Ploof Deli

Critic´s Review

• Food: 3.5 / 5
• Service: 3.5 / 5
• Decor: 3 / 5

-By Marryam H Reshii

LOBSTER BISQUE & TURKEY SANDWICHES...

Now that the NCR has virtually every kind of cuisine in its restaurants, there's just one lacuna: that of the delicatessen. Part café, part informal eatery and part luxury grocery store with a range of ready-to-cook meats that have been marinated in herbs and spices, the difficulty of starting a deli is in knowing exactly how much of each component is enough. If, for example, your restaurant is grand and the shelves sell just three types of breads and a couple of spreads, it's not a deli. Neither is Sugar and Spice a deli, because, in spite of its enormous range of cakes, breads, cold meats and cheese, there is no place to grab a cup of coffee, and it doesn't do ready-to-cook food either, whether ravioli or duck breasts! There is one new entrant in the deli space: how it shapes up only time will tell, because Ploof Deli became a deli by accident. When Ploof opened its doors many years ago, it was a fine dining restaurant. After having lost the use of its first floor due to the sealing drive, it has re-opened in a completely different avatar: a delicatessen. On the upside, they have hams (turkey, chicken and pork), olives and olive oil and marinated fish and chicken. On the downside, hardly anyone has discovered them, so the impressive range of cheeses and cold cuts that they have planned is still to kick in. Once that does happen, Ploof Deli will become a force to reckon with. Breads, pastries, dry stores, cold meats, marinated seafood - there will be far more than we are used to.

It's the multi-usage that is fraught with promise. You could walk in to pick up a baguette and spy tenderloin marinated with sea salt and cracked pepper. Or you could treat it as a shop and buy your weekly supply of pasta and cheesefilled red peppers, but stay for a cup of Columbian coffee (Rs 120).

There are three tables inside the delicatessen just in case you want a meal (complete with a wine list). There is an upstairs terrace that serves food and wine and can be a fun space for a quiet party of 20 persons, but the restaurant days are firmly behind Ploof as far as I can tell. Its location - in the rather laid-back Lodhi Colony market, next to a couple of designer garment stores and a beauty parlour - will work for it: there are never any parking problems and the profile of the visitors in the market is just right for this rather western concept.

The menu consists of great soups. Particularly good is the lobster bisque (Rs 260) which is made the classic way with a tiny hint of Cognac and the roast chicken in star anise broth (Rs 210). The latter is not exactly Vietnamese pho, but it is a near enough equivalent.

The sandwiches and burgers are the best things on the menu. Not only are they made with imagination, they are virtually meals in themselves. Containing smoked turkey, ham, salami, goat cheese, cheddar or brie, together with onion rings, tomatoes or lettuce, the bread is fresh and obviously made in-house.

Where Ploof deli needs a good deal of improvement is in the sad, tired pastry display.