Child Speak/Woman Song

Vasundhara Tewari Broota at Shridharani Gallery

Much like her paintings, the title of Vasundhara Tewari Broota’s current show at Triveni suggests more than it says outright. However, as is evidenced from the catalogue essay by Gayatri Sinha, Broota has a lot to say – this time about childhood, and the woman as a mother and an artist. While her work still carries a lot of intellectual weight, these paintings are a little more relaxed than her previous work – allowing her painterly abilities to shine through with more spontaneity.

The oil and acrylic on canvas paintings in this show appear simpler, bolder and more organised than some of Broota’s earlier work; yet, under blocks of bright colour lurk multiple tones and hues. The surfaces of her paintings are reticulated to lend the paintings a plastic texture and a feeling of depth despite their smoothness; in Rope Song, the blue background surges with aquatic intensity.

Abstract backgrounds merge and overwhelm narrative figures. The paintings make use of symbols in an iconic fashion – almost like a child’s first alphabet book. Letters and numbers suggest the imposition of meanings upon the female figures. With numbers appearing in blocks over a dreamlike landscape, Structure and Play suggests the potential years of life proceeding from childhood. A progression of female nudes in A Journey in Time recalls the tension of the identities of mother and child, with the linking metaphor of crescent and full moons.

Broota’s paintings range from being carefully chaotic (Running) to having a vibrant equilibrium (Shining Through). Her paintings invite analysis while coquettishly escaping from it. Perhaps Broota’s relationship to her paintings is best seen in the self-reflexive diptych Flight in Turbulence. In the right-hand panel, the gun-sight mirrors the viewer’s eye, trained on the centre of the canvas. One bird from the abstracted flock is in high naturalistic detail – it just slips out of the central range. It’s a reminder that whatever you look at becomes frozen with meaning, while what you ignores flies off into the background. Broota lets her subjects flirt with such tension in “Child Speak/Woman Song”, creating works with a complex life of their own.

Kaghaz Ke Ghar

Zarina Hashmi at Gallery Espace

New York-based Zarina Hashmi has lived in homes all over the world and it is fitting that her retrospective is titled “Kaghaz ke Ghar/Paper Houses”. Spanning two decades (1979-99), the exhibition showcases Hashmi’s innovative use of paper in three dimensions, although it includes etchings as well. Made by pouring paper pulp into moulds and then shaping or adding elements, the sculptures are architectural and elegant, pushing the medium of paper to new forms.

Fragile and yet malleable, paper is a good medium for an artist whose work deals with themes of creating personal space that can be easily moved, shifted or destroyed. Displaced People/Displaced Homes most directly makes the connection between flimsy paper dwellings and the narratives people tell themselves to create a sense of home. The sculpture is made up of several prints – each cut and stacked separately in the shape of a house – that are bundled together and to each other with cord. Here, the cord could represent narrative – the thread that actually holds people together when permanent structure is missing.

Other works are less political and more personal. Flight Log, an early piece, alludes to Hashmi’s experience learning to fly a glider. Other works – such as the Pool series – are more contemplative, drawing in the viewer as a Zen garden might. As Hashmi says, “Home is the centre of my universe; I make a home wherever I am. My home is my hiding place, a house with four walls, sometimes with four wheels.”

In a recent interview, Hashmi stated that she also finds a home in her art, and this exhibition is an open invitation into that sometimes peaceful, sometimes provoking place.

Upside down

Probably one of the most important artists living today, Georg Baselitz still evokes some criticism among his contemporaries. He is best-known for his inverted subjects: figures, animals, landscapes turned upside down. While this may seem a simple contrivance, a retrospective exhibition of Baselitz’s printed works – “Georg Baselitz: Printed Works 1965–1992” – at the Lalit Kala Akademi provides the opportunity to delve into the artist’s complex oeuvre. With inverted nudes as well as more recent works, which impose artificial grids and arbitrary blocks of colour across the surface, the exhibition – organised by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. – is a comprehensive experience of Baselitz’s corpus, as well as a challenge for the viewer.

