Sakae Sushi is a Singapore-based chain of sushi restaurants that has only just come to Delhi. The kimono-clad hostess standing outside the restaurant led us in and seated us at one of the tables (nearly all were occupied, many of them by people who were obviously expats from the Far East). The décor is very eclectic here: the ceiling is covered with a print of a huge crimson-and-white illustration of fish etc, unmistakably Oriental in design. There are screens, made of blonde wood, separating some of the tables. The tabletops are bright red, the faux leather seat cushions black. The linen (including the waiters’ uniforms) are black, with a lime-green edge and embroidered logo. The bill folders are lime-green, too. And the jars of wasabi and pickled ginger at each table, in a similar departure from the otherwise ‘traditional Oriental’ décor, are transparent, purple food-grade plastic.

The menu at Sakae Sushi, though it does have some Pan-Asian items, is predominantly Japanese, with sushi, sashimi, soups, don buri and bento boxes among the highlights of the menu. Keeping in mind the fact that a substantial number of Indians are vegetarian, there are a number of vegetarian options available as well—even in the sushi.

After much discussion, my husband and I decided to go the whole hog and order a little bit of various dishes. To start with, we ordered a tori karaage from the appetisers menu, to be followed by two types of sushi: a California roll, and a spicy salmon roll. Lastly, we wanted—for a main course—an oyako don buri. My husband also ordered a fresh lime soda (though Sakae Sushi offers alcoholic beverages too).

My husband’s fresh lime soda arrived soon after, and was delicious—not the insipid beverage one usually finds in Indian restaurants, but a really good, tangy drink with the right amount of limejuice, sugar syrup, and a dash of salt. That was a good start to the meal, we thought—and then came the tori karaage, eight pieces of batter-fried chicken with what was listed on the menu as ‘wasabi mayonnaise’. The sauce was mayonnaise, all right, but there didn’t seem to be any wasabi in it. Chillies, perhaps, and maybe a hint of ponzu or something, but no discernible wasabi. The chicken, while tender enough, lacked any distinctive flavour.

We were disappointed with the tori karaage, but what was to follow made up for it—and amply. The sushi (available in portion sizes of either 4 pieces or 8—we ordered 4-piece portions of each)—was excellent. The Californian roll—filled with crab meat, avocado, and cucumber, wrapped inside sticky rice and then rolled in flying fish roe—was the best I’ve ever had, as was the spicy salmon roll (which had a lovely crunchy exterior of tempura flakes). Along with slices of bright pink pickled ginger, and a dipping sauce of wasabi with soya sauce, these sushi were so great, we’d probably have ordered more of them if we hadn’t already placed an order for a main course to follow.

Sakae Sushi delivered on the main course as well. This, the oyako don buri, was a large bowl of sticky rice, topped with cooked chicken, egg, chopped spring onions (scallions or green onions), and seaweed. It had a wonderfully warming, comfort food feel to it, and just the right amount of seasoning to make it delicious without being too powerfully flavoured. Along with the don buri came a bowl of miso soup, with seaweed and cubes of tofu in it, and a tiny plate with four minute slices of pickled vegetable. We’d have liked some more pickled vegetables, but that was something we could forgive easily, given that the sushi and the don buri were both so good.

We passed up dessert (as it is, Sakae Sushi doesn’t offer a very interesting range of desserts—they’re mostly the very predictable Western-style desserts, including ice cream and cake, that seem to be so popular in Delhi).

The bill for our meal was Rs 2,207, inclusive of taxes and service charges. Expensive, but (apart from that unimpressive tori karaage), worth it, since the food was good, the service friendly and efficient, and the ambience pleasant.

Sakae Sushi, as I discovered when I visited their website, is a fast food chain in its home country, Singapore. Here, in Delhi, they’ve obviously chosen to project themselves as a more upmarket eatery. Instead of fast food (which most Indians would equate with McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Domino’s or KFC), Sakae Sushi is definitely more upscale, less fast and more expensive.And more satisfying , at least as far as we’re concerned.

