Family Dinner At Baan Toa

It was an evening out with my large family at Baan Toa in Hyatt, Pune. There was a kind of festive mood but I couldn’t decide on which cousin to favor and choose my seat. Finally, the decision was made to separate the veg family from non-veg one, and I quietly squeezed in-between non-veg cousins to spend a lovely evening with interesting conversation and delicious Pan Asian food.

But what really impressed me was the décor. The water cascading against the tiled walls into the pool filled with cluster of red and green Dragon fruits, the sound of the dripping water and the dim lights gave a very romantic aura, and I was not surprised when I saw a young couple slicing a chocolate cake to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

We occupied the large dining room

The tables are already set with a plate of micro greens and three accompanying dipping sauces: hot garlic, shezwan and a cucumber relish. There were two more sauces on the side, one with coriander leaves and other with lemon grass.

While we waited for the order, we rolled the greens with sour n chilly sauce and played the game of guessing the ingredients.

The starter, an IceBerg salad was perfect; crunchy Ice Berg coated with Japanese peanut dressing, melt in the mouth, it was simply delightful.

We ordered just three different types of Dim Sums, mixed vegetables, chicken and prawns. The prawns were the best, succulent and sweet. I am told that this is the place that serves a special set brunch where there are variety of dim sums, some 15-16 different types of vegetarian and non-vegetarian, with salads and desserts.

I didn’t like the wanton soup at all, it was bland and even though I added sauces and chili vinegar, it was not satisfying. That’s when I heard some loud voices from the kitchen. The kitchen was too close to the dinning area where we were sitting and any commotion in the kitchen could be heard. Was it chef or were there some other cooks? but emotions in the kitchen was affecting the quality of the food. The Vietnamese rolls tasted raw, rice noodles too sticky, soup very bland.

The chefs have to be calm or the food may not taste good. Service was excellent with waiters apologetic about the loud noises from kitchen. The devil in me wanted to walk to the kitchen to see the commotion.

Maybe, had I gone in, the calm would have returned and I would have some really tasty cuisine that the restaurant is normally known for.