Born Hans-Georg Kern in the town of Deutschbaselitz (from which he derives his pseudonym), just before World War II, Baselitz’s early years promised a rebellious career. He even got himself expelled from art school for “socio-political immaturity”. But even from his earlier engravings, it is clear that Baselitz is adept at his craft, though perhaps lacking a trained virtuosity. In these expressionist drawings – Rebel, Blocked Man – he tends towards the grotesque, not with the intention to shock, but rather because he seems to have no patience for studied harmony at the expense of stemming the raw power of paint.

Baselitz once wrote in a catalogue, “Things always do go back to…the harmonious and the disharmonious. And there is the condition between the two where they meet. Here things mesh and are balanced, which, with my paintings and drawing, I don’t like, probably because I can never achieve it. And so I tend to take disharmony as my principle: it gives me better results.”

The biggest step Baselitz took towards freeing his subjects from the confines of conventional aesthetics – towards bringing the painting itself to life – was to paint things upside down. This has the effect of drawing attention to the form of reality, and of freeing subjects from their forms.

Baselitz’s paintings are unsettling, even repellent. The catalogue for the exhibition begins with a quote by Bonnard: “It is not about painting life, but about making painting come alive.” Baselitz responds to this with, “Reality IS the picture, it is definitely not IN the picture.” Some of his most successful works combine large etchings, woodcut prints and finger-painting to create bold brushstrokes that suggest wings and feathers.

Baselitz’s series of birds, in fact, particularly demonstrates the strength of his upside-down technique. Untitled, 1974 (exhibit 14) looks at first glance like an abstract mountain or just a composition of negative and positive space. As the brain tries to make sense of the image, it starts to look like a bird falling out of the sky, suggesting agony, confusion and death. Imagine the painting upside down, and it gives the startling impression of an eagle soaring through a blue sky.

Another painting (Untitled, 1974; exhibit 16) suggests danger with its heavy black brushstrokes crisscrossing the blue background in a skull-like form. Yet, there is an attractive internal organisation in the painting that compels you to look again. The image of a bird in a nest, which stereotypically suggests security and comfort, appears inverted – provoking contradictory emotions.

The works can make you realise the controlling nature of the brain; when one has seen the motif in a painting – the conventionally “right” way to see it – the eyes obstinately refuse to let go of that image. The conditioned mind clings tenaciously to the bird and has difficulty going back to the more innocent experience of the form of the painting. Baselitz claims that his use of motifs is unimportant and his later works obscure any recognisable subject even further, focusing on the painterly aspects of each piece. There is harmony here – but it is a harmony that is less concerned with aesthetic balance within a frame and more with a balance of emotions and ethics.

Baselitz has written, “When I start my paintings I begin by forming things as though I were the first to do this, the only one, as though there weren’t all these predecessors – although I know that there are thousands of examples to speak against me. You always have to do something that is valid and final.”

Georg Baselitz: Printed Works 1965-1992 is open until Jan 30, 2007.

The specialists

Shila Travels and Consultancy Services was founded 15 years ago by brothers Amit, Abhishek and Amitabh Keshav- and their sister Aarohi. Amit Keshav told us why they like to work only with Koreans.

Korea and India have many cultural similarities. Besides the fact that we both got independence around the same time, there was also a history of partition in both countries. People ask us why we don’t deal with other clients, but we like to specialise. People say, “Koreans are such rough people, how can you deal with them?” We reply that we are Bihari, so we are used to it.

My brother Abhishek was learning Tae Kwon Do – he wasn’t interested in studying but wanted to learn more advanced Tae Kwon Do in Korea. That’s where he learnt to speak fluently. Somehow the Korean embassy got to know this guy could speak the language – this is when Samsung etc were entering the country… So Abhishek got a job translating for Daewoo. I was in Patna and thought this was very unfair – he was earning in dollars while I was working so much harder! So I went and got a job in a travel agency to help him.

We don’t have any formal training in the language – we learnt through interaction. Our language consultancy is now used by corporates like HCL, Samsung etc to offer training in Korean, Hindi and regional languages. Our travel business is also good – JAL carries more Koreans than Japanese. We have a restaurant in Bihar, between Patna and Motihari, that serves authentic Korean, Japanese and Chinese food – and Korean visitors are very impressed.

