Celebrating winter at the well-known and one of Delhi's iconic fine dining restaurant Spice Route, Imperial Hotel, is such a joy. It is doubled when Chef Veena Arora, who has been with the restaurant since its inception more than a decade ago, selects the best on the winter menu and serves it lovingly to a handful of city's known media. Her love especially for Thai food, is apparent as she is brought up in the beautiful Thailand globally known for its cuisine. Conversations are peppered up with the vaieties of vegetables or herbs used in her household and it’s a pleasure as she fills us up with food stories while growing up in Thailand.

The menu is filled with South East Asian Coastal food. The round table is filled with nibbles and savouries with the aroma wafting through the stunning murals, hand-painted on the pillars. The Restaurant, that took seven years in the making, is completely hand painted with vegetable and flower dyes by mural painters brought in especially from a temple in Guruvayur in Kerala with a tradition dating back to 3000 years.

There is a rustle of phones coming out of pockets and purses for pictures as the steaming meen rasam (fish rasam) is placed in front of us followed with prawns flavoured with lemon grass in por pia wraps-Kung Hom Pha, and the coastal sumptuousness with Yera Ellu Pirati - battered fried jumbo prawns Kerala style. The dancing prawns or Kung Tein- charcoal grilled jumbo prawns served with garlic makes you more hungry with its delicious aroma and it vanishes as soon as it touches the table.

From the sea food map, the menu features the delish Meen Kodan Biryani –mixed sea food Kerala style Biryani while melt in the mouth lobsters in oyster sauce, Kung Nang Khee Mao- Wok fried drunkened lobster with Thai ginger finger, fresh green pepper in Thai oyster sauce, will stir your senses with bursting flavours. Not to miss, Phad Khing Pla – sole fillet with black fungus and celery stems will add to the hearty meal.

There's always a dish that Chef Veena manages to rustle up that ultimately becomes the star dish of the afternoon this time it was the Phad Phak Kheow or the fresh mustard leaves wok fried with some garlic, soybean paste, oil and white pepper which was super fresh and super tasty.

On the spur of the moment she also decides to make it fun for the special invitees as she offers to do a cook out in the beautiful winter sun, right after the delicious tofu ice cream served in different flavours like coconut, chocolate, cinnamon green tea etc. And so we got to see the prawn salad with fresh veggies being tossed right in front of us in the beautiful courtyard under the glorious winter sun. The visuals were manna for the instagram and twitter hungry media and we couldn't have ended on a better note with the best picture opportunity.

10^th November 2017 - 31^st  January 2018

Lunch & Dinner: 12:30pm - 2:45pm | 7:00pm - 11:45pm

Meal for Two  without alcohol: INR 10000 plus taxes; Call at 41116605 for reservation