As it happened, the next time we visited, we were looking for a place to have lunch before going for a movie. We had an hour and a half, so a hurried lunch wasn’t necessary, and since we’d never eaten at Mistral, we decided to give this a try.

Stepping inside Mistral, we soon realized that the ‘coffee shop feel’ is only if you sit at one of the tables that overlook the mall’s public spaces. Once inside, past the show kitchen and the (long and well-stocked) bar counter, we were led into a regular sit-down restaurant, with proper linen, carnations on the table, and an air of quiet sophistication.

The menu seems to cater to varied tastes and wallets. The last couple of pages consist of North Indian favourites, especially kababs and tikkas, but the rest of the menu—the bulk of it—is predominantly European and American flavours. This was what we were keen on, so this was what we stuck to. My husband ordered a fresh lime soda for himself and an appetizer (chicken liver pâté) to share. Both of us passed up the pizzas, pastas, burgers and grills, and opted for sandwiches instead. My husband ordered a tartiflette sandwich, while I asked for a porcodillo—both based on pork belly. As a side, I ordered a mixed salad and my husband ordered a portion of potato wedges.

The ordering done, we sat back and waited for our food to come. The fresh lime soda arrived soon after, and with it came a focaccia, cut into four wedges, with a bowl of sundried tomato pesto. Both decent enough. After a couple of minutes came the chicken liver pâté, in a large glass jar, with fried onion rings, caramelized onions, pickled onions, and gherkins on the side.

The pâté was a little odd; we had been told by the waiter that it would be cold, but we hadn’t expected something straight out of the fridge—the pâté was covered with a solid layer of fat about 3mm thick. I dug in with a teaspoon and got out enough to slather onto one of the two sliced rolls that had been supplied with it. My husband, who shivers at the sight of pure fat, returned the pâté, asking it to heated slightly, so that the fat could be more easily removed.

The waiter took the jar away, and brought it back only after a reminder and almost ten minutes. The pâté had been heated up, but the fat had only softened slightly, leaving it not much different—except that the pâté now felt a little coarse and greasy.

By the time we’d finished our appetizer, we were beginning to wonder if we hadn’t, literally, bitten off more than we could chew. The sandwiches arrived, and just one look made our already quite full tummies groan. Each sandwich was a 6" multigrain one (you can choose what bread you want), bursting with stuffing: strips of pork belly, fries and melted raclette cheese in the tartiflette; and pork belly and caramelized onions in the porcodillo. Along with each sandwich came a small bowl of a slaw made of very crisp, tart Granny Smith apples; and another small bowl of a spicy mayo. My mixed salad—lots of fresh mixed leaves, with a light dressing—came in a large bowl. The potato wedges my husband had ordered came in an equally large bowl, which both of us thought was somewhat disproportionate: a portion of mixed leaves takes up more space than a portion of wedges, so the wedges ought to have come as a smaller helping. Despite my trying to help my husband finish the wedges, we had to abandon them halfway through: they were just too, too much.

Mains over, my husband was certain he couldn’t handle a dessert on his own (I couldn’t, either), so we chose to share a dessert: an apple and blueberry crumble, served with vanilla ice cream. (They had a delectable-sounding 70% dark chocolate soufflé on the menu, but we were told that it would take 20 minutes to be made, so we skipped that).

The crumble, when we saw it, made us thank our lucky stars we’d decided to share it, rather than order one per person. This came in a soup plate, the sliced and cooked apple and blueberry mix spread in a fairly thin layer, covered with the crumble topping, and put under the grill—sadly, just a trifle too long. The result was that the edges of the crumble had gotten burnt. Equally disappointing was the fact that the crumble didn’t have much of the buttery feel of a good crumble. The fruit was fine, but the crumble was less than satisfactory.

