Northern Invasion

Despite Punjab Grill featuring his name,Kalra has minimal involvement. “The dishes featured use my recipes,but the chefs are welcome to tailor them if they wish. Punjab Grill is essentially my son Zorawar’s venture,” he says forthrightly. As the name suggests,the restaurant focuses primarily on grills and its main redeeming feature is that it has one of the most interesting Punjabi menus for a stand-alone. It essentially sticks to tradition in parts,but is brave enough to add unconventional touches in others.

The Mumbai tandoor menu features more seafood such as scallops and calamari; Delhi conversely gets more red meat. Both have their two signature dishes in common — the salmon tikka and tandoori duck; while the latter is an uncommon Indian dish,the former uses pink Norwegian salmon,which is commendable just for its use. Both meats had a strong flavour and were coated with masala which had surprisingly varying results — the salmon was firm and didn’t absorb the flavour as such,but still managed to work for those who enjoyed the natural flavour of salmon. The duck,however,disappointed as the masala interfered with the meat (which itself could have been more tender); a more subtle,perhaps sweet,glazing would have worked better.

The vegetarian dahi kebabs were a revelation,but the strong flavour of cardamom might put some off. Kurkuri,which resembled thin spring rolls were served with a lovely sweet chilli sauce that was better than the actual roll. The tandoori broccoli was light and innovatively used parmesan shavings,but didn’t make an impression like the ones at Kebab Korner do. “Using parmesan gives a sense of déjà vu to foreigners and adds a slightly cheesy flavour,” Kalra justifies. For all the talk about the grills,the mains surprisingly had fewer flaws. The black dal was extremely creamy and delectable; the curried lamb beautifully fell off the bone and the gucchi pulao is worth trying just to find out if you like the polarising Kashmiri morel mushrooms.

The restaurant itself is,for the most part,simply but tastefully done,if one ignores the travesty that is the intrusive chandeliers. Watching the four huge tandoors in the kitchen though is fascinating in itself. Overall,Punjab Grill is interesting because it reverses the trend of Indianising foreign food; the flaws mean the food is good or even very good,but not excellent. Given Kalra’s reputation,we hoped for better,but this is just as well since he isn’t involved in the kitchen anymore.

Punjab Grill,3rd floor,Palladium Mall,Phoenix Mills,Lower Parel; Average Meal for two: Rs 2,700 excluding alcohol and tax;

Tel: 022 4347 3980