PONDICHÉRY CAFÉ - ALL-DAY DINING — Restaurant in Mumbai

Pondicherry Cafe.

Luxury hotels design your lifestyle and dining experience in a way where you feel highest leverage with plenty options offered and all this in turn makes you feel satisfied and unrushed.

I too had this experience when I went to Pondicherry Cafe at Sofitel Hotel for the Singapore Food Festival to indulge in flavours of Singapore.

Where is this?

Sofitel Hotel is located at BKC, the best Industrial hub of Mumbai.

What is the Singapore food festival about?

This festival is from 22nd June to the 1st of July. You can indulge in several delicacies like Bak Kut Teh, Singapore Chilli Crab, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Char Kway Teow, Bubur Cha Cha and more for Lunch and Dinner, crafted by chefs James Choo Pie Jiam and Nyun Yong Soon, who have specially flown down to give you a taste of their homelands.

As you enter, the decor is beautiful. Being situated in a luxury restaurant, the vibe you get is distinct. I received a warm welcome. There are colorful umbrellas, a chic cycle and much where you can create memories around by clicking pictures. It's a perfect fine dine.

In Singapore, food is viewed as crucial to national identity and a unifying cultural thread. Singaporean literature declares eating a national pastime and food a national obsession. Food is a frequent topic of conversation among Singaporeans. It's very diverse.

What I Ate?

When it comes to non veg food, i eat only chicken. There was a lot of other food including crab, duck, fish, mutton which I couldn't try but I have captured all of it for you guys. I tried mainly chicken and some vegetarian dishes.

Being Singapore Food Festival, there is a wide variety of Indian spread too.

HUMMUS AND PITA BREAD

There were 2 breads that I tried. The regular pita bread and the crisp one. Hummus had perfect consistency. There was beetroot hummus, babaganoush too. Hummus however tasted sour.

MURG MALAI KEBAB

These were very succulent and delicious. The aroma was bliss. Sheer soft and delightful.

PIZZA

Ordered for a veg pizza and asked for toppings of peppers, black olives, cottage cheese. The crust was thin and crisp. Cheese was basic. Not cheese overloaded.

DIMSUMS

There was quite a lot of variety of dimsums. A spread I can say. The flour wasn't thick, stuffing was generous. I tried the Veg Dimsums. They were pretty good.

TULSI PANEER TIKKA

This was something really delicious. Soft malai paneer coating with tulsi paste. The best appetiser of the entire dinner spread I'd call it.

PANEER MAKHANI WITH GARLIC NAAN

Comfort food. All you need in the end is some aromatic smooth gravy with hot rotis. I had a butter garlic naan with paneer makhani. It was yumm.

CURD RICE WITH POMEGRANATE RAITA

I somehow like curd rice. I even prepare it at home. Here I got the idea to add pomegranate to raita to make this dish even more better.

After eating all this, I just walked a restaurant tour and saw all these dishes too :-

SALADS

CAPONATA

SINGAPORE CHILLI CRAB

TROV CHEW BRAISED DUCK

YAM BUAH KELUAK

STEAMED CHICKEN

CABBAGE THORAN

BHUNA PALAK KA SAAG

BABY CORN CAPSICUM

FRAGRANT RICE

DESSERTS

I tried most of the desserts

BO BO CHA CHA

This is a Singaporean dessert. Its made of coconut milk with sago, banana and sweet potatoes. I had it for the first time ever.

MANGO POMELO

This dessert too is a preparation of coconut milk and theres sago, mango pieces, cream and sugar.

HAZELNUT TART

This was an extremely smooth choco hazel mousse with chocolate topping.

LINZER TORTE

Its basically an Austrian dessert named after a city, Linz. This is a crumbled pastry which is well designed and made with eggs, cinnamon, flour and nuts.

CHILLI CARAMEL

This had a layer of chocolate mousse with a hint of chilli syrup.

RED VELVET CAKE

MANGO SHOT

PASSION FRANGIPANI

RASGULLA

CHOCOLATE BARFI

KALAKAND

BROWN RICE KHEER

Favourite kheer since childhood. Made in milk, jaggery, raisins,...

May 10 to 19th enjoy the flavours of China - Sichuanese festival at the Pondicherry Cafe. Menu Curated by Chef Jerry Tan of Fairmont Chengdu, Indulge in some authentic spicy dishes and delicacies. Some of the dishes would change day to day but i hope the sautéed Diced chicken with Chilli pepper, Mango Sago, Osmanthus Fish would be there as that is their signature. Sichuan cuisine is known for its bold flavours (Hot spicy) a bit sweet and piquant as well.

Coming to what i tried yesterday:

Salad section: Poached Chicken in chilli oil. Basically cooked in a small pot one of the famous chicken dishes. Texture was good flavours - Tingly/spicy slightly tangy chilli oil. Also known as Saliva chicken.

Pickled vegetables - simple yet good salad. Refreshing. Maybe a tad salty i guess. But when asked this is their original recipe. It's basically diced Cucumber with beans celery and red eye chillies. Their take on this dish. Nothing wow about it at the same time not bad.

