Your visit to Aloha on the Ganges would never be complete if you do not experience its food. While non-veg lovers might cringe at the idea of having only vegetarian food as the option but the expansive vegetarian menu would leave you thinking for a moment that the idea of visiting Aloha was not that bad after all.
Latitude is the multi-cuisine restaurant at Aloha that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and based on the guest occupancy, the options of both buffet and a la carte are also made available. Since it was on a weekend that we visited the property and the occupancy was pretty high, we were served a lavish buffet during both lunch and dinner.
Starting with patta gobi ke kofte, stuffed capsicum, matar paneer, gatte matar ke pulav, dal amritsari, methi mutiya nu saag, kathal masala, bhindi tadke wali, multani bhune aaloo, baigan bhaja, to paneer makhani, saffron baked vegetable and stir fried greens with sesame, the variety served to us was a huge one. However, it is not just the variety that amused us but the food tasted good too. Being a non-veg lover, this might have been one of the few places where I thoroughly enjoyed having a vegetarian meal.
The bakery section is equally good as well as the dessert section that has a multitude of options for sweet lovers like butterscotch cake, almond dry cake, chocolate mousse and so on. Indian sweets consisted of delicacies like aate ka sheera (halwa), gulab jamun, fresh kalakand, lauki ke kheer, etc to name a few.
After having such a sumptuous and a wholesome (as most of the vegetables are grown organically) meal, we could not help but ask for a meeting with the chef and understand from him the source of his inspiration for the vegetarian menu that he curates. The Executive chef was however on leave but we did get a chance to meet with the Senior Chef de partie, Chef Manoj Singh Rawat who works under him.
Chef Manoj has been in the hospitality industry for the 10 years. A native of Tehri Garhwal, the chef has had an experience of working in Delhi (in places like India Habitat Centre) and Rajasthan before Aloha on the Ganges. “It’s been 2 and half years at Aloha,” he said. “I have joined it 2 months after this property was opened.”
Having a diploma in Hotel management from Dehradun, Chef Manoj’s specialty is into Indian cuisine. “But since we have a multi-cuisine arrangement here, I am required to prepare everything – right from Italian to Chinese and even continental. But I try to be as original as possible while preparing anything. Like if I make Hyderabadi biryani, I try to make it in the dum style. So that is my speciality,” he said.
We learnt from him that his signature dishes are kaju karela, vegetable biriyani and baked curd. As both kaju karela and baked curd sounded very unique to us, he even prepared a small portion of it and served it to us during dinner. We really liked the taste and appreciated the dedication and love with which he served us his dish.
Just like the property and the hospitable staff, the food at Aloha too earned brownie points from us. So the next time you are at Aloha on the Ganges, make sure you do not miss the food!
To read about Aloha on the Ganges, click here…
– Samrita/Anjali