We also organise film shoots. People come here to make documentaries to air in Korea. We are like a production line. We were involved in setting up the shooting of Gangster in Korea. And there’s another Bollywood project we’re involved with in Korea currently – but you can’t print the details! As told to Sonal Shah

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Eastern aisles

A-Mart and Coco’s

Did you know that there is a café serving Korean fast food in Delhi? It’s called Coco’s and it’s a recent addition to A-Mart, a predominantly Korean supply store that opened last year. The café mostly has burger-and-fries combos, momos and the like, but it also has a couple of Korean ramen and stir-fry options on its menu. Its bar-stool seats line a counter that looks out onto the underbelly of a flyover on the national highway and the gritty urban view is surprisingly interesting.
A-Mart itself is a glorious, air-conditioned, spacious supermarket, with everything from dried fish to an entire section for ramen. There are separate sections for sauce, tea, snack foods, as well as a frozen foods section stocking things like bread-crumbed shrimp, potstickers and chicken nuggets – all with Korean labels. There are bottled drinks, soaps, sundry toiletry items, cookies and completely unidentifiable packages. Though mostly catering to a Korean clientele, every item is helpfully labelled in English along with its price in rupees, and manager Jyoti Vardhan told us that they hope to cater to an Indian and international market – what with imports from Malaysia, Dubai, Indonesia and so on. Items are a bit expensive, and the store doesn’t stock much unusual fresh produce or seafood, but poke around in the shelves and you’ll find a world of food products you never knew existed. Canned silkworm pupae anyone? (Apparently, these babies are also a speciality in the Northeastern states of India).
A-1 Mahipalpur Extension, NH-8 (2678-9999). On the way from Delhi to Gurgaon, take Exit 2 off the highway and keep an eye out for the big A-Mart sign on the left. Daily 9am-9pm.

Other grocers:

We saw an air freshener from Yamato-ya in the Restaurant de Seoul bathroom. This store in Safdarjung Enclave, with its endless aisles catering to the needs of the Japanese expat community, has items that can be used in Korean cooking as well. Frozen fish, packets of rice and wasabi tubes are stocked along with personal accessories and alternative therapy products, chocolates, biscuits and more.
Yamato-ya B-6/9 Local Commercial Complex, Safdarjung Enclave (4165-0164). Daily 10am-7.30pm.

Also, Ashok, Lucky and SK Stores in INA, near the vegetable market, stock basic Korean goods, like red pepper sauce and seaweed. Some of the owners claim to speak Korean as well. Ashok General Store, Shop 113, INA Market (2461-7561). Lucky General Store, Shop 120, INA Market (2462-4550). SK Store, Shop 111-112 INA Market (2463-1537). Daily 10am-8pm.

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Seoul-ar cookers

You don’t have to look too far to find Korean food in the city, thanks to a burgeoning Korean expat population and their celebrated (almost Punjabi) entrepreneurial spirit. We found at least five full-fledged Korean restaurants in town. Korean food is best eaten communally, so go with a bunch of friends.

