Oct 2016:
Invitation for Tasting & Review @ Edesia, Kolkata ☺
Four years back, Edesia emerged on the Kolkata food scene, as the wish come true for the fine dining breakfast enthusiasts. Kolkata always had it's share of roadside kachori- sabji type breakfast outlets, along with the breakfast buffets of all the prime hotels, and a couple of other stand alone breakfast haunts. Still, Edesia was kind of a pioneer in providing fine dining breakfasts. Now, of course, a lot of new players have emerged in this segment, and it's no more difficult to get a good quality breakfast in Kolkata.
Situated on the first floor of 'The Regency' building in Hungerford Street, Edesia exudes pure warmth and class, with it's pristine white setting and hand picked quality decor. Both the dining and the buffet tables, the walls and the false ceiling - are colored in white!
This 42 seater stand alone restaurant has 18 seatings on an elevated platform. Seatings are mostly in clusters of 4. Chairs are big, comfortable and upholstered in pinkish fuchsia color. Floor is chequered black and beige. False ceiling is plain and filled with small circular embedded lights. Few silver decorative items are strewn here and there. A vintage mirror on the wall is eye catching. One big and one small LED TV are present. English background music is always on play. Loo facility is available.
Edesia food service is segregated in the following manner -
8 am to 12 noon - Breakfast Buffet:
It comprises of more category of food items, than the ones provided in the breakfast buffet of a five star hotel! Of course, the number of options in a particular good category, will always be more in a five star.
12 noon to 7 pm - A La Carte:
It offers the following cuisines - North Indian, South Indian, Italian and Continental.
7 pm onwards - Private Parties Only:
Few intelligent modifications turn over the pristine white 'good morning' ambiance into a warm golden 'good evening' place! Overhead white lights are swapped with the golden ones, table tops are covered with a dark hued rich looking laminate, and a rectangular gap in the wall filled with coffee mugs gets covered with a painting!
Private parties consisting of 50-80 people can be booked here. Food, decor, music etc. are customized as per the client's choice.
Looking forward to try Edesia's innovations and customizations, I opted for a la carte lunch for tasting.
The presented lunch menu consisted of the following categories - Beverages, Soups & Salads, Sandwiches, Appetizers, Mains - American & Continental, Italian, North Indian and South Indian, and Desserts.
Items presented for the tasting were -
Beverages:
Strawberry Chili Martini: It was very nice strawberry flavored and martini colored mocktail served in a martini glass, with a green chilli fixated at the rim. Presence of some chilli based sauces gave it a nice and not overly sweet taste.
Price: Rs. 200/-
Green Apple Sparkler: It was a green apple colored mocktail, served with a slice of green apple fixated at the rim. It was nice and freshening.
Price: Rs. 200/-
Appetizers:
Baked Brie In Phyllo: "the 'Queen of cheese' wrapped in Phyllo pastry and baked until melty" was served with two portions of garlic bread and apricot chutney. The phyllo pastry was flaky and potli shaped.
Till now, I had mostly consumed the brie cheese in assorted salads, so I was little unsure about having this cheese in the melted form. However, one humble morsel of this phyllo pastry, put all my doubts to rest, as it was simply exceptional, both in texture and taste. Cheese and wine lovers would love to pair it with a good glass of wine.
Price: Rs. 650/-
Salsa Stuffed Mushrooms: Five big mushrooms were filled with in-house salsa, topped with cheese and some dark colored sauce, and baked. The taste was average. Somewhere the salsa turned the mushrooms soggy.
Price: Rs. 200/-
Baked Potato In Lemon Butter Sauce:
It was a simple but heart winning dish, which consisted of chunks of baked potatoes, topped with lemon butter sauce. Apparently, this sauce is primarily used for a seafood preparation. In their bid to serve the same to their vegetarian patrons, the management experimented it with potato and cottage cheese, and finally settled for potato. This dish was relatively light and fuss free. Faint flavor of lime was quite soothing.
On a restless day, one would feel quite relaxed by pairing this dish with a good salad and end it all with a nice chocolate dessert.
Price: Rs. 200/-
Mains:
Stuffed Spinach Crepes: Two crepes topped with a spicy and cheesy tomato sauce, along with a side dish of sauted and herbed mushrooms were served. The crepes looked quite interesting, as the spinach was not filled inside the crepes, but mixed in it's batter, thereby giving them a nice green color. They tasted very nice and filling.
Price: Rs. 375/-
Spaghetti Romesco: A plateful of coiled spaghetti mixed in "the famous Catalan sauce, made with roasted Bell peppers, nuts, garlic and tomatoes" and topped with some dry grated cheese, was served along with two slices of toasted garlic bread. This sauce was new to me. It tasted little tangy. However, the dish tasted nice.
Price: Rs. 350/-
Masala Uttapam: A round big thick and well cooked Uttapam was served with a big bowl of Sambar, Coconut Chutney and Tomato Chutney. Apparently this South Indian delicacy is also one of their popular breakfast items.
Both the Uttapam and it's accompaniments tasted very nice. It was a pleasant surprise to find equally good South Indian and Italian food in a single stand alone restaurant.
Price: Rs. 200/-
Dessert:
Dessert Platter: Normally this platter consists of 6 portions of different desserts. But to delimit wastage, only 3 options were served, so as to suffice the three diners i.e. the owner duo and myself. The three dessert options served were - Walnut Brownie, All American Key Lime Pie and Ultimate Chocolate Espresso Mousse. All three were a relevation in themselves.
Though very few bakeries bake a good Key Lime Pie, they made it just perfect. It had a nice lime flavour and was little crumby. The Mousse was as good as a big scoop of chocolate ice cream. Walnut Brownie was topped with some chocolate sauce
It was rich in good quality walnuts and tasted very nice.
Price: Rs. 525/-
All the three main dishes were served in big portions. Each dish would easily suffice 2 people. Complimentary bread basket was served at the onset of the meal. It consisted of 2 bread sticks, 2 cubical portions of focaccia bread and 2 long bread rolls. All the aforesaid breads were fresh and nice. At the end of the meal, some mint toffees and toothpicks were presented.
All in all, it was a superb meal with excellent quality food cooked with innovation, which was served amidst productive chat with the management personnels. Staff was also humble and nice.
An error has occurred! Please try again in a few minutes