Belgian Beer and Meat Satiation at Hunter Valley

Sector 29, Gurgaon is spooling with opulent restaurants, breweries and Delhi’s much loved restaurants – Mamagoto, Warehouse Cafe, Fork You (just to name a few), have set up base here. Hunter Valley makes its mark on this area with its Belgian brewery and six types of freshly brewed beer flavours.

A standalone building with an eating area on the ground floor, a clubbing area in the basement and the brewery on the first floor. Towards their left, they have a garden with painted bicycles and white garden chairs. The ambiance inside is an exquisite amalgamation. Circular couches, glass top tables, chairs made up of painted suitcases with printed cushion tops. They have a glass wall with quirky quotes written in bright colours. A white textured wall holds lighted lamps. White, flowy curtains complementing this wall hang around the windows. There is a faux tree with bird cages hanging from its branches. A more interesting seating option is the cushioned canoe (which immediately made me think of that’s exactly how Joey and Chandler should have put theirs to use. :P) The place is full of interesting props and you will not have a riot spotting each one of them – my favourites – the shirt dressed cushions and the beer pong cap which reminded me of the one owned by Seeley Booth from popular TV show, BONES.

They welcome each one of their guests with their beer sampler and a portion of garlic bread. I think the idea is wonderful, to give a taste of your fresh brews to the guests. We absolutely loved the idea and chose to order pints of the ones we liked the most – Belgian wheat and Belgian dark. We also ordered a Mohito. The garlic bread topped with cheese spread and oregano and the funny thing was, two of them tasted perfect and the other two, rather a drab.

The beers both tasted very nice, the flavours very distinct. The Belgian Dark, a little more full bodied and rich and the Belgian Wheat, more on the lighter side. The Mohito too was spot on.

For starters, we tried the much recommended dahi ke kebab and thought of trying their chicken fajitas.

The fajitas were decent, soft tortilla stuffed generously with bell peppers tossed with sweet salsa and shredded chicken, the amount of chicken could have been a little more but I loved the sweet salsa.

The dahi ke kebab were excellent – crunchy on the outside and just as you break through crusty outside, the creamy texture of dahi mingled with paneer and juillenes of bell pepper and onions was ambrosial. Dip it in the fresh mint chutney and this makes for a perfect accompaniment for your beer.

We took a tour of the place and the owner, Mr. Batra, was kind enough to show us around and even took us to the other-wise restricted Brewery, where the main action happened. The magnificent Belgian technology, brewing the different flavours and the smells were intoxicating and alluring at the same time.

Coming back to our meal, we had some tantalizing tikka samplers chosen by the chefs.

The Panko Fish fingers were very palatable – the bread-crumb coated fish fingers were super fresh, juicy and you could actually enjoy the real taste of the fish without the marination over powering.

Next, a sampler of the desi tikkas – Murgh Kalmi kebab, Mutton seekh and Ajwaini Fish tikka. The kalmi kebab was well marinated and the masalas did a pretty good job with the marination. The mutton seekh was nicely grilled although I felt both the meets could have been a little more tender and juicy. However, one bite into the fish tikka and I was completely bowled over. Grilled to perfection with a tender flavour of ajwain – this fish dish too was simply scrumptious.

Finished our meal with some hearty main-course – Murgh makhni combo with Murgh makhni, dal makhni and butter naan. The murgh makhni was beautifully cooked – creamy, rich and slightly on the sweeter side, the murgh was mouth watering and whipped up just as I like it. The chicken pieces in the curry were juicy and very succulent. The dal too was creamy and rich but the the slightly strong cardamom flavour slightly marred the experience. The thing with Indian breads is that they should be served piping hot, in this case, the butter naan, although toasted nicely, had gone a little cold. They should try serving the breads in a wrap instead. Otherwise the meal combo is a great meal deal for one.

A special mention to our server, Mr. Gajendra, who made sure we had a wonderful time, and his hospitality and warmth made the experience even more worthwhile.

Fresh beer, tantalizing fish tikka and panko fried fish and dahi ke kebab are not to be missed here.

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