Dokebi Nara
This hidden Paharganj gem is split into two restaurants and has a branch in McLeodganj. The restaurants are supposedly owned by a Korean hippie. Our Nepalese waiter hazarded a guess that the small terrace on the first floor, strung with lanterns and decorated with some fantastic relief-maps of Paharganj, represents North Korea and the covered-rooftop restaurant across in the next building represents South Korea. We sat at the empty terrace at first. Here, we downed glasses of typically Korean sweet-and-sour lemonade, filled with wheels of lemon (Rs 35) and started off with a plate of kimbab, large rolls of vegetarian sushi, cut Korean-style, with pleasingly uneven end-pieces (Rs 100). The jueoyook bulgogi and rice came heaped in a plate – enough lean, braised pork and vegetables to feed an army (Rs 180). This was part of a “set meal”, which included a side dish of a few cold salads – eggplant, radish, zucchini and lotus root. The kimchi hot pot (soup) came with rice and was tangy and warm and not too spicy (Rs 150, and the menu assured us that everything is cooked in mineral water). It was about this time that we realised that the loud bouts of laughter and chatter coming from the other restaurant were actually in Korean. We asked the waiter if we could get a drink there. He smiled and said “it’s possible”. So, crossing over and up two flights of stairs through a guesthouse, past plastic tubs of kimchi, we walked into the cheerier, bamboo-screened, cartoon-graffitied section. Here, a large table of drunk Koreans were toasting this and that – everyone from grandma to the little kids seemed to be having a good time. The owner seems to have a cartological streak – hand-drawn maps of India and Connaught Place cover the walls. Each of the restaurants also has a shelf of Korean books and comics.
Navrang Guesthouse, Paharganj. Θ Ramakrishna Mission or New Delhi Railway Station. Ask for “6 – Chhe – Tooti Gali”. Meal for two Rs 500.

Gung: The Palace
This three-floor restaurant sprouts plastic flowers and is embellished with red walls, rice-paper partitioned cabins with floor-seating and a level of regular tables. Frequented mostly by groups of Korean businessmen, the establishment was set up by a gentleman from Seoul about a year ago (see Box). You’ll take off your shoes before stepping up into an elevated cabin, but you don’t have to sit cross-legged, as there’s a well under the table where you can dangle your feet. The menu is mostly in Korean, but there are explanatory pictures next to most items. Though the waitresses – dressed in traditional hanbok outfits – are helpful, you might want to get the manager or owner’s input when ordering. Portions are generous and the selection of kimchi a meal in itself. Adventurous types can try the Gung’s kimbab – there are the familiar raw fish varieties as well as the unique Korean take – rolled with raw meat, on request. The grills and stews are all cooked at the table. Our sogalbi (short ribs with mushrooms, Rs 1,200) arrived gleaming brown from its marinade and was deftly braised by our waitress, using chopsticks on a crystal plate on the fire next to our table. The kimchi stew (Rs 1,300) was enough to feed a small army camping at the DMZ. If you want to splash out, there’s a two-hour table d’hôte menu for dinner that includes everything from starters to dessert (about Rs 2,500 a head). If you call up beforehand, you can avail of Karoake in English, Korean and Hindi after 10pm.
D-1B Green Park (4608-2663). Daily noon-3pm; 6-11pm. Meal for two Rs 2,500.

K2
One of our dinner companions who has travelled to Korea told us that the environment was straight-up Korean, from the industrial-grey concrete wall panelling to the businesslike atmosphere. Never having been there, we can only say that it’s red. Like a ’70s den, with a crimson lacquered bar that you’d expect a leggy 007 blonde to be draped across. There are two private karaoke rooms with large flat-screen TVs. First to arrive, traditional style, was a complimentary set of small plates, the best bits being the sweet-and-sour radish pickle and the chicken and egg fried in wheat flour. Next, the speciality ribeye, which is dipped in garlic sauce, wrapped in lettuce with strips of carrot and cucumber and slathered with a liberal dash of the delicious lentil-and-chilli paste before consumption. The excellent quality of the meat was apparent; the taste succulent. A bowl of chicken bokumbab (fried rice, Rs 280) was perfect – moist, almost sticky, laden with fresh veggies. Even though none of the hot plates for cooking at our table were available, even with the strains of karaoke that kept us company throughout, the one word everyone at the table agreed on was “sublime”. Anees Saigal
MGF Plaza, third floor, MG Road, Gurgaon (95124-4379151). Daily noon-3pm; 6pm-midnight. Alcohol served. All credit cards accepted. Meal for two Rs 2,500.

Kum-gang
This spacious Ashoka Hotel restaurant, which opened in 2002, specialises in Joson dynasty cuisine. It just closed recently for renovation, but the management promises it will be open in a few months.
Diplomatic Enclave, 50B Chanakayapuri (2611-0101).