Mango Sago - India is known for mangoes and when they make sago (contemporary Hong Kong dessert invented in 1984 by lei garden) is has since become very popular. Served in small glass. Basically a pulp texture, however it has Mango/Pomelo/sago a bit of coconut milk cream. Normally sugar but here the chef has skipped the sugar. Loved this.

Beans Jelly with Chilli paste - in small cup. Something different. Jelly like texture with beans at the bottom. Subtle in taste.

Sichuan Style Fried rice with spicy sauce - one need to have this. Their style of cooking it. Chengdu all the way. Here the rice is a bit salty. Toasted at the edges of all grains some Jinhua ham, white pepper ad Shaoxing wine. Maybe eggs. One gets the am taste cause of the Jinhua ham used. Not spicy but salty as this is the way it's prepared.

Sautéed vegetables - simple yet nicely made semi dry dish. (Vegetarian) Cauliflower, cucumber with bird eye chillies and chilli oil.

Mapo Tofu - or Mapo doufu as they call in Sichuan province. This is silken tofu in spicy sauce. Lovely glaze and sheen. Texture of thin oily bright red suspension. Semi dry. Chef has made a vegetarian version normally one ads Minced meat (usually beef or pork)

Spicy Lamb Chop - here the chef has made his version using Sichuan pepper and cumin. Bold flavours. Taste was hot and sharp. Lamb was tender. A lot of condiments used to get this perfect. Do try out if this is a part of the menu when u is at the festival.

Boiled Seafood in Red soup - One of the star dishes on the menu. Just fantastic. Chilli peppers (Chinese origin) are so strong, trust me your tip of the tongue gets Dump for a couple of minutes. They have used exotic vegetables as well as Ham/chicken in making this semi liquid dish. Please Note this is SPICY and HOT. But a must try.

Fried water Buffalo with shredded chilli - another classic Sichuan dish. Basically a Vietnamese dish made their way. Diced with a lot of shredded red chillies and oil. One can have this with the steamed rice or the Corn soup.

Overall - had a good time. Something different. I just tried the Sichuan food. Apart from this they also have the normal buffet. Go for...

Pondicherry café Sofitel- Pondicherry café is their all day dining restaurant which serves world cuisine. Currently they got Srilankan food Festival till 10th of march. So as I went for the food festival, I enjoyed so many food options in their Sunday brunch. One of the rare places where I saw such a elaborated Sunday brunch, great display of food. I really enjoyed my brunch in Pondicherry café and will surely recommend you all to go and enjoy their buffet. A must visit place for sure.

Location- Pondicherry café restaurant is located on the lobby level of Sofitel Hotel in BKC so certainly a good centralised location.(5/5)

Theme- Pondicherry café restaurant is all day dining restaurant of Sofitel hotel. I visited the restaurant for the Srilankan food safari, the food festival which they have organised. (5/5)

Food- Sofitel has always done wonders when it comes to culinary experience. The restaurant serves all day multicuisine food. They got buffet on lunch and dinners. I went on Sunday brunch where they had really lavish buffet spread. Currently they got srilankan food festival where I experienced lot of authentic food of srilanka made with their local ingredients. All the chefs who were on the live counter were really helpful in explaining the offering they got on the buffet. Fish cooked in a srilankan style was a must try. Other than srilankan cuisne they really had elaborated Sunday brunch varieties.

I would like to mention the salad counter they had. It was really well decorated and very rare you can see so many options in salads. They had cold salads like prawn skewers with fig compote, Portobello mushroom salad, pesto bocconcini salad. One side of counter was loaded with Lebanese dishes like hummus, tabbouleh. Cold meat variety had many of my favourite options like salami, sliced turkey and smoked salamon. Cold seafood display was done in style with cooked seafood like lobster, tiger prawns and calamari.

Mumbai chauwpatty food had lot of crowd as that counter was serving Mumbai street food, chaat like sevpuri and bhel. Impressive mohammad ali road counter where they had options of burji, kaleji etc. which was served along with local pav.

Pasta counter was serving gnocchi pasta with type sauce like white, pumpkin. Verde gnocchi looked great with some mushrooms and broccoli. Main course wise few of the srilankan dishes were extraordinary and tried first time like pork red curry, black pepper chicken curry, onion rice. Being a Sunday they had Sunday roast where chef was carving it to the order. They had baby lamb and post leg roasted which was served with new potatoes, red wine jus and roast vegetables. Continental food options were all my favourite and one of the dish caught my attention was steak with cauliflower mornay.

Coming to desserts, the counter was right at the start of the restaurant. Variety was mix of small pastries, chocolate gateaux, macaroons, donuts, Indian sweets, panacotta etc. One pastry chef was there who was baking fresh waffles to the order and had many options as the topping on it. Macaroons were really delicious so does the dark chocolate gateaux.

Thank yopu Sofitel for such a...