Roadhouse Bar & Grill

Critic´s Review

• Buzz: 4 / 5
• Service: 4 / 5
• Decor: 3.5 / 5

-By Deepali Gupta

It's an American Grill from the southern part of the United States, it's a concept that has never been done before in the city and it caters effortlessly to all levels of customers: those who want their Angus rib-eye done rare as well those who are content with a Bollywood burger would love to sit here and enjoy the ambience. It's in an unfashionable area of Delhi: Mayur Vihar, but it's equally accessible from Ghaziabad, Noida, the Metro network and New Friends Colony, so Hilton DoubleTree, the no-frills arm of the American hotel chain, is all set to become a huge hit.

On the evening of my visit, the handsome restaurant was half full with curious locals as well as room guests from overseas. This, when the hotel had been open less than a week. You can sit around the bar and order drinks with snacks for a couple of hours, and become completely full. The best of these are fried Roadhouse chillies (Rs 450) that are filled with gooey cheese, dipped in crumbs and deep-fried. They are everything we want from our bar snacks: spicy, deep-fried and innovative with a mild sourness. After them, the smoked hickory chicken wings (Rs 475) were pleasant and succulent enough if a trifle ordinary: the hickory flavour eluded me entirely and the blue cheese dip had either been substituted with another dip altogether (new eateries and hiccups go hand in hand) or it was just not good enough. Loaded potato skins (Rs 450/400 non veg/veg) oozed cheese and shallots and though good (and heavy), were nowhere in the same league as the main menu.

Cilantro crab cakes (Rs 595) were almost like what you'd get in Seattle: redolent with the flavour of the sea and full of strands of crabmeat. Try and make them at home, and you'll see how tough the job is: either the crabmeat becomes too compacted and dense or too loosely bound to hold its shape. The surprise was the kidney bean soup (Rs 325) for a generous portion with a kick of garlic, tomatoes and coriander leaves with jalapenos as a top note. All vegetarians who have ever felt short-changed by predominantly non-vegetarian menus must order this soup.

Roadhouse has no hotdogs, surprisingly, but it does have a selection of burgers that I didn't try. The one "sandwich" that my companion ordered was an in-house concoction: jumbo triple dog (Rs 475) - a sure-shot Dilliwallahs' delight of three chicken frankfurters wrapped in a large tortilla and spiked with the definitive punch of mustard. Not pretentious, yet not a sell-out to the local palate, this one's another winner like the fried chillies.

The toss-up for the best dish on the menu would probably go to the Jambalaya, which a wag described as an American biryani. Much more reminiscent of paella than a biryani or a risotto, the Creole vegetarian jambalaya (Rs 590) is far more flavourful and interesting than the Cajun jambalaya (Rs 650) with chicken and shrimps. The vegetarian version has tomatoes, celery and bellpeppers and is made mildly spicy by the use of cayenne pepper. There are US Angus steaks of various sizes (200, 250 and 500 grams) for Rs 2400-2700 for the connoisseur.

End a superb meal with rich chocolate mousse with sour cherry (Rs 300). If Hilton can continue as they have begun, Delhi will be richer with Roadhouse Bar and Grill.