The city’s food scene is an ever growing landscape. Sometimes it can be difficult for restaurateurs to capture the attention of the patrons, but here’s a restaurant that would have no problem with that.
Touted as India’s first restaurant with a stream; Stonny Brooks in Rajarajeshwari Nagar allows diners to enjoy their food while immersing their bare feet in the flowing water.
As soon as you enter the management leads you to a complimentary fish pedicure. For those who don’t know, a fish pedicure has you immersing your feet in water teeming with tiny fish who nibble off dead skin from your feet. Although a gimmick, it surely arouses your interest. But the question is whether the novelty of the ambience matches the quality of the food.
The menu heavily leans towards East-Asian flavours, with a few Italian favourites. All the dishes we tasted were quite Indianised. We began with their signature dish of ‘Hunan Chicken’, although packed with flavour the meat itself was a little dry. For our vegetarian option we had ‘Vegetables in Mandarin Tangy Sauce’, which features crispy baby corn and had a strong flavour of broccoli and bell peppers.
We had a portion of the ‘Singapore Noodles’, which had a kick from the red chilli but failed to achieve the right balance of flavours. By this time the constant water had lost it’s novelty and the reality of the average food had set in.
Desserts were their saving grace. The ‘Granny’s Chocolate Cobbler’, a classic hot brownie sundae was delightful.
We were also served the ‘Litchi Toffee with Ice Cream’ that had fresh litchi and dates that were fried and dipped in sugar syrup.
While they have plans of introducing Barbecue and Korean cuisines in the future, we’d recommend that they improve the quality of what they already have on the menu.