On Sunday, the 15th of January my Mom was treated to a special birthday lunch in the bustling and highly commercialized Sector 29. Although we felt tempted by the restaurants that sprawled themselves in that square opposite Bikaner, the dazzling structure of The Pllazio Hotel, with its old world charm was definitely the choice for the day.

Although many have poked fun at the name, which looks slightly misspelled- we chose to blame it on the numerology-alphabetology shebang and entered right in, smiling at the really warm staff.

The buffet lunch was being set up with immense precision by people who worked there. We spent 20 minutes (we were early) observing them as they inspected each and every mouse, cake, shrimp cocktail-replacing the ones that didn’t look great, and so on.

The decor , the home-stitched looking serviettes, and the fact that things were colourful and sunny in the inside, really perked my senses. I felt as if I had sat myself down at a really nice home party. But then again, the lacey looking skylines and the chandeliers, showed that they were following the must-have decor code for poshy swoshy hotels.

The salad bar was crazy….Well, okay I went crazy over it. It’s just really rare for me to find fresh, bouncy veggies around town, especially at buffets. I couldn’t handle it. My corns flew everywhere, my peppers slid off,  grapes when tottering here and there, I was way too excited. And look at it…Just look at it. It has to be a crime for healthy food to look so bad-ass.

It’s so hot you can see it bubble. Chicken and vegetable soup. It was stocky, salty and filling. The Greens inside were kept fresh and I was almost sure I would pour it secretly into a bottle, to douse myself with it at home. It was so good, I was stoked…Or stocked. haha. I feel high on soup just by looking at it. I swear if you stare long enough at it, you can see that it has a smile…Aww.

It was soup times two (and yeah the “soup song” bit of Kolaveri does pop into your head) . The roasted pumpkin soup could not be missed. It was smooth. Which is rare.  Good on you Melange (oh that’s the name of the restaurant in the hotel by the way). This was a world cuisine main. I had the cheese cannelloni , the cabbage dolma, a bit of zaffrani biryani. cottage cheese/paneer in some coconut-chilli gravy and pease n mushroom gravy, which was very generous with garlic and ginger chunks. My favourite touch to any dish…Okay, ‘any’ was a bit of a stretch.

The pan Asian plate. Chicken biryani, sweet n sour chilli tofu (brazed….is that what it’s called?), spicy beans, and Thai greens. each dish had some name that originated from a different city of place in China…But I forgot. I just hogged till my guts’ content.

The reason why the angle of this photo is slanted, is most probably because I was collapsing with excitement and vengeful , relentless hunger.  The round thing with a big dollop of cream on it, is called the Shahi Tukra and it was sublime. Not too sweet at all. Beside it on the right was a sort of cream roll, that had a strong aftertaste of rose (now we all love surprises like that one). The strawberry and cream pastry is what every chubby pubescent boy around the nation would kill an Aunty for. I mean…with love ofcourse. It was fluffy, light and the foamy cream smeared all over your mouth. It was fun. The dry fruit slice was also really nice, but better if they had bigger slices and offered tea with it. The mocha mouse ( I refuse to acknowledge that thing as a tiramasu..it was just cream and a speck of a crumb at the bottom, dissected by a salty tasting cookie) was  a big no no no! finally the mother of all resistance was the chocolate swirl thing (if only I stopped to look at the names!). The chocolate was at the ‘Death By Chocolate’ level. Not sweet and bloody chocolaty. The cookie that formed its base, crumbled like a shortbread cookie. I loved it. I should have had more.

So now you know where to take a good normal date out (a person who eats and admits to consuming food), or a father, or mother or sibling. There were kids there too who got their own custom pizzas made (damn I should have done that! Oh well, there there, I’m sure there will be a next time!). The price? Rs.400 per head. Not bad I say. Go ape!