and held hands. We tried to sense from their actions and understood that they were hungry. So we had no other alternative to save ourselves from them except to provide them food. So we offered them some fruits but they declined by shaking their heads in the dissident.

       They tried to snatch the piping hot handis and kadais of Basmati Rice Pulao with Vegetable And Nuts, Butter Chicken Curry, Spinach and Cottage Cheese Curry, Fish Curry and Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani all from Kitchens Of India, which we had kept aside for our dinner.

        Now, we were enlightened by the fact that the heavenly aromatic fragrance from these dishes was driving them nuts. We heaved a sigh of relief to find that 'Kitchens Of India' would come to our rescue (although we felt a little gloomy that we had to share such mouth watering delicacies with those aliens).

        We all sat in a circle after keeping the utensils in the center and made them sit too using actions. They seemed to still be very excited but were now composed a bit. My daughter's Ipod turned out to be the saving grace with respect to the music department when she played soothing music from albums composed by A.R. Rehman. Even the 'outsiders' turned out to be great fans. Now, they seemed to be in a jolly good mood. As we didn't have any idea about their Meal Preferences, we served them both non-veg and veg delicacies as follows :-

• For drinks we had Aam Panna, Nimbu Paani and Seb Sharbat.
  
  
  
  
• For starters, we had Hariyali Kebabs and Chicken Skewers on tandoori sariyas alongwith Shredded  Mango Chutney and Papaya Raisin Chutney respectively.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani with Mild Chilly Pepper Curry.
  
  
• Basmati Rice Pulao enriched with Veggies and Nuts alongwith Red Kidney Beans Curry.
  
• Mughlai Paneer with Hot Butter Garlic Naans and Laccha Paranthas.
  
• Black Gram Lentils Curry with Yakhni Pulao.
  
• Malabari Chicken Stew with Malabari Paranthas served with onions and Tamarind & Date Chutney as accompaniments.
  
  
   
• For desert, we had Apricot Pudding accompanied with Mango & Saffron Conserve, Hazoori Petha Halwa and Sheermal (saffron flavored flatbread which is an Awadhi delicacy). 
  
  
  

     We all relished the sumptuous meal. The cool breeze with melodious sounds produced by rustling of leaves added an additional tinge to the music being played. Now, we were all feeling sleepy. They bowed and shouted " GNIHTYREVE ROF UOY KNAHT " but this time their shouts were very melodious with a big smile on their faces.

They retreated  & after some steps just vanished in thin air the way they had appeared.

     We shall never be able to know who they were! But that party was truly a Legendary Weekend Surprise Party  which can never be recreated. That was one party in which... 

We didn't send any invite...

had a natural ambiance of greenery and scented flowers around and Moon & Stars in the clear blue sky...

 music of chirping birds and rustling leaves mixed with the Ipod style which got enhanced by their musical voices and...

we all relished the palatable and savory dishes courtesy Kitchens Of India and made such good friends ( although for few hours but they got etched in our hearts & souls for a lifetime ).

This post is my entry for the "My Weekend Party With Gourmet Food" Contest organised by ITC Kitchens Of India in association with IndiBlogger. You can vote for my post here.