Anyhow to cut to the chase, last month has seen an orgy of eating out - 4 times in one week IS too much, don't you think? Flagging off the eat-a-thon was dinner with friends from work at Out Of The Blue, which I shall blog about after I visit it again - for research purposes, of course. :D
Second off was a leisurely (read: three hour long!) high-tea-turned-dinner at Cafe Basilico at Pali Naka with a fellow foodie friend. VS is a US-based lady who, like birds, heads south (aka back home to India) every winter. This time, we were determined to check out some of the niche, quaint eateries that are the hallmark of Bandra West. Basilico was a natural choice for 'afternoon tea' after an afternoon of window shopping.
When we walked in, the inside seating area (all dark modern square tables and chairs and huge picture windows) was empty. The outdoor seating area had a couple of late-lunchers going strong.
With us being one of only three occupied tables, service was swift. Menus, glasses of water, table napkins etc were dispensed in record time. It took US much longer to decide what to begin our "tea" with. :)
After deliberating the menu options (and confirming that the Lamb Peri Peri that VS remembered as me having and lavishing praise on two years ago - there's a foodie for you! - was not available till 7:00 PM) we started off with a serve of the Thai Chicken Wings.
Yes, these are chicken wings, not prawnsThese wings were unlike any wings I have ever had (very few, to be honest) or seen (too many! I adore TLC!) . These were stuffed chicken wings - stuffed with spiced chicken mince. Kinda bizarre, but very tasty, nevertheless. Even more bizarre? They gave us a steak knife and fork to eat these with. :-D My caveman (woman? person?) instincts were so damped down by this!
The only quibble was that the wings were slightly chewy - which meant getting a neat no-sauce-running-down-your-
Next up, we asked for the Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Sandwich. I had misgivings about this choice - the words 'soy-marinated chicken' conjured up visions of too-salty chicken and not much else. But I SO GLAD we went with VS's choice!
The sandwich appeared to be a cousin of the famous banh mi and was a delightful combination of crunchy-yet-chewy baguette, tender morsels of chicken drenched in a sweet-spicy sauce, just-enough mayo and shreds of onion and lettuce. Such a treat for the taste buds! Especially when alternated with the crunchy fries served with the sandwich. The tumble of lettuce served on the side was doused with a light sweet-sour dressing, rounding out the offering. If asked to survive for the rest of my days on only one dish, this sandwich would be in the top 3 spots for sure.
To digress - the waitstaff would whisk away our plates and cutlery after every 'course' and replace them with new ones. Which made me feel remarkably swish. (Especially since the last few weeks have seen me on a mission to discover the city's cheap eats)
By the time we'd worked our way through the wings and the sandwich, it was past 7:00 PM, so...................
..............Yes, you got it right, we ordered the much-salivated-over Lamb Peri-Peri. Minus the lamb. In a vain bid to be virtuous, we ordered chicken instead. :)
And...... it wasn't the treasure trove of deliciousness that I (and VS, by transitivity) remembered. :( Maybe it was a case of over-expectation. Or maybe the dish needed lamb. Or maybe my memory had embellished the dish and made it seem brighter, better than it was? Either way, the Chicken Peri-Peri was nice, but just that. Not lip-smackingly awesome. The Peri-Peri sauce was not very spicy, the bed of rice-potato-vermicelli had way more rice and way less starchy, more-ish potato than I remembered.....sigh. We all outgrow our deities some time, I guess.
By this time we were full, but not unbearably so. :D So of course, we had to order dessert. Basilico is the only place I have visited till date which does about 5 versions of cheesecake. (Most places serve only frozen blueberry cheesecake, few others serve the aforesaid FBC plus one baked variant of cheesecake) Basilico serves - get this-
1. Baked Philadelphia Cheesecake
2. Baked New York Cheesecake
3. Baked Blueberry Cheesecake (with the blueberries inside the cheesecake, not on top)
4. Baked Cranberry Cheesecake(with stewed cranberries on top of plain cheesecake)
5. Frozen Blueberry Cheesecake
And this is in addition to a vast array of chocolate-based desserts (Baked New York Chocolate Mousse Cake, Chocolate Mud Pie, Chocolate Flourless Cake, Gooey Chocolate Cake....droooooool) and the usual suspects of brownies, tiramisu and chocolate mousse.
We ordered a wedge each of the Baked Cranberry Cheesecake and the Baked New York Chocolate Mousse Cake. The cheesecake was right at the top of the heap, vying with those served at Ovenfresh and Out Of theBlue for the spot of best cheesecake in town. VS wasn't too keen on cheesecake (her order was the chocolate mousse cake) but one bite and she was a convert. Light, tangy, yet incredibly smooth and creamy, the cheesecake was a stuff of dreams. And the base - crumbly, buttery, sugary - was the stuff of wet dreams :P
The absence of photos of the dessert tells you just how...errr....compelling they were... :D
All this fabulous food wasn't exactly inexpensive or even reasonably-priced - but given the exotic menu, the great food (often one sees menus with super-exotic descriptions - which the food falls short of), good service (paying upwards of Rs 300 per dish means no one can evict you because you have overstayed your welcome - we saw one PYT nursing one mug of coffee for 2 hours!) and great location, it was well worth the price. So the next time you have a session of catching up to do with long-lost (or migratory) friends - you know where to head.
Cafe Basilico
Pali Naka
Bandra-West
Telephone Number: 022 55055555/ 55039999
Posts
