Late night party at Gardenia

December 10 2015: Yesterday night I hosted a get together at the ITC Gardenia. Earlier, when I used to live in Chennai sometime around 1999 to 2001, I used to visit Bangalore frequently. Again, Bangalore was also my weekend destination when I lived in Coimbatore in 1995-96.

I know quite a few people in Bangalore and hosting a small get-together was in my mind. In fact, it was due for quite sometime now.

I used the opportunity of the wedding of my cousin's daughter to host a get together. I decided to do it differently from the regular cocktail dinners. So I hosted a desserts and coffee get together after 10 pm at the terrace of ITC Gardenia.

Some of my friends were little apprehensive about this theme and I was also in two minds but finally decided to go for it. The get together turned out to be an excellent affair and everybody liked this concept. Much credit goes to the ITC Gardenia team who did a fantastic job in creating varieties of liquor desserts with alcohol and coffee.

In fact the ITC Hotel's renowned pastry chef Arvind is based out of Gardenia only. My old friend Virendra Razdan, who is the general manager of Gardenia, informed me that ITC Hotels would soon come up with chocolate shops starting from next March at its Gardenia property.

The live dessert counter with liquor had quite a spread with fancy alluring names like Ice cream Sunday Pistachio Black; Rose Petal, sesame, coriander and strawberry; Spiced molten chocolate kullad; Grey goose flamed dessert kebabs; Flamed crepes; Dessert and liquer shots; Vintage desserts; Dessert-in-jars; One bite wonders and so on.

I was in Grand Hyatt Mumbai on the night of December 7. I shall never recommend this hotel to anyone for stay. Though I am a diamond member of Hyatt, which is the highest tier of membership for guests, the front office could not find my reservation and they had no knowledge of my membership either.

This hotel has many other flaws which is rather surprising and glaring especially after experiencing the Grand Hyatt's standards of service in Bangkok and Singapore.

I shall be in Bangalore for a few more days for the wedding.

ess bee