Ah the tangled skein of life! My first post on this blog lamented the wonton err wanton neglect of the interests of vegetarians in most food reviews. Life seems to have come a full circle as I recently enjoyed two excellent meals at a restaurant whose non-vegetarian offerings left my luncheon companions cold!
The restaurant in question is Tasty Tangles, the Indian Avatar of Noodle House, the international chain serving Pan Asian food. The Delhi restaurant at the Metropolitan Mall, Saket is one of the 35 outlets that the Dubai based parent company is planning to launch in India. The interiors are bright and welcoming and the service matches the interiors! The seating is on low benches and shareable tables creating the ‘community dining’ atmosphere of street stalls in South-East Asian cities like Bangkok, Jakarta or Hong Kong. French windows allow in oodles of light creating a bright and cheerful ambience during the day though the restaurant is well lit and inviting at night as well.
Diners at Tasty Tangles place their order by ticking the desired items on an order pad which is essentially a sheet of paper which lists all the items on the menu. The sheet is then taken by one of the ever-smiling staff and the order executed within minutes. In fact the promptitude of the service is one of then USPs of the chain. True to the claims of the company website, the staff is “friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the menu” and makes dining at Tasty Tangles a pleasurable experience. However what rankles is their inability/unwillingness to cooperate on certain minor issues. The server’s polite but firm refusal to substitute one of the ingredients in a soup (although they were willing to eliminate it from the dish altogether) was a case in point. Their refusal to part with one of their carry bags which my dinner companion had taken a fancy to was another (the server did helpfully suggest though that despite finishing our dinner we could order another dish so that she could then pack it in the carry bag!!)
The service, as I had mentioned previously is unbelievably quick. However there are no pre- cooked ‘fast food’ flat flavours in the food. It is prepared fresh right before your eyes in the glass and steel enclosed kitchen which is fully open to view. Though the menu overall and the vegetarian menu in particular is admittedly limited, the restaurant does a good job of the dishes that it offers. The wonton noodle soup with vegetable dumplings was excellent. The quality of the soup stock makes all the difference in the world to the taste of clear soup, and the chef definitely got it right with the flavourful stock used in the wonton soup. The sweet corn soup was good though not exceptional. However the use of vegetable dumplings rather than the traditional vegetables did provide an interesting variation to the traditional version. We followed up the soup with an excellent pad thai, easily at par with the version that I have had in Bangkok. The fact that you get excellent vegetarian Thai food (didn’t even know that it existed!!) was a revelation when I visited the country a couple of years ago (though I had to constantly stress the importance of NOT using fish salt in my stir fried veggies!!) The fact that you can now also get excellent vegetarian Thai food right here in Delhi was another happy revelation! My dinner companion opted for vegetarian fried rice which was decidedly Chin-jabi or Sino-Ludhianvi in taste and the sweet and sour bawang putih paneer, which was excellent. The dish as the name suggested had a sweet and sour taste, but what set it apart from the run-of-the mill offerings was the fact that pineapple was used to provide the sweet flavour. Improbable though this experiment may sound, it actually worked quite well. The broccoli with vegetarian oyster sauce is a good option for people who appreciate subtler flavours.
The dessert section again highlighted the curious contrast wherein both the food and the service oscillated between great and terrible (though I still maintain much to the chagrin of my carnivore friends that the vegetarian food is by and large good). A couple of items on the dessert menu were passable at best. These included the pineapple spring rolls with custard and the banana beignets (fritters) with mango syrup and vanilla ice cream. On the other hand the mango pudding, bursting with the flavour of fresh mangoes and served with vanilla ice cream, was fabulous. Another excellent dessert option is the crispy fried wontons. Though the wontons also taste good with the caramel (or rather good ol’ butterscotch) ice cream that they are served with, they are delicious by themselves served with generous lashings of honey. All in all a visit to Tasty Tangles is recommended especially if you are a fan of South-Asian cuisine. If not, they might yet convert you :)
