At times it does not feel all that great to call a spade, a spade when the majority calls it an ace. I gave it a lot of thought before I could drain my opinion through my fingers about our dinner experience. Last night’s was our second visit to Aroy & the first one was a Saturday lunch, which was roughly a couple of weeks after they set shop. Based on the first two reviews I read on burp, I knew what to expect & what not to. The geography rules out the availability of anything other than chicken & seafood. We were fine with that as we really wanted to check out the reason that fueled those positive reviews.
First Encounter:
Logically spaced outdoor seating & well ventilated indoor area impressed us as we entered. A tall, smile ridden restaurant Manager received us & showed us our table indoors as it was shining & sultry outside. We started off with Non Veg Signature Appetizer sampler platter, Crispy shredded lamb, Som Tam Salad, Twice cooked chicken wings & Steamed rice paper parcels along with a Long island ice tea for me & Virgin Mary for her. The sampler platter remained faithful to its name; it was for sure an expensive sampling experiment which by all means had no quality to impress the sampler.
Crispy shredded lamb was very crispy & over shadowed the average wings & salad. Steamed rice paper parcels seemed more of a complimentary material & we were not very happy paying anything more than a 100 for it. Long island ice tea & Virgin Mary were excellent. The bartender managed to create a positive impression as we went on to order more. Melonita, Energize & Virgin pinacolada were all nice.
For entrée we picked Pad Thai-chicken with lots of roasted peanuts & “Ong Noh Khaw Swte”. The former was edible, but overly sweet & that’s not how I like my Padthai. The latter was a Burmese special, boiled noodles served with crispy rice noodles accompanied by a mildly flavored chicken broth. It was simple, yet very delicious & filling. This Burmese delight drowned every little complaint we had about the “snail slow” service to the disappointing appetizers & marked Aroy as a place to return.
Our Return:
Yesterday being an Occasion coupled with a lazy desire not to travel latitudes & longitudes for dinner recalled the day we decided to return to Aroy. The restaurant was packed as we walked in to find a table & once again we were not welcomed, but received by the same Manager (No attributes changed) who showed us the same table. Roughly after 15 mins of waiting our glasses were filled & we were given the menu.We wasted no time to order a classic Sichuan (Szechwan) chilly chicken, which was neither crispy nor szechwanish. The Jiaozi were just 6 Chinese dumplings AKA momo rolled in a tiny piece of dough that were priced INR190…that by all means was a steal for “you know who”!..Having not learnt our lessons yet we ordered for a Chicken Satay along with a Bangkok Mojito & a Mocktail called Flirt. The Satay had a couple of hair strands deep rooted into the first three pieces & we sent it back to its place of birth without regret …Neither did they acknowledge it nor did they apologize on time.. The Bangkok Mojito was not served in a Belgian beer glass or a Mojito glass & it tasted like something, but not a Mojito. Flirt proved to be a mockery as she was not able to sip even half way through.
Though the sequence of events planted disinterest in ordering anything further, our grumbling tummies routed us towards main course. “Ong Noh Khaw Swte” & Burnt garlic chicken noodles were beckoned to settle the dispute as the smaller limb reached 10 & the larger one surfaced 9.Both were dumped on our table together & we dug into our Burmese acquaintance that greeted us without a compromise. A vegetarian variant of burnt garlic noodles was served in spite of us ordering a chicken variant…we only realized it as we started eating & it was too late to make a fuss. When this was brought to the notice of the waiter, he replied “SAAR, I will only charge you for VEG”…HOW GENEROUS!!!!!!!!!!!
We quickly settled the bill & ran out of Aroy, vowing never to return, as neither service nor food was rich enough for what we paid. We might be just a drop, but droplets like us make an Ocean & for sure an Ocean is not an easy place to swim.
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