Main Course to Appetizers at Café Mangi

One of my closest friends was moving cities, so me and some of my friends decided to catch up one last time to bid farewell. The interesting thing is, the entire group of about 8 people, pretty much everyone had been a hotelier at some point, some still are. So practically everything on the table was scrutinized, right from service to presentation to the portion size and the taste. Literally everything…..

The restaurant’s a nice small casual space with a well light ambience for an evening out. The décor is not over powering yet it lends a subtle character to the food that was yet to follow. A tall broad wooden menu showcased a variety of Mediterranean dishes right from appetizers to the main course.

First came my choice - Calamari with chilli garlic (Rs.235) in a small miniscule square shaped plate. Though the plate design did full justice to those chewy round calamari slices the portion size was disappointing. Luckily the taste wasn’t! Generosity of garlic and chilli made the not-so-fresh calamari more appealing. The flavour blended well, and the texture was pleasant.
‘Next on our plates was Carpaccio - thin slices of beef (Rs. 235) that looked very pale and unappealing. The salad along with the Carpaccio had practically no flavour and the meat was barely seasoned but honestly in Rs.235..I didn’t expect much either.

The exotic mushroom soup that followed was nothing exotic ( Rs.185) but the well cooked and
herb flavoured Roasted mushrooms ( Rs. 195) were excellent . The Jalapeno cheddar poppers ( Rs.195) seemed to be of the ready- made packed variety just fried and served, perfect in their style though.

The saving grace were the Cajun Chicken ( Rs. 235) slices…delicate yet flavourful. The Prawn tempura ( Rs. 285) was fresh and had the right texture for a tempura batter while the ( Rs. 245) Rawas Tid-bytes has some crispy vegetables mixed on a tomato based light sauce perfectly done.

The wine selection ( Rs. 250 a glass ) is very average but honestly I don’t see a lot of people coming to this restaurant to savour exotic wines, the cocktails were pretty average too though. The Mojito and the caiproshka were simple chunks of lemon and mint muddled together and some alcohol to just spike it. Something like mom does when she is giving you ‘Nimbu Pani’ after a tiring day, refreshing but not sinfull!

What actually made the drinks selection work well for me was this extremely fruity drink ‘Fizzy Julep’ (Rs. 150) As clichéd as the name sounds, the drink was fantastic, fresh fruits finely chopped combined with lemon chunks and juice worked amazingly. Though I felt that they did add some non alcoholic grenadine too along with it…it worked brilliantly…to the extent that my friends had a sip and the table was flooded with a couple of more glasses. Since our luck seemed to be better with mocktails I decided to give another fancy drink called called ‘Transfusion’ ( Rs. 150) a try, but sadly I had to run back to my ‘Fizzy Julep’ and happily stuck to it for the rest of the evening.

Conversations about our respective careers continued as we nibbled along on those individual bites. The smaller portions of appetizers laid the foundation for a large main course order to follow. Now like every other common man behavior we judged the portions of the main course on the basis of the appetizers and ordered pretty much individual portions. While some calorie conscious women ordered Caesar salad options with ( Rs. 235) chicken and smoked salmon( Rs. 275) , most of us went all out with a variety of meats on our plates.

What was to follow was the biggest surprise for my belt buckel…big portions of main course with side dishes and sauces laced on top. We were left staring at each other wondering ‘How the hell did this happen’, and if we’d ever finish.

Rawas Bonfame ( Rs. 395) three fillet’s of fish along with a mushroom tomato sauce and veggies on the side was fantastic, the Prawn Provencal ( Rs. 415) was equally good in terms of its flavour and texture. The Pizza Milano ( Rs. 365) was average with an ordinary sauce and not so great toppings while the vegetarian Gnocchi Al Frano ( Rs. 275) was way too cheesy, but would work well for cheese lovers. The Risotto Gamberi ( Rs. 395) with prawns was yummy but would take an appetite of a big man to finish that humongous portion. The best among the lot was Pomfret Dijon ( Rs. 435), carefully sliced fillet’s pan fried to perfection and creamy sauce which blended the flavour of the fish extremely well.

Though most of us wanted to skip the dessert but Bonafee Pie ( Rs. 175) was way too hard to resist, and it didn’t disappoint us at all. The food over all was the show stealer. The service is quick and the waiters are always smiling. However the lack of wine selection clearly reflected in our server’s wine knowledge too. Not that we had a problem with that.

The menu selection is fairly extensive with just the right pricing. The total bill came up to about Rs. 7359 inclusive of Vat, about Rs. 1000 per head, inclusive of a drink. If they get their appetizer portions right and a bit fine tuning of the taste it will be a great place to eat at often. I am definitely giving this place another try only this time I’ll start with the main course and then work the other way round to the appetizer….