Restaurant de Seoul
This Ansal Plaza restaurant is good for a first attempt at Korean food – mostly because their dishes are described quite fully in English on the menu. The restaurant is a cute, warm room with tables and two screened-off rooms that have seating on the floor. Minimally decorated with screens, a few red accents and wooden tables, De Seoul is quiet, which makes it good for a relaxed slow meal. The stews and soups will be cooked at your table, but the rest of the food comes prepared from the small kitchen. You’ll get several bowls of various kimchi and pickles, including a sugar-coated peanut one that tastes like prashad. The lotus root kimchi is particularly yummy. We also like their fried side dishes section – the battered, fried pork is delicious. The meat and seafood stew we had (complete with octopus tentacles) was hearty – a huge portion.
C-308 Ansal Plaza, Khel Gaon Marg (3296-0289). All major credit cards accepted. Daily 11am-11pm. Meal for two Rs 1,000.

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Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions

Smita Jain

Take a single young professional, place her in Mumbai’s TV soap industry, throw in a murder and lots of (traffic-jammed) chase scenes, introduce a handsome ex-best-friend and voilá – you have a piece of desi chick-lit. If it sounds stodgily formulaic, rest assured that Smita Jain’s racy Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions is actually a toothsome devil’s food cupcake of a novel. The roguish streak running through this witty detective comedy is due to Jain’s irreverent indulgence in oddly specific stereotypes (creative directors are universally described thus: “short, fat, chain-smoking bitch”), unabashedly frequent instances of deviant behaviour and the feisty main character, Kkrishnaa herself.

Kkrishnaa, like her creator, is a scriptwriter for teleserials and an amateur student of psychology. She’s also brazenly competitive – to the point of suspecting fellow script-writer, closet existential novelist and sexy love interest Dev Trivedi of plagiarising her every line. While our heroine is secretly observing a swanky apartment block for source material, the two happen to witness a celebrity murder. As the bickering pair try to stay a step ahead of the assassin, they hook up with a bumptious police inspector and a stuttering CBI agent and stumble into webs of conspiracy spun by hypocritical politicians, pimping swamis and adulterous housewives. Somewhere between dodging bullets and seducing her seniors, Kkrishnaa discovers that she still has feelings for former friend Dev, and that those feelings go beyond the merely Platonic.

Despite the broad strokes with which Jain paints her characters, this book is an engaging and offbeat caper. Like Kkrishnaa’s scripts, it’s “convoluted enough to guarantee viewer interest, but not to the extent of leaving them confused”. As the protagonist overcomes a case of writer’s block by weaving the murder investigation into her serial, the reader also notes that the book’s characters are thinly veiled allusions to actual dons, gangsters and film stars. Jain liberally cartoonifies her characters, but Kkrishnaa has the right blend of wit, sex and twists to keep this reader interested – at least for a couple of hours.

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Manré

On an expense account

Manré, named after a village in the south of France, also boasts of a view of the “Delhi’s skyline”. Somewhat ironically, the view from this glitzy Ramola Bachchan-owned restaurant complex is actually of the construction site that is now Saket. However, at night, while you’re seated in the dim crystal chandelier-lit rooms, the sparkling CFLs and tubelights from beyond actually look quite lovely.

Manré occupies a huge amount of space atop the MGF mall. Half of it is a spacious bar in white, with booths, an island bar-counter and flat screens everywhere. Adjacent to that is a terrace, which is not yet open, but slated to be a casual café. Another terrace, flanking the fine-dining room on the other side, will be an Indo-Arabic-themed open area with white tents, satiny cushions and finger food.

We were here on business however, so we sat down in their opulent fine-dining area. It feels a bit like a highly-polished version of the castle in Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, with gilded mirrors, ornate embellishments, black crystal chandeliers, draped private dining rooms and a slightly dark, gothic vibe. We half expected a pair of disembodied gloved hands to pour us water.