Overall, this was a very mixed experience. The pâté and the sandwiches (along with their sides) tasted fantastic, but the portion sizes were totally haywire. There was too much pâté to the amount of bread with it—and the pâté could easily have served four. The sides for the sandwiches were humungous portions, as was the crumble. Looking back at our meal (which left us so full, I had only an apple and a lemonade for dinner!), we decided we’d only have a main, with a shared side order, followed by dessert, the next time we visit. And we will visit—this, despite the hiccups, is a nice place, and the food is mostly pretty good. Plus, considering we paid Rs 2,288 (inclusive of taxes and service charges) for a meal that could, had we known it, been halved and still been sufficient… well, that’s also pretty good value for money.

Note: We returned to Mistral a couple of weeks later, with three friends, to have dinner. The dinner menu, which has more appetisers, doesn’t have the sandwiches, but compensates with some interesting pizzas and pastas. Since my husband and I already knew how large Mistral’s portions were, we’d warned our friends, and all of us ordered accordingly. We shared three appetisers—foie gras (with warm bread on the side), a goat’s cheese and rocket salad with honey mustard dressing, and a platter of mixed Spanish cold meats. For dinner, the four adults shared two La Reine pizzas (topped with prosciutto, olives and mushrooms), while the lone teenager had a vegetarian cappeletti pasta dish.

For dessert, all of us had individual portions: two dark chocolate baked soufflés (fantastically light yet rich, and served with a very refreshing coconut and lime sorbet); a toffee banoffee (tuile cigarillos filled with banana custard, with slices of caramelized banana below and a square of tempered dark chocolate on top, all of it topped off with a scoop of ice cream); and a classic Eton mess, all meringue, ice cream, whipped cream and plenty of strawberries. Including three lemonades, all taxes, and a tip, the bill was Rs 6,065. An even better experience than we’d had the first time.

Fries, as you can guess, are the stars here. You can order either basic potato fries or fried chicken chunks (either of them is for Rs 85 for a regular sized portion, Rs 125 for a grande). You can choose a topping—garlic mayo, wasabi mayo, cheese and barbecue sauce, lemon herb, and honey mustard were among the more interesting ones we noticed. The first serving of topping comes complimentary with the fries; if you want additional topping, you pay Rs 25.

There are ‘premium fries’ too, which is where we noticed the insidious ‘spicy Indian’ flavourings come creeping in: paneer makhani, Indian chaat, Indian mango salsa, and butter chicken were among the toppings here—though there were also lamb bolognaise and Mexican salsa.

Finally, if you want to be really adventurous, there are sweet toppings: cinnamon, white chocolate and cinnamon, and dark chocolate fudge.

We did want to have fries, but wanted something more substantial as lunch—and The Belgian Fries Company does offer something more: four types of hot dogs, and three types of lasagna. I picked a garlic dog (with garlic mayo and caramelized onions), while my husband ordered a cheese and BBQ dog. We also ordered a portion of wasabi mayo-topped fries, and a green apple lemonade each (they also serve smoothies, aerated drinks, and mineral water).

I guess The Belgian Fries Company doesn’t do roaring business, because there was only one person at the counter, taking orders and executing them. He tol us to sit at a nearby table, and keep an eye on the counter; he’d signal to us when our food was ready. It took him a little over five minutes to get everything together, and then my husband went and fetched our tray from him.

Firstly: the hot dogs. Where this scored over most other hot dogs in Delhi (or in India, for that matter) was that the dog was really what it’s supposed to be: pork, not chicken. Other than that, it was quite average. The dog hadn’t seen a grill in a long time (in fact, since it didn’t have any char on it at all, I suspect it had just been microwaved or something). The bun was rather dry, and while my dog had loads of mayo, I wouldn’t have known it was garlic mayo. The caramelized onions were barely there: perhaps a teaspoonful? Certainly not one of your hearty, bursting-with-goodies hot dog. My husband seemed a little more pleased with his hot dog, but agreed that it could’ve been a lot better.

