London's Atul Kochhar at Rang Mahal

The World Gourmet Summit people have been shoving spam into my inbox for a while now, most of which I have been ignoring. But one item caught my eye: an Indian Michelin-starred chef was going to be a guest at Rang Mahal. And it was perfect timing too, as a client of mine from India happened to be in town. We came down here a few days ago when they were serving a buffet lunch, which included four of the chef's signature dishes like tandoori quail. I liked it enough to want to come back here again for a proper service. So we scrambled back here tonight to catch the last day that his team was going to be in town.



The tasting menu ended up being a bit more Westernized than the buffet, with items like cured salmon and a chocolate brownie seeming a bit out of place for an Indian meal. But I liked nearly everything that appeared on both the vegetarian and non-vegetarian menus, particularly a potato and goat cheese cake with a deep cumin flavor, as well as a paneer vol-au-vent whose mildly sweet tomato sauce was delicate enough to convert even this paneer and sweet food hater. The only thing difficult to swallow was the S$75-95 (US$50-63) for a vegetarian meal, but hey - it was of high quality, served on fine linens, and of course was cheaper than flying all the way to London.