One star dinner for one

I'm in Macau for our annual board meeting, and this time I came alone.  Staying at the Venetian Macao has one big drawback, and that's the dearth of decent dining options.  After some deliberation, I decided to revisit the restaurant I dined at before last year's board meeting - Golden Peacock.

Dining by oneself is not always fun, and the lack of a tasting menu at this establishment with a macaron meant I wasn't able to try out the same variety of dishes as I would have liked.  So I decided to go simple...

First, some papadum, murukku, and namak para to start me off...

Luknowi gosht dum biryani - I always liked biryanis, and for a solo diner this seemed like the perfect solution.  Since I'm not well-versed in the different regional Indian cuisines, I figured I'd try something new.  When the dish first came, I could only see some browned onions on top of a pile of steamed rice... so I was wondering where all the cubes of lamb were...

Turns out they were buried among the rice, and the sauce was mostly at the bottom of the bowl.  The lamb was definitely overcooked and a little tough, not "tender" as the menu stated... But this was pretty tasty for sure.  The raita on the side helped cool down my tongue.

Ghevar with spice cherry - the menu had a pretty picture of this, so I figured I couldn't go wrong by ordering it.  The manager warned me that the picture showed two ghevars, so I should expect something a little smaller...

This was more than enough for me after the hearty biryani.  The presentation actually looked prettier than the picture in the menu, which is pretty rare.  The cherries have been spiced with a little cinnamon, and actually tasted a little sour in contrast to the rich and sweet cream on the plate.  The ghevar itself had an interesting structure.  Very nice.  Too bad I was too full to finish it.

I'm glad I came back to the Golden Peacock, as it offers me a chance to try new dishes that aren't part of the Punjabi cuisine that we normally get.  I'm gonna try to work more Indian meals into my schedule...