Time to catch up with Santa Claus! Does that ring bell?Then be at Hyatt and you won’t miss him. You might catch him snooping around Hyatt’s lobby lounge where the celebration will be hosted. He might be there hunting for goodies, special ones, prepared by the Hyatt hotel’s expert pastry chefs.
The pastry team has come up with a novel idea to celebrate the occasion and termed it ‘Christmas Goodies’. The ‘goodies’ includes traditional items like stollen, plum cake, plum pudding, mince pies, cookies and chocolates.
With Chef de Cuisine Anil Gubhaju receiving special training at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai in preparing the Christmas delicacies, it is possible that Santa might not be able to resist temptations and hold himself away from Hyatt’s lounge for long.
So, look around and you will definitely find good old Santa eyeing the cookies or sniffing around the stollen or prowling by the delicious strawberry
tarts and mince pies.
“Hyatt has been hosting events on the similar lines since past six years. But this time we have made some changes,” says the Executive Chef Vikram Ganpule. “While earlier it used to be five to six days function, this year the celebration will last for a month.”
And to keep the month long
festive air afresh the Chef and his team have come up with a meticulous celebration plan.
“I am pretty up beat about the outcome of the training I received at the Grand Hyatt on the new ways the traditional items are prepared. We have made sincere effort to bring a whole new taste to the traditional Christmas treats,” says Chef de Cuisine Anil Gubhaju, the man behind the Christmas Goodies concept.
For example, Anil says, he has used 12 different types of nuts in Christmas plum pudding which gives an all new flavor to this Christmas staple. “The nuts are macerated in gin, vodka, rum and whiskey together with the spices for a month and are then baked into mouthwatering delicacies,” adds Vikram, the executive chef.
Apart from the delicacies offered by Hyatt’s pastry team, the Hyatt Café and Rox Bar will serve dinner with a typical Christmas menu, but one that promises enhanced taste and flavor. “Our focus will be on using traditional herbs and spices from our garden grown following truly organic methods. Even the vegetables we’ll use will be mostly from the garden,” says the executive chef.
“The Café is serving a sumptuous traditional and contemporary buffet spread with turkey, roasts, kebabs, curries, Asian selection, a grand dessert displayed with xmas pudding, stollen, xmas cake, home made ice creams and more,” says Vikram. “Rox Bar, on the other hand, will serve a gourmet five course set menu blending a mix of traditional and contemporary selection like turkey, handmade pasta and desserts.”
The diners can enjoy the food while listening to the mellifluous strains of carol singers. “We have carol singers on 23rd and 24th of December in the lobby and then in the restaurants,” Vikram says.
“The Christmas celebration on 23rd and 24th at the lobby lounge will be followed by buffets in the Café and Rox on 31st (New Year’s eve) and a barbeque brunch at the poolside on January 1st,” he says.
“A barbeque brunch by the poolside the following day will let the revelers relax and relish side by side,” says Vikram. A perfect way to rejuvenate exhausted spirits of the merrymakers after a long night’s celebration.
But you won’t find Santa on the poolside. He would be off in his sleigh, as in the myth, with sack full of goodies to distribute among children. Of course, knowing Santa, you might not see him at all, but you know he’ll be there in spirit, at the very least.
So before he takes off with all the goodies, better be on time if you want to try the specially made Christmas Goodies.