The service was rather more personal than that, though. Our waiter was quite helpful in narrowing down choices from the vaguely European menu, even suggesting we order his “personal favourite” dish.
We started with a couple of toothsome, and very pretty, appetisers. The Thai soufflé with lemongrass, galangal, ginger and kaffir lime was served with a bit of red coconut curry sauce (Rs 475). Light, fluffy and just browned, the soufflé was perfectly cooked, but needed the curry for flavour despite its exotic ingredients. The goat cheese timbale was nicely presented, with pesto-filled layers of aubergine, courgette, sun-dried tomato and goat cheese making up a tower, which the waiters obligingly cut up to serve (Rs 500). Our pick of the appetisers were the herb and saffron gnocchi in a smoked scaramoza sauce and artichoke barigoule. The gnocchi were served in bite-sized morsels, flavourful without fuss, with the gentle warmth of saffron in the sauce (Rs 500).

A prosciutto and gorgonzola salad was less exceptional (Rs 525). The ingredients – figs, Romaine lettuce, walnuts and honey vinaigrette were all fresh, but the whole lacked that certain something that would justify its price. Our main of roasted pancetta-wrapped medallions of pork, served with a pineapple and ginger marmalade was perfect: juicy and meaty in all the right ways, and served atop potato roesti, with harissa and pine-nut stuffing in a port wine reduction (Rs 1,250). The hearty corn-fed breast of chicken with brie was served on a tasty radish and black olive polenta with caramelised shallots and a Madeira glaze. This portion was a bit too much for one person. The penne diablo was just the right amount, and surprisingly tasty for a simple pasta dish (Rs 750).

The highlight of our meal, however, was the dessert. A rich chocolate torte arrived in a pool of melted chocolate. The richness of this was cooled by a scoop of Manré’s home-made star anise ice cream and we scraped the generous portion down to the plate (Rs 425). The less sinful-seeming Valrhona chocolate delice was moulded mousse-like chocolate, served with the perfect foil of a mixed berry coulis. The poached pears were simpler and less indulgent, again served with a scoop of home-made champagne sorbet and a drizzled vanilla sauce (Rs 385).

We had one complaint though: the tables are uncomfortably high, suited more to a big Beast than the high-heeled beauties currently feeding here. Otherwise, while expensive, the food is good. There is a way out if you want to save some money, of course. There’s no reason not to go for a glass of wine (the list wasn’t in place when we visited, but promises to be good), a couple of appetisers and a dessert. And the view.

MGF Metropolitan Mall, fourth floor, A Wing, Saket (4066-8888). All major credit cards accepted. Alcohol served. Daily noon-3pm; 8am-1am. Meal for two Rs 6,000.

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Routemaster

Riding the Ring Railroad

An adolescent religious type does pullups on the handholds by the open door, watching the sun-dappled woods of the Ridge flash by. Most passengers are office-goers in black pants and crisp shirts, carrying satchels. A group of young men crack jokes, pausing intermittently to goggle at the one woman in the non-ladies’ compartment. Three men gamble; they’re playing the marriage variation of rummy and keeping score on their hands.

Welcome to the Delhi Parikrama Rail Sewa: the city’s circular railway that roughly follows the Ring Road. The line was laid in 1975 as a bypass for goods trains to avoid the main stations. Originally known as the “Delhi avoiding line”, the route was flaunted as a showpiece of our urban transport system during the 1982 Asian Games. In those days, the looping route demarcated the outer boundaries of the city. Today, with the city growing all around it, the circular rail affords a rare inside glimpse of the city – completely unlike the view from any other form of transport.

The system moves 12 passenger trains daily; only two of them orbit the entire route. The rest traverse shorter distances between stations, mostly in the morning and evening. The entire 35 km takes about two hours to complete and costs Rs 12 per passage. We caught the
counterclockwise 9.40am train one morning from Hazrat Nizamuddin. The inquiry attendant knew nothing about the line, but there is a board with timings for this and other suburban routes posted in the ticketing area. The train pulled in early at 9.30. We boarded the first compartment in front of us – for ladies only. It had just five passengers.

