Back to Delhi. Well, I should say clarify here—many years after beginning to review Delhi restaurants—that I use “Delhi” somewhat loosely as a place-name in my restaurant reviews. When I say “Delhi” I mean restaurants in Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon—in other words, in the NCR or National Capital Region. Today’s review, of the first meal we ate out on our recent short trip to Delhi, was eaten at a branch of Anardana. They do have branches in Delhi proper—and beyond—but we ate lunch with friends at the branch on the ground floor of the very shiny International Finance Center in Gurgaon. Here’s how it went.

Anardana is a new’ish mini-chain of restaurants that began at an East Delhi location before expanding first to R.K Puram and then to Chandigarh. I believe the Gurgaon location was the next to open, and the latest is a large restaurant in Saket. All of this has happened over the last 2-3 years, I think. The restaurants are done up quite attractively, if verging a bit towards if not garishness, certainly the over-the-top. Design touches from contemporary Indian restaurants in the West can be seen here as well, such as large posters of Bollywood stars on the wall and so forth. I’m not sure how it compares with the other locations, but the Gurgaon branch is large but not massive. The tables are a mix of conventional tables and higher-top booths along the windows. A party of six, we were seated at one of those booths. Not the most comfortable proposition as the seats are a little low to the table. We got down quickly to perusing the menu.

Their menu proffer is Indian comfort food with a bit of a twist. The twists take the form of flourishes with garnishes and plating and the use of unexpected ingredients (ricotta in the dahi ke kabab, quinoa gol gappas etc.). The menu is largely a mix of North Indian restaurant classics with a few Indian Chinese/Thai dishes, pizza and pasta. Basically, a mix of the kinds of things Delhi-ites like to eat when they go out to eat.

We stuck to the North Indian end of the menu. What did we get? A series of kababs and grilled things to start: Chicken Tikka, the aforementioned Ricotta Dahi ke Kabab, Bhatti ka Murgh (tandoori chicken by another name), Chotemiyan Seekh Kababs and Lamb Galouti kababs. All were rather good, even if I remain not very enthusiastic about the soft texture of galouti kababs (or kakori kababs for that matter). I’ll particularly single out the bhatti ka murgh and the dahi ke kababs for praise.

Having ordered a large number of smaller dishes, we only got a couple of larger ones to follow: an excellent Chicken Changezi and very good Dal Makhani. To mop all this up we got a variety of breads: butter naans, garlic naans, multi-grain parathas and lachha parathas. All very good as well.

To end, a couple of desserts to share. I was unmoved by the Ghevar Cheesecake, which sees a large and unremarkable disc of cheesecake placed atop a thinner disc of ghewar (the Rajasthani fried sweet made with flour and sugar). I much preferred the rather decadent Double ka Meetha, where the nod to mod-ness was largely restricted to a redundant tuile garnish.

Drinks? One of our friends got a gin & tonic and the missus and the boys got fruit-based mocktails. One of these was served in an involved manner, under a dome, shrouded in dry ice. Farcical presentation aside, they enjoyed the drinks.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and what we ate and drank, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down for thoughts on service, to see how much it all cost and for thoughts on the meal as a whole.

Service was very able. Our lead server handled our inquiries about allergens as carefully as we would have liked (not a common thing in Delhi, unfortunately) and was generally on top of everything. I was also glad to see that the default mode seemed to be to just set all the food down on the table and not to then try to serve it to everyone—a common aspect of Indian restaurant service that drives me up the wall.

Price? All of the above came to just over Rs. 10,000 before tip, or just about $120. Our boys eat like adults when this kind of food is on offer and so you can figure it at $20/head. That’s not a cheap meal in Delhi but it’s also very far from the most expensive meal in Delhi. Where does the food fall on the broader spectrum of restaurants serving this kind of thing? Mod flourishes aside, I would say Anardana is proof of how high the baseline has been in Delhi for a while for North Indian restaurant food of this kind. Nothing we ate made me want to rush back right away to eat it again—and I don’t know if we’ll go back on our next trip—but every dish was a very good version of what it should have been. Coming from the US, I will happily take that.

Okay, my next two reports will be from Seoul. I hope to get both out this weekend. Next Tuesday I might have a Twin Cities report. Let’s see how it goes.