NEW DELHI: So this is the thing about happy people. They most certainly make happy food. Ambrosial to the senses, scented with a glaze of luscious warmth was Chef De cuisine Masahiro Kinoshita’s culinary worldliness that he has dexterously constructed at Megu at The Leela Palace. His emphasis on seasonality of food got his mind fired up to showcase amalgams that suite both the traditionality of Japanese cuisine as well as the progressiveness of this ancient cuisine.
We set out on an elaborate kaiseki with chef Kinoshita’s newest food articulations. The build up to the grand finale, which we will talk about later, started with Creamy Wasabi Tofu with heritage tomatoes and kinzanji miso. The dish was a suitable appetizer to fire up the senses with a subtle mix of flavours that cannot distract you from the vibrantly embellished plate it’s served in. The portion was rather small for our liking but the dish brought together the idea of umami really well. For the uninitiated, umami is a Japanese term for the fifth taste in the flavour spectrum and is characterised by its brothy, dense hint. “Japanese cuisine is a delicate one with tastes easily distinguishable. One must use all their senses while eating. Don’t forget to observe the tableware, the cutlery, the ambience et al.,” says Kinoshita.
The silence of the restaurant gave us the solitude we were hoping for to enjoy our meal the other afternoon. As they say, a good server can make or break a customer experience, the one assigned to our table worked quickly and efficiently.
A real novelty of the new menu that we subsequently proceed to sample, was the inclusion of vegetarian dishes. Considering Japanese is predominantly a fish and meat based cuisine, choices such as Sweet Corn Miso Soup with potato noodle, beets tanuki, uni; Baked tomato and avocado tobanyaki; Contemporary sushi and rolls balanced with the right amount of preliminary seasoning, came as pleasant offerings. A special recommendation with this regard is the Pan Roasted King Oyster Mushrooms in spicy teriyaki and ume sauce with sauteed enoki mushroom and garlic chips, it’s imaginativeness deserved full marks.The fish to rice ratio in the non vegetarian sushi was maintained well and the texture of the fish was tight—a sign that nothing was ‘fishy’ about the dish.
The Dobin Mushi, a traditional Japanese seafood broth steamed in a tiny ceramic tea pot, got the individual characteristics of eryngii mushroom, sea bream, prawn, chicken and ginkgo nuts to form a light infusion. The presentation was delightful but the taste didn’t carry much weight for me.
The meal apexed with the New Zealand Lamb Chop with soy garlic and avocado dip. When meat is left too long in its spices, it begins to lose protein strength but the tenderness of this dish was testimony to its accurate marination time. The juiciness proved it had been allowed to rest after cooking.
Another beautiful dish was the delicate Chilean Sea Bass grilled with a soy glaze served with barley miso. The light brown flakes on the top added a crispy texture to the sensitivity of the fish underneath.
Through our meal, we wondered about the precision that had gone into crafting the flair that afternoon. It’s an art that survives through the painstaking determination of chefs like Kinoshita who have made the food their cosmic centre of inventiveness. “Something as simple as how fish is to be preserved, takes skill and knowledge along with clock-work precision. It’s a fine art of refinement,” he says.
That having been said, he looks up at the ceiling pondering and returns to says, “No mater how good a chef becomes at this skillfull cuisine, they can still never be as good as their mother.” With that poignant admission, the afternoon ends.
Quickly then...
A thing you want to learn?
Hot yoga
A thing you want to unlearn?
Drinking
what comes to mind when you think of Japan?
Its perfection is almost unreal, unnatural
what annoys you
Gossip