Delicio - Italian food festival at Bene, Sheraton

Delicio, the Italian food festival at Bene, is the result of Sheraton Bangalore bringing to town Chef Enrico Fiorentini, the Executive Chef at the Sheraton Milan Malpensa Airport Hotel. The food being showcased during this fest is the food from the Lombardy region of Italy.

Chef Enrico Fiorentini

Photo credit: Sheraton Bangalore

While the popular notion is that the Lombardy regions cuisine has a lot of Swiss influence, Chef Enrico has a slightly different take on it. He says that Switzerland itself doesn't have a very strong gastronomic tradition, and has taken a lot of influences from France, Germany, and Italy, and so the 'influences' in Lombardy food comes mainly from France. Chef also spoke about how being a slightly hilly, landlocked region meant that the food incorporated almost everything grown in the region. Even the famous Minestrone soup, which usually contains pasta when served in other parts of Italy, has rice in it!

Some of the starters we were served were very reflective of the philosophy of Lombardian cuisine. The use of a lot of vegetables and polenta, which is one of the most prominent starchy foods. Seafood isn't eaten much - obviously, the coast is quite far! - but the consumption of other meats is quite high, with veal and beef making up for a bulk of the proteins and pork coming in closely behind.

 

The fest at Bene will be an a la carte setup and there's a special menu apart from the regular menu at Bene. One of the starters we had, a timbale of stewed lentils and roasted pumpkin with almond velouté and a Parmesan cheese crisp was very reminiscent of a classic, 'earthy' dish. The flavours were earthy and yet light. I'm not a big fan of a strong Parmesan flavour, so I didn't like the taste of the crisp all that much, but in terms of technique, it was brilliant.

Timbale of stewed lentils and roasted pumpkin with almond cream velouté and Parmesan crisp

We then proceeded onto the next course - not the main course - called the Primi piatti di pasta, or the pasta course. As mentioned before, seafood isn't really big in the Lombardy region, but they do 'import' it from the south, and make a few dishes. The ravioli we had was custom made - stuffed with seafood instead of the usual pumpkin - and was superb. The shell wasn't too thick, and was boiled for just enough time to ensure it's firm and not pasty. The seafood inside wasn't over cooked, and the basil oil on the plate was a nice addition along with the standard balsamic vinegar artistry.

Seafood ravioli with basil oil

For the meat course, we had a butter pan fried lamb chops in a herbed polenta crumbing. The cut of lamb chops that we got was outstanding. I mean, look at the snap below (click the image for a larger, better view) and check out how much meat is present on the bone, and the portion of the bone exposed. Lovely. It was served with a pumpkin risotto. I'm not a big fan of strong cheese in a risotto, so this one didn't get a smile from me, but in terms of being cooked, it was nicely done. The lamb chops were divine. Done medium, these were stacked up proudly on a plate, with a glaze sauce. Personally, I'd have liked to have had one of the traditional beef or veal dishes, like perhaps an ossobuco, or even a rabbit dish that's there on the menu.

Butter pan fried lamb chops in a herbed polenta crumbing

Finally, for dessert, or dolci as they say in Italian, we had a combo of sorts. In the foreground and at the 12 o'clock position is a polenta and dark chocolate timbale, and on the horizontal plane is a Parmesan cheese ice cream (left) and red wine poached pear. The Parmesan ice cream was a pleasant surprise. I thought it was plain vanilla until my nose crossed over the spoon and I got a waft of the Parmesan aroma. It went well with the poached pears as it cut the acidity from the red wine and the general acidic nature of the pear fruit. The dark chocolate was rich and creamy.

Assortment of desserts

The Italian food festival at Bene is a little different in the sense that the menu is not all pastas and pizzas, and certainly not the usual flavours you get, which are typically from the southern half of Italy. However, it is quite an interesting perspective to the food from a country where we usually only get to eat the food from the lower half of the country.

                                               Delicio - Italian food festival

                                         Dates: Till the 18th of November 2012

                                         Venue: Bene, at Sheraton Bangalore

                                         Mode of dining: A la carte

Ni Hao - Chinese food festival at Sheraton

When you think of Chinese cuisine, if you even remotely know your geography, and club that knowledge with some common sense, then putting these two together, it wouldn't be too hard to deduce that given the vast size of China, there has got to be more than a few variations of 'Chinese cuisine'. And true to that, China can be divided in several culinary zones or regions, each one having something unique for the diners in terms of ingredients used, methods of cooking, as well as the history of the dishes. Although opinions may vary, Chinese cuisine can be divided into roughly 5 culinary zones: 

• Guangdong and Hong Kong , whose cuisine primarily can be called Cantonese or Yue
• Beijing and the northern areas, whose cuisine primarily can be called Mandarin
• Shanghai and surrounding areas, whose cuisine can be called Zhe or Zhejiang
• Sichuan, or Szechuan, where the cuisine is called Chuan
• Hunan, in the south-central part of China where the cuisine is called Xiang
• Cuisines like Jiangsu and Min (from the coastal areas of Fujian) among others

The Sheraton in Bangalore has flown down a Chinese chef, Chef Thi Giang, the Chef de cuisine at Li Bai restaurant at the Sheraton Saigon for 11 days. The fest, that started on the 4^th, will go on till the 14^th of October. Since Chef Giang is Chinese, the dishes were very much Chinese, not the Indianised version that's peddled at most other restaurants in the city.

