Delhi just got its luxury coastal seafood eatery. Get ready for jumbo sized prawns and crabs

If you are inclined towards coastal cuisine, you know it very well how difficult it is to find a good place in Delhi that satiates your tastebuds. While you have limited options in Gurgaon, there was nothing good in Lutyen’s Delhi until Sanadige popped up at the Malcha Marg Commercial Centre. If you are crazy about seafood, you must visit this place. Well if you are not, you can still consider visiting Sanadige just as a tribute to the Southern part of India and its culture after having watched Bahubali II recently.

Sanadige stands for the brass lamp that is lit on special occasions during any Kannada ceremony. And when you enter Sanadige, the lavishly earthy restaurant, the lamp will guide you to the table. For a location, where property prices skyrocket, Sanadige occupies two levels of dining, which is a clear indication of the seriousness of the business in the minds of the promoters. On any random day, you would find bureaucrats and embassy people lunching at Sanadige.

The interior is well done and would remind you of a Kannada theatre. With wood engraved sculptures that depict fishermen returning home and boatmen selling for their catch, this place takes you to a faraway land where you can relish a candlelight dinner with your love forgetting about other anxieties of mundane city life. Yes it’s that surreal. Wait for the food to arrive at your table if you weren’t convinced much.

We started our gastronomic sojourn with Anjal Tawa Fry, Chicken Ghee Roast, Prawn Butter Pepper Garlic, Mamsa pepper fry and Baby corn Butter Pepper Garlic. For the non-initiated ones, Anjal is king mackerel and Mamsa is an enormous sized fish found in backwater. Sanadige specializes in Mangalorean cuisine, so it’s pretty obvious that there would be a lot of Southern spices. And taste wise, the fried fillet of Anjal tasted heavenly. The prawns were fresh and tender. On inquiring, we learnt, the fishes and prawns are flown everyday from Bangalore. No wonder, they charge accordingly.

The mercury level being too high, we cooled ourselves with Guava Pepper Mocktail and Tender Coconut Mojito.

The main course was a blissful spread of Vegetable Stew, Goan Fish Curry, Koan Kundapuri, Chemmeen Ularthiyathu and Mangalorean Mutton Curry. These might sound quite cliché when it comes to experimentation with southern cuisine but these tasted delicious. Not an ounce of overpowering spices and balanced coconut flavour made each of dishes retain the accuracy.

While we weren’t really dessert people, on insistence of the waiter, we thought of sampling payasam, the signature ending of any southern meal. But no this payasam isn’t the regular one. The payasam is way different – with tender coconut pulp and coconut cream combined neatly, this was actually theobroma, the food of gods.

And don’t forget to try the paan (betel leaf) when you walk out.
(Cover Image: facebook)