Food review: Aer

As an actress, I am used to being reviewed and written about all the time, whether for my films, my acting skills or my dressing sense, but for the first time tables have turned and I find my opinions and critical eye and of course my ambitious taste buds a profound space in an esteemed newspaper! I took two days to write and revise my first food review. The third review was complete within an hour. I did not even realise when I wrote and finished the fourth review and now, as I pen down my fifth and last food review, I feel like an ensconced journalist, who is used to writing stuff for her daily bread and butter, but in my case I also get a three-course meal, a revitalising drink and a nasty dessert apart from the bread and butter!

In my profession, I often get to live and enact different characters and experience different professions each time. Similarly, this entire experience of writing and feeling like a journalist gave me an immense high! Hence I thought why not give my readers the same elevated feeling and actually take them 34 floors high as I introduce them to a new eating place.

The Aer bar is an open air lounge at the Four Seasons hotel roof top in Worli. Thirty-four floors high, it becomes the perfect place for the city’s war horses to unwind. I have a new impressive perspective of the same city I see daily and I’m awestruck by Mumbai’s magnificence from a top angle view. I feel like a real star, sandwiched between the stars up in the sky as well as the stars twinkling as low as my eyes can reach, all over the city! With nothing but the endless ceiling of the sky running over my head and the city’s panoramic sea view, I suddenly have no work on my mind, no deadlines to match and all I feel is like I have the city’s remote control in my fist, as I sink into chic relaxation high above the bustling streets of Worli.

Aer is not about eating out. It’s also not about just chilling, Aer is an experience. An experience of pampering yourself even if it’s extravagant. It’s about making yourself feel worthy of all that you have achieved and you want to achieve in your existence. Hence my expert advice to you is to reach this venue around 5.30-6 pm and buy yourself a drink, as you get to witness the city’s view in the daylight and soon you see the sun dissolve into the Arabian sea just like that ice cube in your drink as you are moving towards an awesome ariel evening view of Metro life.

The sense of space is complemented by an avant-garde design that is both contemporary and minimalist. You have a combination of black and white, the yin and yang of design, to create a luminous appeal. The forms of a series of Tokyo pop furniture by Driade defines the seamless jigsaw shapes of the bar’s white outdoor furniture, and organic industrial designer Ross Lovegrove’s Love Bench makes a statement at the entrance. The overall design is punctuated with hints of drama effortlessly bridging the indoors and outdoors.

 choose to get hypnotised by ‘The Houdini’s’— strawberry, basil, and apple. Or you could levitate from your seat with ‘Rise’— grape fruit, orange, cranberry. In cocktails, the ‘Melon Monkey’ will surely get your soul swinging. I breathe like I never do down there in the city and start munching on those real crispy fried spicy groundnuts that come along with my drink. Every evening between 5.30 pm to 8 pm, you have the ‘Happy Hours’ flat 50 per cent discount on all cocktails and the snack menu. The menu is the same between 5.30 pm and 3 am, so your expert says do not exploit the happy hour’s benevolence and snack it easy as you have the night to yourself and even if you’re a partyholic, the venue is your abode until midnight.

For vegetarian starters, I call for — the Enoki mushroom sushi.  For a mushroom lover, this was a new experience. And what’s sushi without avocado, even it stings your brain a little, so I tried the Avacado sushi. For seafood lovers, the Prawn tempura maki — tiger prawn tempura with spicy mayo, promises to fish out your wickedness.

 I lounge around with my drink and the sushi, still settling into the unbelievable tranquility. I allow myself to get a li’l more hungry and then I call for the more sumptuous Chilli Cheese Toast Pizza which is Aer’s twisted high-end makeover of a local favourite and the usage of smoked cheese adds a new depth of flavour. I believe the Chicken Tikka Pizza combined with jalapeno chillies, sweetcorn and bell peppers sets your stage for a taste explosion.

More wholesome meals for the sinners, try the California roll— Crab, avocado, mizuna leaf and tobbiko [or the Spider roll-soft shell crab tempura, avocado and cucumber]. Salmon Maki Roll Sushi is the new flavour of the city combined with fresh Norwegian salmon and the heat of the spicy chili.

The kitchen menu is designed by the Executive chef Clinton Cooper from New Zealand and the rest of the team have Indian chefs with the exception of a Japanese chef who especially contributes authenticity to the sushis.

And could all this paradise be complete without romance? So order for the Chocolate Variation —  a signature dessert of dark chocolate tart with milk-chocolate brownie and white-chocolate mousse. It is a sharing dessert for love birds thus compelling to becoming their midnight sin.

I’m adventurous and I called for the ironic favourite Wasabi Ice Cream — an unusual dessert that is all about shocking your senses with the heat of the wasabi versus the cool of the ice-cream. Definitely a must try for everyone.

So here I am sitting pretty, feeling absolutely like the Queen of the World. I feel accomplished, I feel like I have earned my meal. The feeling of ‘I deserve’ is priceless. The satisfaction of taking up this new challenge of writing 5 restaurant food reviews for DNA in the midst of my chaotic schedule and completing the assignment is beaming on my face, as I turn to life’s camera on a jimmy jip and give the warmest smile, it zooms out higher and higher into the sky as you leave a myopic me to my world of dreams, aspirations and contentment galore!
 
Amrita Rao is an actor and a foodie.

Aer
Four Seasons Hotel, 114, E. Moses Road, Worli  Call: 022 24818000
Rating: ****1/2
Price: Rs 2,500 (Plus taxes)