Chef Giang is a small man...frail, like someone's skinny grandmother, but don't let those sayings of "never trust a skinny chef" fool you. For just like many a grandmother, Chef Giang has many a culinary trick up his sleeve. His diminutive probably affirms to the fact that good things come in small packages!

Chef Giang Thi

Wonton soup with seafood
The wonton soup with seafood was simply superb. A clear soup, with a sprinkling of scallions and fried garlic along with the wonton and some choice seafood - prawns, squid, and scallops - made this a clear winner. So good was the soup that I actually had two bowls, one at the start of the meal and one at the end.

Wonton soup with seafood along with some of the key ingredients

Cosmopolitan

French 75
One fantastic idea Sheraton came up with was to make drinks based on Chinese philosophy, specifically based on the year you were born in. Since I was born in '83, the year of the pig, my drink was a gin and wasabi drink, as well as a drink called French 75, another gin-based cocktail, from Sheraton's top 100 cocktails. It's really a great thing to see the kitchen team work this closely with the F & B team and implement such wonderful ideas. I think the fact that Sheraton is now experimenting with different ideas, especially on the drink front, is great news to the food scene in Bangalore, because usually everyone focuses on the food, and the drinks are relegated to a proverbial footnote. Apart from that, we were also told about the concept behind this, and how the hotel plans to take this forward based on its success.

The Executive Chef, Bela K. Rieck, came and had a nice, long conversation about food and his philosophy about how food and how he plans to take things forward. The man is a genius. His work ethic is so focused and 'logical', it appealed to the engineer in me.

As for the food, it was lovely, and the Chinese dishes are part of the regular Feast buffet (easily one of the best, if not the best, spreads in the city). Although I tried very hard to restrict myself to only the Chinese dishes, I did end up trying a few other dishes, that were equally good. The salads, chicken and cabbage, as well as the spinach with roasted garlic were good. The idea of supplementing the spinach with garlic was good because not only does it add flavour,, it also helps neutralise the sort of monotonous taste of spinach. Apart from these salads, there were the other salads that are a part of the buffet anyway.

Cabbage and chicken salad

Spinach and garlic salad

Some Chinese ingredients used during the fest
The fish poached in olive oil was light and this sort of cooking technique does justice to the fish and helps keep intact the 'flavour' of the fish. This dish though wasn't par of the Chinese dishes of the fest, and neither was the roasted chicken at the carving station.

Poached fish

Roast chicken
The beef braised and stewed along with mushrooms was divine. I mean, yes, the cow is holy and all that, and so to make sure it continues to remain that way, it needs to be cooked with a lot of care. Loved this dish as well, but again, this wasn't part of the dishes for the Chinese fest.

Stewed beef with mushrooms
The braised tofu in Szechuan sauce was silky and spicy - the tofu being silky soft and the sauce being spicy. The Kung Pao chicken with cashew nuts was nice (wok fried), but I so hoped that there would've been sweet and sour pork that evening.

Braised tofu in Szechuan sauce

Some veg dish with broccoli

Kung Pao chicken with cashew nuts
The steamed fish in broth with pork fat was mind blowing...simply fabulous! This was one of the other dishes that I had twice, and I think it was my favourite dish of the evening. That broth...oh man, pork fat does lend such a wonderful and magical flavour to everything. There was another soup on offer, a lotus root with sweet corn in a pork broth. Unfortunately I don't seem to have a photograph of it, but that soup was equally brilliant. Normally, I'm not a big fan of the lotus root (sorry, I hope some jobless person doesn't sue me saying I'm disrespecting the national flower's root!), but in this case, the soup was really very good. I think anything cooked with pork automatically tastes better.

For desserts, the Chinese dessert that was on offer was something that has an acquired taste, and so although I did try a little and didn't find it too bad, I didn't go for seconds. I did, however, make my way to the teppanyaki ice cream counter to have some ice cream mixed over a cold stone and served to me. I didn't want to sample the other desserts, because that would've spoilt the taste of the Chinese food I had, so I opted to play safe. So overall, excellent food and great service at Feast. Stay tuned for more such fests at Sheraton (there's an Italian food festival coming up in November that I am eagerly waiting for).

Steamed fish in broth with pork fat

The veggies for the noodles

My second bowl of soup, along with the noodles with the XO sauce

Dessert...very acquired taste :)
Last two days of the fest...go fast! :)

Sheraton Bangalore at Brigade Gateway, 26/1, Dr Rajkumar Road, Malleshwaram-Rajajinagar, Bangalore. Phone: +91 80 4252 1000