K3, the multi cuisine restaurant at JW Marriott Delhi, is aptly described as a food theatre as it serves a whole gamut of food from live counters dishing out multiple cuisines like Cantonese, North Indian and Italian. Recently introduced there is a separate live counter which has been created for Chef Arif Qureshi called ‘Arif Mian Ki Rasoi’. One can savour Mughlai, Awadhi and Hyderabadi specialities there with a menu which changes everyday.
Chef Arif Qureshi’s journey started from the streets of Lucknow where, amongst other places, he worked with the famous Tundey Mian. He got his training at ITC Chola and has also worked in ‘Dum Pukht’ at ITC Sonar, Kolkata. When the Executive Chef Girish Krishnan happened to interview Chef Arif, he realized that he had chanced upon a diamond which didn’t know it’s own worth. He specially created a position for him to retain him in K3.
The day I visited K 3, there were five things on the menu excluding the dessert of Sewaiyon Ka Muzzafar which was this uniquely amazing sewaiyan cooked in sugar syrup over dum which I couldn’t get enough of.
Keema Kaleji had a very different flavor with the spices not overpowering the taste of the keema. In fact, everything played around subtly to showcase the main element – keema. Chicken stew was cooked well but after eating the mutton dishes, it paled in comparison. Quesar-e-Pukhtan was a close cousin of the shahi paneer. The chef had used pumpkin to add flavour to the gravy (something that I need to give a shot at while recreating this dish). The Dal Makhani, surprisingly, was quite good too as my expectation from it was not too high at the onset. But the show stopper for me was definitely the Gosht Ki Nihari. To begin with, it was red in colour unlike the other niharis one gets everywhere else. Don’t get fooled by the colour – it had a very subtle taste with a very pronounced taste of saffron and was topped with chopped green chili, dhania, ginger strips and lemon juice.
Though the Nihari took care of any other cravings I may have had, I cannot help mentioning that I greatly missed eating a lucknawi biryani.
The Arif Miyan Ki Rasoi is available as part of the daily dinner buffet at K3, priced at INR 2350++ and can be enjoyed between 7:30 pm to 11:00 pm from 28th August to 6th September, 2015.
