Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Restaurant Reviews

Visited lots of new food outlets in the past few days so need to post my reviews.

We saw a mention of a new dessert place called Whipped, right near the place we were gong to for Fondue, so decide dessert would be tried out there. Whipped is a cute and tiny little place, with lollipop stripes on the walls and just a few chairs if anyone wants to sit and have dessert. They have a tiny little balcony which would be useful in winter but I guess won't be populated in summer. They have a wide selection of dessert for such a small place, from homemade icecream in flavours like strawberry cheesecake and berries to actual cheesecake in many flavours, cakes and truffle cones - which are truffle chocolate swirled into icecream cones and topped with hundreds and thousands.

A chose the Bailey's cheecake and I, with my fondness for berried, picked the strawberry cheesecake. Puddi swithered between cakes topped with chocolate or fruit and finally picked a truffle cone. We found the desserts...very ok...not an overwhelmingly delicious experience, unlike Whipped's neighbour Gourmet Affaire which does a Tiramisu to die for. The cheesecake was as good or as bad as ones we had had elsewhere, and not a stand-out experience. Puddi's truffle cone was a nice, new thing, but she found it too much for her and it's still standing around in the fridge. The prices were middling...we paid about Rs. 350 for 3 desserts. But all in all, it's not a place I'd head to specially for dessert.

E 552, Main Road, GK II, Delhi

On Sunday we had dinner at Spaghetti Kitchen, which has opened its first Delhi outlet in Select City Walk Mall. The restaurant is very spacious and done up in a sort of nondescript modern style. It doesn't look particularly Italian or anything else, but is a soothing ambience.

Chubbocks and Puddi wanted Pizza so they ordered a thin-crust pizza with chicken and red and yellow capsicum. I and A ordered a Penne Vodka to share, and we ordered parmesan-rosemary creamed roasted potatoes.

The food came really fast, starting with the bread which came about five minutes after we settled in and followed by the potatoes in another five minutes. They had roasted tiny baby potatoes with rosemary until they were butter-soft and then coated them in a creamy, Parmesan sauce. It was a delicious starter, highly addictive in its soothing flavours, and even Bojjandi duly mopped up his share of it and more.

A and the kids relished the pizza while I dug into the Penne Vodka, which was a standout. I have a lot of pasta in tomato sauce since I prefer tomato/ pesto to cream sauces so I wasn't expecting too much, but this was a new taste experience. The Vodka sauce had a slight bitter base to the flavouring, which nicely offset the tang of the tomatoes, and they served ample amounts of sauce so I didn't have to ration it out to serve all of the penne, and even had enough to mop up with some crusty bread. Again, the flavours were lush and highly addictive.

The service was also great, as they quickly understood our need for a high chair and brought one out. The food was served fast and the waiter was assiduous in replenishing our water and our dishes, and extremely friendly and polite.

Overall, the Spaghetti Kitchen surprised us by giving us a fabulous experience in terms of food, service and speed. What's more, at about Rs. 1400 for the meal ( no drinks/ desserts), it's pocket friendly too. I thought, given how much Italian food we end up eating, that only places like Diva or Olive would be capable of delighting us, but this restaurant proved us wrong, and it's a place I'd definitely head back to.

Spaghetti Kitchen, 2nd Floor, Select City Walk Mall, Saket, Delhi