Breaking the 300$ mark : Sevilla at The Claridges

As the economy slowly surges back, it’s the season to splurge. Actually with dear wife Praveen, every season is a season to splurge, birthdays, father’s day, hot summer day, cool rainy day.
On one such day, dear wife hosted three friends and me for a fantastic experience at Sevilla At The Claridges, this is one of the most or the most expensive meals I have been to, paid by us (dear Praveen in this case).

I seldom do a review of restaurants, but this is unusual as breaking the 300 $ mark is like breaking the bank , it’s like getting five new tires for the Jeep, or enough Jeans for a life time. However, dear wife is different. She would go to any levels of generosity if she likes someone. I was invited, so I reckon she continues to like me.

It’s the old alfresco (out door, or to use an old fashioned term open air) dining place called Corbett. Dining it is, as Sevilla is open only for dinner. Corbett was a place where I was introduced to Stuffed Tangri Kababs (so 80s, well this was in the 80’s with a friend of mine from the 80s). I was so impressed that I took my folks the senior citizens for the Jungle experience. Later in 2004 we had a strategic meeting with cable operators of Incable (Hindujas group)to upstage Hathway (of the Raheja group) in Delhi as they had an outstanding of a few crores. This was atop a make belief machaan.

Hang on ! this is not about the demised Corbett , this about Spanish, Mediterranean , mountain terrain Sevilla and the 300 $ experience, which is a big deal for an under 2$ meal seeker and enthusiast, that’s me. One of the guests that evening remarked emphatically , when you mean under Rs 100, you mean one dish. I replied , calmly, no I mean the entire meal, he looked the other way at Praveen and sipped his Italian wine, a Fresco Pom Bianco @ USD 64 (Rs 3200 a bottle). All I understood was Bianco means white.

I wanted a sangria and settled for the Italian wine which was truly exotic, dry, light and splendid. It was raining and we chose to sit in a glass cabana, air conditioned while the lean thin waiters (all looked too thin and too tall), used umbrellas to reach us the food. The food fired oven which serves fresh naan like bread was extinguished, was later fired when the rain stopped and then we tasted the warm bread fresh from the oven, a tad late. In true Spanish tradition we ordered, Tapas, cold and warm , vegetarian and non vegetarian. Amidst interesting conversation on trends, politics and the future, I ate Tenderloin ( I eat steak whenever I can , though it was a petite portion), dear wife Praveen had Tiger prawns, while the others had the Trout and New Zealand lamb chops. The evening was delectable. Praveen seeing hunger written all over my face elegantly passed on a portion of her Tiger prawns to me.

The Chocolate Souffle oozing with chocolate was wonderful in all a great experience. The guest asked me are you going to write about this evening. I mentioned, its way out my league. I would leave it to Vir Sanghvi. On second thoughts, I thought what the hell, salesmen also get a windfall in terms of a bonus. My bonus is I am married to Praveen.