Styled on Army schmaltz, 38 Barracks does score high on visual stimuli and you could fritter away time discussing just that while you get nickeled and dimed on by food that comes and goes by. Reports Devi Singh
Okay, so here is an unusual setup for food, where your vision will be greeted by walls bedecked by army heritage, conceptualised and themed on an army veteran’s house with his belongings thrown in creating a certain nostalgia which envelopes you with that distinct warm, folksy, bucolic feel, not exactly in that order, reminding you of that particular homey character which we all look for by the way. But add a smidgen of jarring music and you get, somewhat addled mash up of gastronomical treaty gone awry. The undercurrent undoubtedly is of fusion in almost all the places mushrooming up in the city these days with each of them pulling every trick in the book cracking to one up than others.
Having said that, a few of them do live up to their hype and the others can’t make a cut. And then there are some who manage to stick, to their well, hunky dory appeal. Speaking of which, 38 Barracks, spread over 3000 square feet of area works well for its physical allure which settles your nerve, one of the best bet of the place being its interiors and décor. The walls have been adorned by the standard military paraphernalia comprising rifles, gallantry awards, chains, medallions having made peace with the stoic rustic walls of the place.
Parts of the space have been done in a way that will reminisce you of beautiful bygone era, with enough hints of forgotten people occupying the space at some point of time in past, having abandoned in a hurried state due to some undisclosed reason, and that is what gives this café a museum like personality which happens to be quite outré. The ammo boxes, suitcases placed at the corners add up to that old-world charm, the photos, portraits although miscellaneous give out a homogenous impression, pointing out to the stories of the people, families. They definitely stir up the intrigue in you to find out more about spaces, places and people framed up tastefully on the walls.
Being lost appreciating this storehouse of apparent treasuries, we catch up a whiff of food, making our gustatory cells work overtime. We make our way to the table where we go through the menu which has been done in the, no brownies for guessing, Army fashion with names of the dishes stylised keeping the military character alive. The menu boasting of high octane, dynamic names turns out to be the obvious derivative of regional cuisines across the country with some foreign elements making their way into the kitchens of the place.
Their cocktail menu didn’t seem very elaborate; we really had a tough time settling for our choices. After taking our bittersweet time we made our decision, first came sangria, incongruously named AK47, which on the palate was similar to the usual sangrias you get but the only thing that didn’t go down too well with us was the overload of little chunks of fruits floating on the top of our tipple. With that we ordered skin splatter which was nothing but their take on British staple, jacket potatoes, nothing thrilling about it; maybe they ought to incorporate a hint of spice to the potatoes. Oh, we also tried the Mulligatawny soup which had to make its way to the Army kitchen inspired menu.
Next came, Shikhampuri kebabs which for some weird reason reminded us of the fresh water lakes and the fish. This time we went for another kebab, the ubiquitous galouti, which made our palate enwrapped with cinnamon smoke. For the mains we had tangy baingan with zafrani biryani, eggplants lacked the very thing they were named for, you guessed it right, the tang. All we could taste was the sweetness of the tomatoes with a hint of tamarind chutney but nonetheless baingan atleast looked very appetising, very. We paired this up with biryani which was the only thing we heartily relished, be it the flavours, or even the chunks of the veggies. This we washed down with Caprioska, overwhelmed with orange bitters. For the desserts we went for baked rasgulla pie and Swiss pistachio roulade, both served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Again the idea was better than the execution.