Nawab Asia — Restaurant in Pune

After a long time, my former colleagues visited from the US. Amazing guys and one of the best engineers I have met in my life. So it became incumbent on me to gather my former team scattered across different organisations. Due to their affection toward a former leader and team spirit, several turned up. Some couldn't. But that's okay. Life takes you through strange twists and turns, and sometimes your spatial and temporal coordinates don't support the occasion.

After quite a bit of research, we narrowed down to Nawab Asia. Mostly good reviews, some odd ones too. We did a Zomato booking, but being a weekend, there were no enticing offers. For me, meeting my past teammates was the best offer life could offer.

Uncharacteristic of me, I actually reached late, which I really hate to do. And I won’t blame traffic or rain. A chit-chat with another colleague took a little bit more time. Once we reached, I completely delegated ordering to one of my brightest engineers. And he did well.

Non-veg platter, Manchurian soup, prawns, later pomfret, and finally Nalli Nihari and roti basket. Pretty much to my liking.

The non-veg platter had excellent chicken and fish appetisers: chicken seekh kebabs, chicken kebab, and fish ,basa. Served with tandoori salad and green mint chutney. Chicken seekh kebab was easily the best among all. Nice minced meat, mild to medium spicy, and tandoored well. Good texture, colour, and not chewy at all. Chicken tikka with green spices was good too. Nice firm bite and done well.

Basa is a river fish and never my first choice. Add to that, the fish doesn't really get marinated well. It's soft, tender, and lacks a firm bite. But nowadays that's the only fish they offer with barbecued sticks anywhere. Just passed the muster.

Between the grub, there were moments of nostalgia, where we all reminisced about the good old days, almost seventeen years back, when we first met as a young Indian team working with an American major automaker to build a world-class engine plant. It was the best in India, one of the top-rated in Asia Pacific, and we did make fantastic products and more.

Then the next round was seafood. In my humble opinion, the best seafood, and Konkani version, is at the coastal towns or metros like Mumbai. However, Pune does have some speciality seafood restaurants. Here we ordered prawns and tandoored pomfret. Fried one was out of the question because the captain advised us strongly in favour of the tandoored version. Being a North Indian food eatery, that made sense too.

Pomfret Bulandshahr was the catchy name they gave. It was a well-rounded fish. Thick, medium-sized, and done well. Good marination, and the whole fish had slightly charcoaly edges, a reddish-brown hue, and fresh meat. Picked one with a fork and sensed the freshness. It was solid, whitish flesh, good bite, and went really well with green chutney. I wanted tartar sauce, but it wasn't available. For Pune and a North Indian eatery, this was as good as it could get. Didn't disappoint me.

Prawns were okay.

The final entrée was Nalli Nihari. Goat mutton shanks in thick gravy. This is a typical mutton curry which I had only heard about till then. The gravy had minimal spices and wasn’t pungent at all. Turmeric was prominent, and lamb shanks were good. Nicely cooked meat, literally falling off the bone. The best meat is always the closest to the bone. And the numero uno is shank meat. There is no other part of goat except perhaps liver which has taste, texture, and tender meat like that of shank.

All that with my favourite laccha paratha and garlic naan. Such food takes you into a different gastronomical orbit. The flavours, aroma, and the quality of meat and proportionate spices put you in thrall for quite some time. Even the background chatter seems like white noise, completely filtering out, and you only see, smell, and listen to yourself eating to your heart's content.

Add to that wonderful friends, who were former colleagues in a world-class organisation. That’s the recipe for...

What we ordered:- Blue Fish Bomber ( Mocktail ) Prawns Salt Butter Pepper Barbeque Chicken Pataya Chicken Malai Kulfi Timeless Favourite Nutty Brownie with Ice Cream

Blue Fish Bomber - A drink perfect for current Pune weather ( not so hot nor so cold ). A mocktail consisting a mix of pineapple juice, monin blue curacao syrup, cocunut water, cocunut milk n some lime with ice.

Prawns Salt Butter Pepper - This starter is chef's special as per the menu but to be honest didn't find it that great. So it was prawns tossed with capsicum along with onions, butter, pepper and some of chef's special ingredients. Somehow felt that prawns were either not fully cooked or stale as could smell them.

Barbeque Chicken - Next thing ordered from the menu was Barbeque chicken which had asian touch to it. So this ones chciken tossed in classical barbeque sauce sweet in nature along with some asian ingredients. Must say apart from the chicken been soft and juicy the chef didn't make it too sweet which generally is the case when one eats barbeque sauce laden food.

Pataya Chicken - This was the main course ordered by us. So here it served a portion of burnt garlic fried rice along with chicken cooked with capsicum and onions in soya basil sauce. My honest opinion about the rice it was missing the burnt garlic flavour even though the chicken was good. Good for 2-3 people depending upon the diet.

Desserts was nothing fancy Malai Kulfi, timeless favourite ( vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce ) and nutty brownie with ice-cream.

In terms of decor wise the restaurant is divided into two segments indoors ( AC better looks wise ) and outdoors ( a lot dull from inside )

In terms of the billing our total bill was for 3500 including liqour ( a bit higher side on price even what we had and considering they have either small or large peg consideration only ). Price for food is decent considering the quantity size and location. Service was quick.

Overall Score Food : 3/5 Ambience : 3/5 Service : 4/5 Value...

Nawab Asia, this restaurant was on my wish list for a long time. I went there with my family for lunch. This restaurant has a valet parking facility, but I could not find it easily. The ambience of the restaurant is good, it gives you a relax dining experience. This restaurant serves authentic Lucknawi food. During the lunch time you have option to go for buffet or al-carte, I preferred al-carte.

In starter, we had ordered Subz-E-Gilavat (Exotic vegetable mince patties flavored with aromatic herbs and pan-fried on a tawa). I am a big fan of galouti kebabs & it's hardly available in Pune, specially the veg option. Thankfully, this restaurant serves this kebab. Yes, the kabab was good & yummy, it was properly prepared & the presentation was good as well.

In Main Course, we had ordered: Tawa Subz Qaliya (Tangy, exotic mixed vegetables, subtly flavoured & served on a tawa) Lalla Mussa Dal (Black lentils cooked the Khazana way) Roti Basket (Assorted breads) - Biryani Gul E Gulzar (Veg)

Along with food we had ordered following beverages: Water Melon Juice, Masala Chass & Fresh Lime Soda

Overall the food was good, especially Tawa Subz Qaliya, it was tangy & mustered oil was enhancing the flavour. Lalla Mussa Dal, is Dal Makhni only & it was also properly prepared. I really liked the taste. In breads, I personally liked Garlic Nan, it was going well with Tawa Subz Qaliya & Lalla Mussa Dal. Biryani Gul E Gulzar, was one of their signature dishes. Yes, the flavour & aroma was good. You really can tell when it is cooked properly. I can say that I have tasted one of the best Biryani in Pune. But it's a bit spicy! Masala Chaas was good too.

Overall I was pretty satisfied with the food. The service was quite fast. The staff were courteous.

Cost wise, it's reasonable, but they levy 12.50% Service Charges which I think,...