Say Hello to Zega!
Sheraton Hyderabad just added a mint-fresh F&B offering: Zega, which goes by the very encouraging motto of Eat.Drink.Socialise. We endorse that very much!
Zega is actually Sheraton’s erstwhile pan-Asian restaurant InAzia (which had the extremely gifted Thai senior sous chef Ninja at the helm and who has moved onto JW Marriott Kolkata ) now re-launched as a pan Asian diner with a bit of tweaking in brand positioning.
“We are trying to give it more of an informal diner’s ambience, in place of its earlier formal fine-dine avatar, so you will find the pricing to be pretty attractive too, ” shares Shibil Mallik, the GM of Sheraton, who hosted a bloggers table at the launch of Zega recently.
The stunning tenth-floor view of the posh Financial District in which Sheraton is located continues to impress, with the ambience changed a wee bit to be a little more informal. The live litchen and bar (which used to be Chime in its earlier avatar) continue to buzz and there is now a resident DJ playing the music.
The menu at the bloggers table was curated by executive chef Amit Kumar Dash, (along with senior sous Chef Ming who happens to be Chinese of origin and from Kolkata) for the bloggers’ table was quite large, chosen from across categories like dimsums, sushi, small plates (starters), Tangra-Kolkata (China town), south east Asian grills, woks and curries, noodles & rice and desserts.
We started off with some dimsums: pan fried Chicken Gyoza, Hargao, Crystal dumpling (celery, black mushroom, asparagus and water chestnut) and Beijing Vegetable Celery and Mushroom dumpling.
The chicken Gyozas were excellent, especially the chicken mince filling, with that delightfully light, aromatic and perfectly blended with the herbs and spices aftertaste. The Crystal dumplings also did perfectly, accompanied by some lovely dips, spring onion sauce, chilli and
Chicken Gyoza were well done!
Assorted Sushis were served on platters, in vegetarian and non veg versions and were again competently done. I personally liked the prawn
Of the sushis, I loved the Prawn Maki ones the most, but that could be also because Im biased towards prawns.
On the starters menu were also a couple of Tangra Chinese dishes: Tangra Chilli Chicken and Chilli Garlic crispy Potato, followed by Wok tossed tofu, Stir fry sole fillet, Crispy Thai Lotus Stem, Fried Garlic, Black bean sauce and Prawn tempuras of which I loved the tempuras the most,
In main courses, we had Yang Chow Fried Rice (prawn and bacon bits) , steamed jasmine rice and wok tossed vegetable noodles with a host of curries and stir fries: the best being the yellow vegetable curry and the steamed fish in a light aromatic gravy. The yang chow rice was quite superlative, considering what a simple recipe it is made of, using leftover rice usually, with shrimp, eggs and bacon and just the minimum seasonings, including soya sauce. This was of course a mushier version of what I am used to eating and making. It made for a more fabulous combo with yellow vegetable curry, which was just like Thai yellow curry.
Yellow Vegetable Curry with Yang Chow Fried rice
Kung Pao Chicken
Its worth mentioning here that Zega also has an impressive beverages listing and had flair artist-bartender Anuj in attendance that night, who kept us entertained with his gigs behind the counter.
In the drinks, I loved Ninja on Fire (vodka spiked with wasabi, lemon juice and sugar) for its quirky pan Asian take and Shanghai Lemongrass (gin, lemongrass, cherry pulp, ginger ale and pineapple juice).
Desserts time and we were served an assorted platter of Tub Tim Krob, which instead of having water chestnuts had litchis in it and that was a lovely innovation. There was also the delightfully fragrant, albeit slightly bitter Matcha tea and salted caramel ice creams.
The desserts platter had Green Matcha ice cream and the classic Tub Tim Krob
I would completely recommend a meal at Zega, especially with their skilfully planned menu options of lunch time meal in a bowl, small plates etc.
