Restaurant Review - Nawab Asia
Nawab Asia is a renowned restaurant in Pune which serves North Indian cuisine. Their menu offers a wide range of vegetarian and non vegetarian kebabs that leave you spoilt for choice. Of course, that's not all, they have an equally wide range of main courses so trust me, going through the menu and deciding what to eat can be one helluva long task. My mom loves Indian food so she and I decided to visit Nawab yesterday where we enjoyed a lavish lunch. The restaurant is very dimly lit with chairs and cushions for a cozy feel. They also have a beautiful outdoor balcony seating with lots of greenery all around but sadly, that section was closed when we went.
My mom is a hardcore Bengali who was born and raised in Calcutta so she always places seafood above chicken and lamb unlike me. So for starters we chose a prawn dish and a fish dish of course. We had the Jheenga E Jaitooni which had char grilled prawns that were marinated with olives and other spices. This is a beautiful combination. The olive marinade is really mild in flavor so it blends wonderfully with the taste of prawns.
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| Jhinga E Jaitooni at Nawab Asia |
We also had the Fish Peeli Mirch Tikka which consisted of chunks of fish marinated with yogurt, spices and peeli mirch (yellow chilli) from Lucknow grilled in a tandoor. In spite of the use of yellow chilli, the fish was not spicy at all but was delicious.
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| Fish Peeli Mirch Tikka |
Moving on to main course, being the meat lover, I ordered the Balti meat which had tender pieces of mutton cooked in a spicy gravy served in a balti (bucket) and to go with it, I chose Jeera chawal, a mix of basmati rice, onions and cumin seeds. This dish was a slight disappointment to me I didn't really like the gravy much either though my mom did. I guess I should have chosen other specialties from the menu instead.
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| Jeera Chawal and Balti Gosht |
Even quantity wise, I felt there was too much gravy and too little meat. The portion of rice too felt a bit small.
Since Nawab is famous for its Biryani, we also decided to try the Kacche Gosht Ki Biryani, which is a preparation in which raw meat and rice are cooked together with aromatic spices so that their flavors blend in perfectly. Thankfully this dish made up what the previous dish did not deliver. The Biryani was really nice. Not too spicy, not too bland and had a decent amount of meat.
My mom loves selfies so here's one we took between courses! After our superb meal we went shopping after together after ages and had a blast so it was a really fun day.
Address - 1st Floor, San Mahu Complex, Opposite Poona Club, Bund Garden Road, Pune