Kitchen Central: Finding Its Centre

[Rated: 3.0/5]

Kitchen Central has noble ambitions – “to put yummy in your tummy”. This home ‘fine dining’ service provides a choice of Indian, Chinese, Italian, and Thai food to its customers. At their request Pawan, Sumit and I plan to sample out a cross section of their dishes.

So we suggest the dishes to be sampled to be delivered to us at 12:30 PM. The food is delivered to us at 1:05 PM, which could be because their delivery service starts only at 1 PM. The food is hot and the delivery boy smart.

Rather than going sequentially through our tasting panel experience, I will give you a gist of the food, categorizing it as good, indifferent and bad. So let’s start with the good stuff.

BBQ Mongolian chicken wings (Rs 240) are tailor-made for the Indian palate. It is chatpata and has the right balance of the sweet, sour and spicy. As such this makes a perfect beer snack. The veg Thai red curry (Rs 280) has the perfect consistency and a near authentic taste. The nimbu wali dal (Rs 125) is an exciting, tangy yellow mung dal with a distinct hit of lemon. These dishes are definitely worth ordering.

Then there are dishes which get into an ‘it might have been’ category. The veg Kabab Platter (Rs 240), has veg seeks that are as good as one can get with the limited ingredients. The bharwan alu are nice and firm though the stuffing can be more robust. The tandoori broccoli has a good bite to it, but the paneer tikka is not good because of the hard, somewhat stale paneer. The accompanying chutney has the right amount of tang.

Badaam murg (Rs 350) has rich royal gravy with oodles of crushed almonds and dollops of cream. However the excellent gravy does not translate to excellent dish because the chicken seems boiled and put in at the end. Singapore cauliflower (Rs 160) suffers from an identity crisis. It is cauliflower alright but the Singapore connection eludes. The fish in lemon butter sauce (Rs 310) is rich and addictive; however the lemon angle is conspicuous by its absence. The pad Thai (Rs 240) is made just right, but is a bit of a soggy mess because of the overcooked noodles. The assorted breads – rotis, naans and parathas are competent.

Now to the unfortunate dishes in the menu. The non veg Kabab platter (Rs 305) is unsatisfactory to the point of being inedible. The mutton seekh kabab is too hard, so is the chicken tikka and malai tikka. The fish is somewhat better though quite below par. Spaghetti Bolognese (Rs 195) is too oily and does not have Bolognese sauce. In fact it can easily be called spaghetti keema pulao. The chicken shawarma pizza (Rs 240) is no pizza. It is an ordinary shawarma, but with a thick dry roti and boiled chicken inside.

Kitchen Central has a lot of potential. The good dishes can be excellent and pricing right. I am sure their mastery over veg Indian and Thai food can also be replicated in other cuisines.

Address: Saket & Civil Lines (Delivery only)| Minimum Order: Rs 300 (Upto 5km), Rs500 (Above 5km) | Telephone: 95550-11011