Zambar, Gurgaon

Zambar
3rd Floor, Food Court
Ambience Mall
NH 8
Gurgaon
0124 - 466 5590

With a curfew situation on restaurants in Delhi on the 14th, we headed towards Gurgaon and Ambience mall was the first "open" location that we saw. I'd heard a lot of good things about Zambar, so thats where we headed.

Unfortunately, although Zambar was open at 6pm, the chef said that they were only serving dosas, idlis and drinks until 7pm when dinner service would begin. Unfortunate, because the menu we were presented had a lovely selection of food in its a ala carte section, from the coastal parts of India. However, we were restricted to the 4 types of dosas and idlis.

Being famished, we just sat down and ordered the non veg masala dosas. Mutton mince (250Rs) for me and chicken and mushroom (250Rs) for the husband. The dosas are really large and a complete meal, not just a snack like most South Indian eateries. The mutton mince dosa was excellent. In the chicken dosa, while the chicken chunks themselves were lovely, I found the mushrooms a bit on the salty side.

We also ordered the Kanjeevaram idli (215Rs) since we knew the dosas would take a little while to arrive. It arrived in a set of 3 idlis with cashwenuts on the top, a compliment of 3 chutneys (coconut, mint and tomato) and sambhar.

The table also had little pots with 3 chutneys (mint, onion+ginger and groundnut+onion) and some chutney powder.

The sambhar was served at room temperature and we had to send it back to the kitchen to be re-heated. (That's why the bowl is missing in the Dosa picture)

The ginger coconut caipiroshka (150Rs) was average and it was served warm. But the Coastal ice tea (150Rs) was really interesting. It's made with cola, but when we asked if it could be changed to diet cola, the waiter said that we would have to pay the price of the diet cola (150Rs) + the cost of the Coastal Ice tea.

Its this contradiction of being a high priced restaurant, but quibbling and service like a lower end joint that did not sit well with us.

The decor is lovely with muted lighting and simple but stylish seating.

The food was nice, but if I want idlis, I would rather go to my neighbourhood South Indian outlet. Naivedyam, Evergreen and Adyar Ananth Bhavan all serve much superior idlis and chutneys at 20% of this cost. The dosas were "zara hatke", but not worth the drive.

I've heard that their thalis are good and the a la carte menu is excellent. So I will return to check out the regular menu, I'll just have to make sure that it is after 7pm. I'll re-review it at that time, but until then:

Ambience : 7
Food  : 6
Service :4