As we pulled out of Nizamuddin, we passed the Nila Gumbad behind the Humayun’s Tomb complex, the tomb itself and got a fine view of Gurdwara Damdama Sahib. Swinging northwards, past Millennium Park and the Vishwa Shanti Stupa, we wondered which of the Commonwealth Games-related initiatives would survive and which, like the ring rail, would end up all but forgotten. The train stopped at Pragati Maidan, giving us an odd view of the pyramids, framed through trees. On Tilak Bridge, the city was hidden from view by large advertisements along the sides, while from Shivaji (Minto) Bridge, we caught a glimpse of Connaught Place: it was an excellent vantage point.

The sudden materialisation and then disappearance of familiar sights is what makes this journey so unique. The Delhi we’re familiar with plays hide-and-seek with the train as it races through wooded tracks and encroaching bastis. New Delhi Station gives way to Sadar Bazaar, bypassing Delhi Junction, gliding under Pul Bangash before stopping at Kishanganj – a lovely outdoor station that also has a coaching yard.

More passengers got onto our coach (we’d been kicked out of the ladies’ at NDLS) as we coasted through Vivekanandpuri, Daya Basti, Patel Nagar, Kirti Nagar, Naraina and Inderpuri Halt. The most pleasant part of the journey began as we approached the city’s centre through the Ridge, stopping at stations like Brar Square in the Cantonment area, Sardar Patel Marg and Chanakyapuri.

Madame Butterfly

Qin-Qin

The demise of the original f-bar and Climax, followed by the promise of a Hard Rock Café left us wondering what would happen to the erstwhile Tavern on the Green space at the Qutab Golf Course, Lado Sarai. Following rumours of a new, international Chinese food chain opening up, we investigated.

The new venue is called Madame Butterfly and is run by said international chain Indochine, which owns and operates properties in Singapore and other cities. There’s an indoor bar called Bar Sávanh, the upstairs fine-dining room and an extensive outdoor section, called Alfresco, with a limited menu. The décor is impressive, with a series of terraced pavilions, dotted with fountain basins and plants. Red lanterns add colour to grey stone benches, slate flooring and wooden seating areas. Inside, the bar is cheery and orange-lit, with a DJ booth facing a cleared area, presumably for dancing. The chief attractions, though, are replicas of the terracotta Qin army; soldiers flank the main entrance and keep guard over the bar. The effect is intoxicating, if slightly absurd.

Sitting outside, we were impressed by the hot and sour “chicken soup of Hanoi” (Rs 225). One portion can easily be shared by two people and the glutinous tofu and mushrooms really hit the spot. The appetisers were tasty as well, particularly the addictively crunchy tenderloin won ton (Rs 300). The cold larb kai (coriander and lemon-grass flavoured chicken in little buckets of crisp dough, Rs 450) wasn’t bad either.

Portions are all on the large side, so it’s a good idea to visit just for drinks and munchies. This is especially true because the main courses were a big disappointment. Perhaps it was because they plan a different menu for outdoors than the fine-dining one from which we ordered, or perhaps because they didn’t use hotplates, but our food arrived cool and just got colder. A couple of angithis or gas heaters would have prevented our toes from heading the same way. The double element chicken (Rs 475) – crispy fried with a peanut sweet-and-sour sauce sounded promising, but had a strangely slippery, fishy texture. The sea perch teriyaki (Rs 700) was even fishier – the teriyaki glaze too mild, the poached egg filling too bland and the fish itself a tasteless chunk. The only decent dish was the xao ba nam (Rs 450) – a mix of button, shiitake and enoki mushrooms in a brown sauce. Steamed rice is an extra Rs 125, but the jasmine tea was complimentary. The lemongrass crème brulee was what we wanted, but what they had was an unfortunately custard-y saffron version (Rs 250), but the bahn chuoi (Rs 225) – lightly fried bananas with vanilla ice cream – were pretty good (and hot!).

We give Madame Butterfly points for ambience and presentation, but they need to work out the kinks in their kitchen. Still, given the popularity of its previous incarnations, there’s no doubt this place will attract a buzz, at least from those out for a pre-dinner drink.

Indochine, Lado Sarai, Mehrauli, adjacent to Qutab Golf Course (2952-3330). All major credit cards. Alcohol served. Daily noon-3pm; 7-midnight. Meal for two Rs 3,500.

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