the restaurant 'chilli and pepper' at hotel arista, is situated near the vr punjab mall, and at the end of the 200 ft wide airport road. the restaurant has recently come up with its all day buffet, with their food festival 'pind wali gali' serving street food, alongwith a wide variety of snacks and a lavish spread. being theri first attempt towards a buffet setup, i feel that my overall experience was pretty satisfying.
in starters, i tried:
dahi kebabs: i started with the soft crispy dahi kebabs, one of the best starters on the menu.
paneer tikka: one of the usual paneer tikkas, with huge marinated tandoor-ed paneer served with grilled capsicum, onion and mint sauce.
mushroom tikka: decent oil-free, mushroom tikka garnished with chopped capsisum and onion rings.
street food:
i tried their golgappas served with 3 different varieties of flavoured water- hing, meetha and jal jeera.
their chaat papri was delicious, served with different types of namkeems, and papri topped with tamarind sauce, mint sauce and curd. the aloo tikki, was soft but lacked the crispness. the pav bhaji, was decent, but could have been improved with the pav bhaji masalas.
the buffet laid out was lavish, with 2 types of soup, about 5-6 types of salads, about 8-10 types of main course dishes and 2 desserts. amongst these, i liked their thai green curry served with steamed rice. the aroma of the thai curry, full of exotic veggies made it a must try dish. their creamy pasta is worth highlighting, made fresh unlike other buffets in the tricity.
the service could be improved considering the requests for breads took a while.
in all, though they were some shortcomings, but considering their first attempt in serving buffet meals, i believe that with their experienced staff and chef, they should overcome these initial teething problems.
certainly, worth a try!