Desert by the beach

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Like they say that books help you travel the world without stepping a foot outside your home, similarly, global cuisine served in your city can introduce you to other parts of the world by sharing their culinary delights.

To add to the list, Olive Beach at Hotel Diplomat is running ‘Desert by the Beach’, their new concept menu. “Desert by the beach is all about the new Middle Eastern Mediterranean menu with influences from Lebanon, Morocco and Turkey. The basic idea is to have a beach feel with the ambience, but with this menu, we have added desert to the beach,” says Saby, chef and director at Kitchen at Olive.
The delicacies served are recipes from the Mediterranean belt, which is popular for using some exotic ingredients. “The menu consists a large section of exotic ingredients such as saffron, cinnamon, dates, prunes and apricots to recreate the aura of the rich cuisine. Also, many of the spices used are the same as the spices that are used in India cuisine,” adds Saby.
To add more, lots of the dishes are very similar to Indian cuisine because of the cooking methods. “We use methods like slow braising for our lamb tagine, frying for the sambousek and fatahyer, and ingredients like cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, coriander, bay leaf which are very common to Indian cuisine as well,” explains the chef.
As Delhiites are known for their palate for global fare, they can now feast on grilled haloumi, spicy calamari, samake harra fish, Moroccan roasted chicken with cous cous and the organic honey glazed baklava, specialities from Middle East.