Eat East Street Carnival, Salt Co. 531 Radisson Blu

   

The Eat East Street Carnival by Salt Co. 531, Radisson Blu presents street cuisine from the lanes of Thailand, Japan and Korea. The carnival is on till August 22nd. Attended it recently on an invite. It's also Salt Co. 530's second anniversary.

 The restaurant (Salt Co. 531) has a bustling ambiance and there was variation in the kind of seating. A high ceilinged dining area with a more private space as one enters and to the left. You can also opt to sit outdoors overlooking the mesmerising swimming pool. So there's definitely some choice as far as seating is concerned.

The Menu

Jumping right into the food..

The festival seems to take the street food exploration seriously with some pretty quirky interesting dishes found only in the respective countries like the Korean Kogo which is a breaded Hot Dog that's been fried to yummy crunchiness or the Korean Meat balls tossed in slightly sweet sauces. The Kogo was very snacky n made the common sausage much more interesting a bite. Fried squid was done just right.

Outside, there are cooking stations, organized based on the kind of cooking, not the cuisine as the manager clarified to me.






                                  Veg options marinated for the grill.








 

The outdoor grilling stations have pretty interesting items on offer with chicken, egg and quail being stuffed into watermelons, coconuts and Bamboo respectively and grilled on charcoals!

I got to taste the Chawan Mushi which is an egg custard made by cooking it in a Tender coconut, a nice twist indeed.

The flavor of coconut water with the softly cooked egg was super; subtle! Unfortunately did not get to try the other items grilled this way since it was late but I'm sure it would offer something interesting for the palate.

As soon as we arrived we were brought a plate of the Sirloin beef, grilled and cut into bite-sized pieces along with a plate of the Ika Geso Karage (squid) which was basically medium breaded and fried. The squid was fried just right and tender, some may like to dip it in the mayo or just eat it plain like I did. The meat (Sirloin beef) was served twice once at the start of the meal and once later. First serving was good although the meat had a firmness to it, the salt levels were perfect. However, the second serving was too done to my liking and slightly charred on the underside . Definitely give your preference of doneness while ordering the meat dishes so you can have it the way you like it.

From the Stir fried station, there were 3 options in the noodles department, the choices were from Udon noodles, glass noodles and flat noodles. You can completely customize the noodles the way you want and choose from chicken, prawn and more. I asked the Chef to prepare a mixed noodle variant with chicken and got a spicy plate of the same. Dish tasted good, smoky and quite spicy but took a while to arrive at table. Make sure you note the table number so they can bring it your table.

Stir fried squid - their seafood was all well-made, tender to the bite and mildly flavored.

In the meantime, we were thoroughly entertained by a surprise visit from a magician who had quite a few card tricks up his sleeve, literally! ;-)  Hope he is there throughout the festival to entertain guests mid-bite!

For desserts, there was a nice variety full of items I'd never seen before, being quite new to these cuisines. There were quite a few non-Indians trying the menu. By the time main course was done, many of the in-demand desserts were cleaned out and only some remained, I tried them one by one and liked quite a few. Loved the Gruay Tod, a tiny circular sandwich made of cooked flour and filled with a dark caramelly syrup. Point to note about the desserts is they were all subtly flavored and lightly sweet so having them was a guilt-free experience! The Sticky rice and pink jelly all served up in shot glasses ended the dinner on a satisfying note.

More desserts in the counter - these were snapped up before we got to them. 

Details: The carnival is on till 22nd August. Priced at 1799 nett.

Some of the staff, dressed in ethnic wear, along with the Executive Chef.