Walk in to Panayaa – The Modern Indian Kitchen tucked away in Kalyani Nagar, Pune and you will find this Indian desi dessert with a modern twist. A Mohanthal base comes together with a simple cheesecake topped with strawberry compote and served alongside baklava, chocolate soil and vanilla ice cream. Priced at Rs.450/- Read on to know more offerings from this place
It is here that you would walk in with your all vegetarian family for a meal that has a layer of novelty. Panayaa gets you that shakahari food with a modern twist to it.
The ambiance here is classy. Check out the pictures here…
You will be introduced to the Dahi Shot which is an inverted sphere with yoghurt and boondi…A palate cleanser
In the appetizers The Cottage Cheese Indiana is like the regular paneer tikka. Well marinated pieces of paneer, nicely char-grilled
The Nazakat Kumbh, Tandoori mushrooms stuffed with onion, herbs and cheese and nicely smoked. Thing to note here is that the mushrooms weren’t watery as with other mushroom dishes. Well prepared.
Chana Masala Wonton Chat, well it was a chatpata chana chat with mint and nylon sev as toppings served on deep fried wontons…Desi with a Videshi twist
Next up is the Vada Pav version 3 or you may call them as stuffed mini buns with vada pav filling. The filling here I thought was miniscule in proportion to the size of the buns
Corn Bhel Maze Cornetto – A noteworthy appetizer with maize cone shaped shells with a cheesy corn filling and a zingy bell pepper frosting
The Crispy Corn Khakra Churi brings together the traditional khakra with crumbled corn. Again a myriad to textures in a single dish
In the mains you will find from the kadhai-
Panayaa e Khas – A creamy masaledar gravy with cottage cheese that was rich.
The Kheema Kasturi – let the name not fool you here had diced vegetables in a Indian brown gravy finished with kasuri methi
The Papad Kofta Curry – dumpling of papad stuffed with cottage cheese in a makhani gravy. This did not appeal to my tastebuds for the fact that the papad coating was too thick for my palate
The Biryani, unlike the other biryanis was clumpy..nah not because of the over-cooked rice but because of the makhni gravy in it. Flavorful and worth going back for seconds.
In the desserts I have already talked about the cheesecake the next one is the Chocolate Landscape, it had all the drama, the theatre and oodles of chocolate and its variants but in the end it was too frozen for me. It takes 7 minutes to prepare it on the table and I don’t know if I would like to wait so much for the last leg of the meal
To know more in vistaar about this place check out Maanas Shah’s blog here