The lemonade was (as expected) flavoured with a green apple syrup. Refreshing because we were very hot and thirsty, but that was about it. The fries, in a large paper cup, came drizzled with a generous dose of wasabi mayo, and that—the wasabi mayo—was the best part of it, sharp and spicy and very obviously wasabi, though with the correct creaminess to stop it from being too spicy.

"These are a fraud," my husband snapped, after tasting one of the fries. Belgian fries (and I hadn’t known this, I admit) are larger and longer and are twice-fried, which makes them very crisp on the outside, and soft on the inside. "These are French fries masquerading as Belgian," my husband said, and went off to check with the guy at the counter whether the fries were double-fried or not. No, of course they weren’t, the man admitted. We were in too much of a hurry to argue (and, it did seem pointless, since this lone salesman-cum-cook-cum-server probably hadn’t the faintest clue about Belgian fries anyway).

We paid Rs 471 for our meal. It’s approximately what one would pay for a non-vegetarian meal for two at an Indian food court, but I doubt if we’ll be going back—it just wasn’t worth it.

The other day, someone posed a question on Eat Treat: where should one go for the best dimsums in Delhi? The majority of the votes (including mine) went to the excellent Royal China. Among the other restaurants suggested by group members were some I’d been to (and hadn’t liked much)—and this one, Kylin Premier, which I’d seen often enough, but never entered. This weekend, happening to be in the Vasant Kunj area, my husband and I decided to see whether Kylin Premier really did serve good dimsums.

Kylin Premier (the tagline is ‘Teppanyaki Grill’) is tucked away in a corner of the third floor of Ambience Mall. From the outside, this looks like a poky (if stylish) place, but it opens up into a fair-sized dining space, all dark wood, black ceiling, backlit red highlights, crimson amaryllis flowers on the tables, and beige upholstery. A long bar counter takes up one end of the restaurant; opposite it, at the other end of the room, is the teppanyaki grill.

We don’t drink, so the wine list (which includes sake and a fair selection of wines, beer, and spirit) was pushed aside, and we focused on the food menu. This seems to be a mix of teppanyaki, sushi and sashimi, and dimsums. There are other Chinese dishes—appetisers, soups, main courses—but the highlight of the menu seems to be its range of dimsums and sushi. The sushi and sashimi were expensive (Rs 1,245 exclusive of taxes for a 12-piece platter, as an example), and we weren’t being able to decide what we’d like to order, when the waiter, pausing to pour water into our glasses, mentioned that they have a special set menu.

He told us it was called the ‘Busy Bee’ meal, and included a beer (or a soup); a choice of salads; a selection of five dimsums; and a dessert. A little further questioning revealed that the Busy Bee meal (non-vegetarian; the vegetarian version was cheaper) was for Rs 499 per person, excluding taxes. For just Rs 100 more per person, we could upgrade to a prawn dimsum as part of the meal. We opted for the prawn Busy Bee meal, and the waiter guided us to a tiny buffet table, where we could help ourselves to soup and salads. The dimsums and dessert, he assured us, would be served at the table itself.

The buffet, at first glance, looked a little disappointing: there were two turreens of soup, both labeled ‘manchow soup’ (the waiter manning the counter explained that one of the turreens had chicken added, the other was vegetarian), and there were five types of salad. There was an ‘Asian Caesar salad’, a salad of mixed greens, a raw papaya salad, a sliced chicken with lime and basil salad, and a roasted chicken with a coconut dressing. We helped ourselves to a little bit each of all the salads, got ourselves a bowl each of the chicken Manchow soup, and headed back to our table.

The soup, to begin with. This was a broth in which lots of very thinly sliced or chopped vegetables—cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, baby corn, etc—had been put, along with bite-sized pieces of cooked chicken. The soup had been sitting in the turren for long enough for the veggies to have lost their crisp freshness and to have turned somewhat soggy; the flavour was nothing to write home about; and the soup had the general gloopiness that is an indicator of cornflour being added to thicken the liquid. We tried to help the soup along by adding some of the chilli oil and chilli sauce at our table, but it was past redemption.

