GLUTTONY @ SEAFOOD FESTIVAL AT SAPTAMI

As a person with a penchant for seafood, a food festival dedicated to the produce of the ocean is an occasion to engage in gluttony. Therefore, with my obsession for prawns and squid I made my way to Saptami, the multi-cuisine, buffet restaurant at Holiday Inn Mumbai International Airport, Mumbai that is holding a delightful seafood festival until 18th December, 2016.

Saptami has been adorned in various elements reminiscent of a fishing village for this food festival, where as part of the dinner buffet a host of lip-smacking seafood preparations in regional as well as international culinary styles were presented by Executive Chef Sudhir Pai and his team.

The remarkable use of seafood was showcased in every food course right from soup to salads, appetizers to entrées, pickles to live teppan counter.

​So, here is a look at my gluttony with some of the treasures of the sea at this food festival:

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​SALAD AND APPETIZERS
Owing to the warm weather I forewent the soup course and jumped straight to the salad and appetizer course. As an avid fan of squid, my favourite was the refreshing, citrusy LEMON SQUID CHERRY TOMATO SALAD from an array of salads on display that included BOMBIL (BOMBAY DUCK) KOSHAMBIR, PRAWNS COCKTAIL, PRAWNS SAMBAL, SALMON GRAVALAX and many more. Next, I sampled the yummy and spicy fish and prawn pickles.

I commenced the appetizer course with the crunchy KOLIWADA JHINGA that was tangy and delicious prawn preparation. Yet again my favorite appetizer turned out to be CALAMARI SALT & PEPPER. Here the squid rings were batter fried with a touch of salt and pepper. A topping of sautéed green chillies, onions, garlic and ginger on crispy calamari simply went on to make this starter top notch. The MAHI MAHI FISH TIKKA was the quintessential tandoor cooked ginger and garam masala laden starter. The TANDOORI JHINGA was cooked in charcoal oven, was juicy and was beautifully flavored with mustard.

LIVE TEPPAN COUNTER
Next, I turned my attention to the live teppan counter dishing out varieties of fish and prawns with delicious flavors. First I sampled the BANANA LEAF WRAPPED POMFRET that was grilled with a Thai style paste with a prominent lemongrass flavor. The fish had a buttery texture and had imbibed the Thai spice flavors brilliantly. I gobbled GRIDDLED CORIANDER PRAWNS that were succulent and had a delicate, inherent sweetness that blended well with flavors of green coriander, ginger and garlic spice mix slathered onto them. Next up was the crispy, fried BOMBAY DUCK that had a flour coating and proved an absolute delight to the taste buds.

The KING FISH, MACKEREL, LADY FISH all came slathered in a Indian style red chilli- garlic mix and were all fried to perfection making each of them toothsome. The BASA had been given a more international flavor profile by shallow frying it with basic seasoning and parsley.

MAIN COURSE
There were four distinct seafood dishes that graced this course. These included:

• MANGLOREAN FISH CURRY made with Lady Fish was spicy and hand a lovely tart flavor owing to use of tamarind.
• A gigantic RED SNAPPER was baked whole and served WITH FENNEL BEURRE BLANC. The fish was succulent and had a strong fennel flavoring.
• PLA RAD PRIK was a simple yet tasty preparation Thai style preparation of basa in spicy sauce with a hint of sweetness.
• The SEAFOOD PAELLA for me was a little off the mark as it came across more as a seafood pulao than a Paella that has predominant flavor of saffron which was clearly lacking in what we were served.

DESSERT
While the dessert counter could not entail use of seafood, it had beautiful sugar craft to reflect the theme of the food festival. The dessert counter had an eclectic mix of popular Indian as well as western desserts.

In all courses served during the festival the seafood was the hero and the various spices and ingredients used merely played the part of further accentuating flavors of the various kind of seafood. Also, the buffet is competitively priced at 1399 plus taxes.

So, do try out this food festival and let me know of your experience.
Till then, HAPPY EATING...