I joined two very prominent food bloggers at the ‘Bloggers Meet for Sizzlers Fest’ at Zara. For those who are not familiar with this place, Zara is a Spanish Tapas Bar and Restaurant located on Radhakrishnan Salai in the same building as Copper Chimney and China Town. It is one of the most happening places in the city and it is very popular with the young crowd. Zara hosts the Sizzlers Fest exclusively for the FIFA 2014 season with some wonderful sizzlers and lip-smacking desserts !
The place is nice with a decent ambience. The lights were a little dim, perfect for a bar-setting, but not good enough for photography 🙂 So we took the table which was probably the brightest and still struggled a bit with the pictures. The place was rocking with action and the crowd was all set to view the France vs Germany Quarter-Final match of FIFA 2014 World Cup.
We started with the cocktails. I normally prefer Rum, and so wanted to go with a Rum-based drink, slightly strong and was suggested to try Mai Tai. It was good with a nice flavor of Rum, but it left a slightly bitter after-taste. I was curious to know what would cause this and then had a look at the menu, and realized that it also had Apricot Brandy and Cointreau in it 🙂 It could be one of these two and the taste however got better after a couple of sips. My friend ordered Cuban Kiss and his drink was also rum-based and it came in a nice cocktail glass, visually more appealing than mine. I just had a sip from it and it had a very distinct flavor like Malibu, but looking at the ingredients of this drink, it was probably cinnamon rum, I couldn’t make out much from a single sip though. For my next drink, I wanted to go with the traditional Mojito. This was perfect ! Just the way I liked it with the right mix of mint, lime and sugar. My friend ordered Mexican Sangria which was a mix of Wine and Tequila and again, very eye-catchy. Took a sip from that and I could right away catch the taste of red wine and it was very good. I was tasting Sangria for the first time, but have heard it is a very popular drink in Spain and Portugal. This was probably its variant from Mexico.
We moved on to food and ordered from their Sizzlers Menu. One of my friends ordered Minced Chicken and Cheese Steak with Potato Mash, another one ordered Grilled Tenderloin medallions with Potato Wedges and I preferred to stick to vegetarian and ordered Cottage Cheese and Vegetable Fajita. First look, the portion size was a little smaller than what I remember from Yoko or Kobe. I tasted a piece of cottage cheese and I must say it was very soft and tasty ! I’m no expert in Tex-Mex cuisine and one of my friends pointed out that Fajita is normally had with a tortilla. We weren’t served any and so had to request them for it. Made a roll with the cottage cheese and vegetables from my sizzler plate and sure, it tasted even better 🙂 I would have liked a little more sauce in the sizzler as I felt the veggies were a bit bland and left out. Just to taste, I had a little of what my friends ordered and both the sizzlers tasted good. I liked the minced chicken better.
Quite full already, we decided to share two desserts between the three of us. Ordered a Baked cheesecake and a Panna Cotta with Strawberry Compote. Baked Cheesecake was good and tasty. Panna Cotta was visually not so appealing compared to the ones I’ve seen in Tuscana or Darios, but it tasted good. The strawberry compote was a bit sour to my liking. Personally, I liked the cheesecake better.
After we were done with dinner, just continued to watch the rest of the match with a couple of beers. Had a brief but pleasant Chat with Mr. Uday, who is the Manager at Zara and Mr. Ganesh who waited on our table was very pleasant and patient until we were done clicking the pictures. Overall, it was a very pleasant experience.
As an afterthought, I realized I needed to have two things in my kit – a mini tripod and an external flash for such low-light conditions.
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