Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious

Last Sunday we decided to have brunch at Garden Grille Restaurant at the Hilton Garden Inn, Trivandrum to check out their recently re-launched Sunday brunch. The revamped buffet offers you around 100+ dishes – there are around 8-10 Live Stations and for Main course you have four different cuisine each having around five dishes each. It was pleasant surprise to see quite a few visible changes in the restaurant in terms of arrangements.

The colourful Mocktail spread was a great welcome and a good start for the three hour long gastronomical journey. Rainbow shots, watermelon Ice tea, Orange Ice Tea, Sky Bomb, Cold Coffee, Ginger Lemon shots - there were too many drinks to pick from. Refreshing drink for the hot and humid summer of Trivandrum. I picked Lemon and guava shots.

Starting with the Chat station where they had handmade ‘Namkeens’, Daal Moth, papdis, gol gappe, samosas, sev and all the ingredients and chutneys for the perfect chat. Chef ‘Jakir’ made some finger licking Dahi Sev Puri and Samosa chat tingling our taste buds and we wanting more of that. Daal Moth – which is made in house by their ‘Mithaiwala’ Sanjay had the authentic taste of namkeens from Kolkata. Salad section had quite a lot of choice and also option to mix and match and create your own salad with fruits vegetables, cheese, meat, egg and dressing of your choice.

The next live counter was that of Laska. It consists of rice noodles or rice vermicelli with chicken, prawn or fish, served in spicy soup based on spicy curry coconut milk. You have whole lot of choice for toppings and sauces to mix in your laksa, but as per the chef – fried garlic, noodles, roasted peanuts are must to add to any Laksa. Very creamy, hot and spicy coconut milk curry with some pieces of prawns and boiled egg was a nice appetiser. People (like me) who make curries based on coconut milk will find Laksa very familiar – the concept of having Coconut milk based curry with the consistency of soup was a new concept for me :) Moving on was counter for Pastas – they had some interesting homemade beetroot and spinach pastas, again with cream and sauces of your choice. And then their famous thin crust Hand Tossed Pizza !

Skipping the Pasta counter, we moved to the Grill Station where they had displayed the seafood, meat and marinade to select from and brought it on the table hot and sizzling. We had some Prawns, Calamari and Mahi-Mahi fish with Sikampuri marinade and Mahi Mahi fish with ajwaini marinade. Ajwaini marinate grill was awesome and must try. The next to come on table was chicken fry – Chettinadu Chicken varuval, pretty much Kerala spicy flavour which was crispy outside, soft and juicy inside. Vegetable and Paneer grills were also getting ready as per the specification.

Main course had North Indian dishes – like Chicken Do Pyaaza, Kashmiri Pulav, Paneer Kholapuri, Dal; Kerala cuisine had –Malabari Mutton biyani which was full of flavours, soft and spicy mutton pieces with Raita , Meen Manga curry- Fish curry in Coconut gravy and raw mango, Ulli Theeyal ; Chinese cuisine had Crispy Pork in hot chilli sauce, the meat was very soft and delightfully tasty , people who have not had much pork  should try this dish for sure, Singapore noodle, Thai Green curry ; Continental Cuisine had some of their signature dishes like Spinach and mushroom stuffed beef loin, vegetable moussaka - originally made from sliced aubergine (eggplant), tomatoes, and cheese cooked in an oven.

After all the eating had absolutely no scope for desserts , so after a short break talking with Chef Shankar and Sous Chef Naveen who recommended Spanish Chorrus freshly made in front of you with chocolate sauce. There were around other 20-30 other desserts in the offerings – Live Stations for Pancakes and Waffles, Bubble cake, Orange vanilla panna cotta, burfi, Gulab Jamun, cham cham, Croissant pudding …. Oh can go on and on … too many things to try … three hour well spent on tasting and trying out new dishes.

“Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.” - Ruth Reichl