Of the salads, the Asian Caesar and the mixed green salad were utterly boring and forgettable (I didn’t even understand why they called the Asian Caesar that—except for the iceberg lettuce, it had nothing in common with the classic salad; the other ingredients consisted of beansprouts, cucumber, and lots of corn. The raw papaya salad was a shade better, and had a fuller flavour with a decent balance of spicy, sour, sweet and salty. I’d have welcomed some peanuts or other interesting textural contrasts, but as it was, it was the best of the vegetarian salads.

Of the two chicken salads, the sliced chicken with lime and basil (though it sounded lovely) was a disappointment, with almost no basil or lime to speak of, and nothing to offset the chicken—there was nothing, other than the chicken and the dressing, in that salad. The roasted chicken salad with coconut dressing was a pleasant surprise. It had a lovely flavour of coconut, with sweetness, tang and spice added; and there were cubes of water chestnut tossed with the chicken. Definitely the winner among the salads.

Salads and soup over, the waiter brought us four bamboo steamers full of dimsums. Each steamer contained four of each type of dimsum. These included a prawn suimai; a lamb dimsum (the waiter didn’t bother to tell us exactly what; the filling was spicy, but in a good way); chicken kothe (which I’ve always thought of as being the same thing as potstickers; these had been nowhere close to a frying pan after being steamed); and a chicken dumpling. The two chicken dimsums were average, with nothing to really recommend them, while the prawn and lamb dimsums were good.

By the time we’d made our way through those dimsums—twenty-four pieces, even if they weren’t terribly huge—we were so full that we refused the waiter’s offer to fetch us some vegetarian dimsums (part of the meal offer) or some more of the dimsums we’d already tasted. Instead, we opted to have our dessert. This was brought to our table. Each portion consisted of a small (and half-melted) scoop of vanilla ice cream, served with two deep-fried cigarillo-like pastry tubes filled with a sweet filling of puréed dates—Kylin Premier’s take on the popular date pancakes. The date cigarillos were good, but the dessert would’ve been a lot better if they’d been a little more generous with the ice cream—and had made sure the ice cream was firm.

We paid Rs 1,533 for our meal, inclusive of taxes and service charge. While the décor is pleasant (if you disregard the flaw here and there—the sofa I was sitting on had some ominous stains) and the sushi and teppanyaki sections on the menu sounded interesting, I wouldn’t go back here. The Busy Bee meal had more minuses than pluses to tempt me to spend money at Kylin again.

The other day, we did hear someone—on a Facebook foodie group—saying Italia was good, so (since we were going to this mall anyway), we figured we could lunch here.

Italia is housed in a fairly small dining area, but bright white-painted brick walls, plate glass looking out onto a terrace, and large orange-framed mirrors create an illusion of space. The décor is unfussy, the bare tables and chairs made of fawn wood. A pair of walls (looking out onto the terrace) are painted a cheerful yellow, and small lamps hang suspended over each table.

The menu at Italia is extensive but not unmanageable. We spent only a few minutes going over the list of appetisers, soups, salads, pizzas, pastas, and main courses, before deciding we’d skip the antipasti (even though there were some attractive dishes there) and go straight for a main course. Both of us ordered the twice-cooked pork belly with stewed figs and polenta. Even though Italia has a worthy-looking wine list (and there was a bottle of an Australian Cabernet, a Chinkara, on our table), both of us opted for a soft drink instead: a fresh lemonade (known universally in India as a ‘fresh lime soda’—lime juice with soda, sugar syrup, and/or salt).

