Fine Dining With Panache @ Seasonal Tastes – The Westin Kolkata Rajarhat ☺

One of the latest brand of hotels to have entered the City of Joy, The Westin Kolkata Rajarhat is situated right opposite New Town Eco Park. It is one of the tallest buildings of the city and occupies 32 floors.

Seasonal Tastes is it’s 24 hours operational and as of now solo diner. It offers a mix of Indian, Asian and European fare and serves lavish lunch and dinner buffets, apart from the usual tailored-to-perfection à la carte dishes. It also serves ‘Superfood Rx’ breakfast dishes for the health conscious and ‘Eat Well Menu for Kids’ for the kids.

Last year around Christmas, I was invited at Seasonal Tastes for a fine dining tasting session.

Prior to settling down for an elaborate dinner meal, I did a tour of their buffet tables and was pleasantly surprised to find, not only enough vegetarian wares, but three vegetarian sabjis prepared without any onion or garlic!

Apparently, the restaurant’s buffet area has a pre designated Jain corner which serves three different Jain sabjis in all of their buffets. Alongside, their menu also carries Jain food options.

The entire buffet as such was quite lavish, rather non ending, with a vast spread of assorted – salads, condiments, breads, desserts (both western and Indian), live counters and main course dishes.

Specially curated by the restaurant’s supervising Chef, my food tasting comprised of the following dishes –

– Subz Shorba: Just to have a taste of the generic food on display, I requested for this Shorba from the buffet selection.

Served in a soup bowl, the Shorba mostly tasted of mushroom. It was well seasoned and tasted nice.

Subz Shorba

– Crisp Polenta Cornette: It was the amuse-bouche for the evening, specially prepared by the supervising Chef. Served in a small mason jar, it was kind of a deep fried cornmeal wrap stuffed with Mexican style salad and beans filling.

It tasted spicy, crunchy and nice.

Crisp Polenta Cornette

– Assiette of Tomato, Bocconcini and Pesto: Placed like a semi arc on the sides of a circular disc, it was a beautiful looking salad of tomatoes, bocconcini cheese and pesto sauce. A few rocket leaves, melon balls, balsamic caviars, thin turnip roundels and the likes were deftly strewn around for visual appeal.

‘Bocconcini are small mozzarella cheeses the size of an egg. Like other mozzarellas, they are semi-soft, white and rindless unripened mild cheeses.’ They tasted quite good.

The Salad vegetables were fresh and aptly crunchy.

Assiette of Tomato, Bocconcini and Pesto

– Cauliflower & Truffle Soup With Parsley Foam: Served in an extra thick bottomed glass, this soup was a fine display of culinary marvel and molecular gastronomy.

The piping hot white hued thick soup at the base was topped with warm green hued bubbly foam. The whole presentation looked quite soothing.

The soup had distinct tastes of cauliflower and parsley. It’s not really easy to work with cauliflower in a mashed form and pair it with other elements. But herein, the flavors of cauliflower and parsley complimented each other, with a mild hint of truffle in the background. The Soup tasted excellent.

Cauliflower & Truffle Soup With Parsley Foam

– Lavash & Bread Platter: A square and sturdy wooden tray came lined with a generous portion of assorted health food seeds. A cluster of in-house baked Soft Buns, Ciabatta Bread and Sourdough Bread were placed atop the seeds. A glass containing assorted in-house made Lavash and Breadsticks was placed alongside. The glass was also lined with the aforementioned seeds at the bottom.

The whole presentation looked quite nice. Since it was in my to-eat-list for long (thanks to well researched food shows on TV), I opted for the Sourdough Bread. Apparently, it takes a week to make them and the process is quite tedious! It was expectantly crackling and dry, but still had a mild bitter aftertaste, which kind of went well with the aforementioned fancy soup.

The Lavash were a revelation. Some were coated with sesame seeds, while some were coated with nigella seeds. A couple of them were hued in green and coated with poppy seeds. I tasted a bite or two of all of them and all of them tasted fresh, crunchy and quite good. I never expected to find such nice taste in Lavash!

Lavash & Bread Platter

– Mushroom Risotto: Served in a thick basined dish, the thick and creamy Risotto came uniformly garnished with sauted schimezi mushrooms, small sprigs of parsley and paper thin small sheets of cheese.

The Risotto was gooey, grainy, buttery and wholesome. It tasted excellent. The petite schimezi mushrooms were relatively dry, but nice to look and nibble. The dish tasted quite good.

Mushroom Risotto

– Timbale of Eggplant and Zucchini with Smoked Tomato Sauce: At the centre of a circular dinner plate, placed atop an uneven bed of smoked tomato sauce, a cheesylicious cylinder of layered aubergines and zucchinis, along with some slices of colored bell peppers, topped with almost double in diameter olive and parmesan crisp i.e. a thin, crispy, delicate disc of cheese, was served. The crisp was further topped with some greens.

The dish was a vegetarian take on the otherwise non vegetarian Timbales. It was well cooked, well presented and had a mild smoky whiff. The crisp paired well with the veggies. The tomato sauce was average. The dish tasted good.

Timbale of Eggplant and Zucchini with Smoked Tomato Sauce

– Makai Methi Bhujia with Lachcha Paratha: This was from their stable of Jain aka no onion no garlic preparations.

Makai Methi Bhujia was a semi dry preparation comprising of almost equal ratio of sweet corn kernels and fresh fenugreek leaves. The gravy was mostly made of fresh cream and tomato but devoid of any of the latter’s tangy taste.The sabji contained a good presence of dry mango powder (amchoor) which emitted a nice flavor.

It was well cooked, delicious and tasted at par with my earlier tasting of the one with onion and garlic!

The Lachcha Parathas were expectantly soft, flaky and tasted good.

Makai Methi Bhujia With Lachcha Paratha

– Chocolate Tart: It was an eye appeasing artwork depicting the culinary genius of the in-house kitchen.

Made of 72% cacao Venezuelan chocolate, the Tart was adorned all around with the following elements – citrus compote, nut crumble, chocolate ice-cream, mascarapone cheese, hazelnuts and assorted chocolate pieces. A non-edible decorative bell was placed atop the Tart.

In fact, the whole presentation was in tune with the then prevalent Christmas spirit.

The Tart tasted quite good. The crumble and the ice cream were excellent. The entire dessert gave out a happy feel.

Chocolate Tart

The entire crockery range was white ceramic. The staff were well trained and courteous.

Soon, The Westin plans to open two new restaurants – EEST and Vedic. The former will be Pan Asian fine dining and the latter will serve vegetarian fare from all around India, along with a special vegan menu.

Buffet Timings & Pricing:

Breakfast Buffet: 6:30 am – 11:00 am @ Rs. 1,000/- plus tax

Lunch Buffets: 12:30 pm – 3:00 pm @ Rs. 1,250/- plus tax

Dinner Buffet: 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm @ Rs. 1,500/- plus tax

Sunday Brunch: 12:30 pm – 3:00 pm @ Rs. 1,399/- plus tax

Average Pricing For Two: Rs. 3,000/-

Timing: 24 Hours (Mon – Sun)

Address:
The Westin, International Financial Hub (CBD), New Town, Kolkata.

Phone: +91 9073970005, 907395815

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