Our waiter, having informed us that our main course order would take about 20 minutes to prepare, went off to get our drinks. He brought these within a couple of minutes, along with a basket of assorted breads and an accompanying orange-yellow dip that looked as if it was made from pumpkin, but was rather tart. It didn’t taste bad with the bread, though the olive oil at the table was more to my liking than the dip. The bread itself was fine but nothing exceptional: slices of a crusty ciabatta, a focaccia, and sesame seed-encrusted rolls.

We didn’t have to wait longer than was reasonable for the main course. Our plates—"They’re very hot, please be careful,", said the waiter—were stylish square ones, on which was arranged, in a neat row, ten thick slices of pork belly, with chopped stewed figs (dry figs, not fresh) scattered over them. At one end was a heap of polenta, with a serving of roasted strips of bell peppers, zucchini, asparagus and garlic. Broad ribbons of yellow-skinned and green-skinned zucchini decorated the plate.

We liked the main course very much. The pork was well-cooked, and the sauce just right when it came to seasoning, consistency and amount: not gluey and thick, not watery; not drowning the pork, and not cloaking it completely. The vegetables were just the right degree of al dente, and the raw zucchini ribbons on the side provided a fresh crispness. The only thing that could’ve been better was the polenta. While it tasted good (even on its own, not necessarily with the pork or veggies), it had formed a definite skin over the top and had lost the fluffiness one expects of a good polenta.

Our main course was quite filling, so by the time we finished it, we wanted something light for dessert. Italia’s range of desserts is limited: there are only about six items on the list, including two perennial favourites in Delhi: tiramisu, and chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. Thankfully, they also do some more interesting desserts: a passion fruit cheesecake, a lime and tequila sorbet, and a banana and cinnamon gelato among them. Since it was a very hot day, we both chose frozen desserts: my husband ordered the sorbet and I ordered the gelato.

These arrived in martini glasses, three walnut-sized scoops per portion. The lime and tequila sorbet was deliciously fresh and zingy, with the right balance of tequila and lime: the best way to wash that fatty pork belly down. My banana and cinnamon gelato, of course, was less light, since it had milk and cream in it, but it was just as lovely in its own way. Each scoop, rich with puréed banana, had powdered cinnamon swirled into it, along with a tiny sprinkling of chopped almonds, walnuts, and pistachios: enough to lend crunch and a contrast of flavours, not enough to interfere with the main flavours of the gelato.

We paid Rs 3,501 for our meal, inclusive of taxes and service charges. Despite the fact that it was expensive, though, we thought it was money well spent: the food was very good and the ambience pleasant. The wait staff could be a little better-trained (our waiter seemed to not understand some very basic questions, and seemed lost most of the time), but other than that, this is a place we wished we’d discovered earlier.

La Tagliatella has been around for a few months now, but somehow the look of it—that very busy and loud décor, combined with the ominously empty tables—had deterred us. Then, some days back, we came across some foodies praising the pizzas here (the pastas were dissed by most), and someone said they did a "brilliant seafood salad". Happening to be in the vicinity one Sunday afternoon, we decided to lunch here.

We hadn’t realised La Tagliatella extended over two floors (ambitious!), so we entered at their more visible, ground floor entrance, and were led upstairs by a waiter, into that suffocatingly ornate atmosphere. The food menus, already at the table, proved as pretentious as the décor: every dish meticulously labelled in Italian, and with an English description provided below (in some cases, the latter was missing, and since the waiters aren’t exactly proficient in Italian, that wasn’t a help).

The menu here is brief. There are some antipasti, a handful of salads, a few risottos, and lots of pasta and pizza options. Other main course options are very limited: chicken breast, duck breast, tournedos, grilled vegetables, and grilled mozzarella slices. Since we’d already heard through the grapevine that the pasta was avoidable, we opted for a pizza instead—a pizza caprina, described as containing goat’s cheese, tomato, mozzarella, duck ham, and basil. The waiter, on being asked, said that it would be a 14" inch thin crust pizza, which we figured would be sufficient for us to share. To drink, we ordered fresh lemonades (though alcohol is served).

While we waited for our pizza, we nibbled on the green olives placed on the table. No, no bread basket with this; if you want one, you order it. But the waiter did bring, after a while, a large jug-sized glass decanter containing olive oil in which a mix of herbs, red chillies, garlic, etc had been steeped.

Our hearts sank at the sight of the pizza. It was thin crust all right, and the crust all bubbled-up and crisp along the edges. But the topping was a mass of cheese, cheese, and more cheese. The duck ham consisted of about ten tiny strips—each an inch long, less than half an inch wide—scattered across that 14" pizza. The tomato (besides the tomato sauce under all that cheese) consisted of half a large tomato, whacked right in the middle of the pizza, cut side down. Huh?! And yes, the basil consisted of all of one leaf. One single leaf of basil in a pizza that listed it in its ingredients. Why didn’t they list salt and oil and flour?

The pizza tasted as it looked—cheese was the dominant flavour. And, surprisingly, rather large bits of what tasted like caramel. The waiter, when summoned, said that that was ‘caramelised tomato’, but we didn’t really buy that. Caramelised veggies, in whatever form, taste very different from caramelised sugar.

The pizza, since it was actually not that substantial, didn’t really fill us up—so, in a departure from the norm, we decided to order a salad to share. This, the insalata di paté e prosciutto d’anatra, was described as "mixed salad leaves, foie, duck ham, goat cheese, preserved tomato, sweet corn and roasted pine nuts on a pierina bed."

When it came, there were lots of mixed leaves—half the plate consisted of these, in a huge mound of lettuces, radicchio, rocket, etc, all of them good and fresh. The pierina was a thin rectangular slice of pizza-like flat bread, brushed with basil pesto, and crowded with lots of canned artichokes (huh?! The menu made no mention of artichokes); duck ham, and sliced foie gras. The flavours of the pesto, artichokes, and salty ham completely swamped the foie gras, and the pierina had gone limp and soggy. Also, the balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil dressing we’d asked for (you can choose your dressing for your salad) was too liberal. And the extra dressing—a small jar each of balsamic vinegar and olive oil—consisted of oil that was plainly not extra virgin.

The salad was a slightly better experience than the pizza, but it wasn’t by any means enough reason to crow about La Tagliatella. We decided to give them one last chance. (And hey, both of us do have a sweet tooth!) From the dessert menu, my husband chose a three-chocolate bombe (it had a fancy Italian name), while I picked a torta alle mele (a tarte tatin served with ‘ice cream of your choice’). Yes, a tarte tatin is hardly what I’d opt for in an Italian restaurant, but I love fruit desserts, so this was it. When I asked the waiter what ice creams I could choose from, he showed me the list—all in Italian—at the end of the menu. I could understand most of them, but wasn’t interested in a chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry ice cream with my apple tart, so asked what the fior di latte was. "Mascarpone, madam." So that was it. I chose the fior di latte.

Dessert, when it came, received mixed reviews from us. My husband’s bombe—three layers of chocolate ice cream (white, milk, and dark)—was good, but the two pools of chocolate sauce (one white, the other dark) in which it sat were simply too sweet after a while.

For me, dessert was a pain to get through. The pastry layer at the bottom was minuscule—it couldn’t even have been half a centimetre thick. Piled on top of that was about an inch of roughly chopped cooked apple: it was all apple (and not caramelised, either, the way a tarte tatin should be) and there was too much of it, too little pastry. Completely haywire proportions. And the waiter, in telling me that fior di latte was a mascarpone ice cream, hadn’t mentioned that it also included cherries (or berries? I couldn’t really tell; basically, there were ripples of oversweet, fruity red stuff all through the ice cream). This was absolutely not an ice cream to be eaten with the apple tart, but since the apple tart itself was so dismal, I stopped minding after a while.

We paid Rs 2,667 for our meal, inclusive of taxes and service charges. Expensive, and just simply not worth it.