Some beetroot soaked in malt vinegar, sugar and served with feta cheese and peppery arugula started the all-new menu episode at Cavalli Caffé, DlF Emporio. After wiping out the cold salad portion take a break and tell the chef how surprisingly refreshing and delicious it was, and hear him say, “Beetroot vinaigrette was introduced by one of our directors and fashion designer Manav Gangwani.” That’s food outing Gangwani style!
Sous chef Suket Jaitly served melon with parma ham and rucola and goat cheese with pinenuts and oranges. Between the two starters parma ham is still struggling to find Indian takers as it is too salty for a desi palate. The ham wrapped a melon slice to balance the taste. The meat is procured in a different way — for around six months it is covered with salt, and only when the blood has completely oozed out, and the meat is salt-dried and fat is distributed throughout, it gets ready! “If the ham is pale in colour, it is not of good quality,” informed the chef. The leafy bowl with pinenuts go well with Cavalli wines; the cobra concoction was made of lychee and blackcurrant flavours.
Tuscan soups are made with breads but here the chef served tomato soup in a bread bowl; no point wasting time marvelling at the soup structure, just scrape the bread and enjoy the warm delight. The bread basket was accompanied with three butter slabs made of different flavours — pesto, olives and chilli. It was so creamy and buttery that the realisation of a sinful indulgence dawned with the first bite of it. This time the new menu has some items from international arena like the Oriental bowl meals and Middle-East preparations. Nothing to beat chili caramel basa with wilted spinach; they get basa from Vietnam. The fish goes well with caramel as it is soft and takes in the flavours unlike river sole and salmon. The combination of sweet fish with noodles sautéed in some oil and garlic is a must try.
The wilted spinach added to the platter lived up to its promise of a nutritional meal. Bangkok street food inspired the chef to include soup meal in a bowl — sweet lobster linguine with tom kha was absolutely creamy with coconut milk. It was cooked with kaffir lime, lemon grass and galangel. This is one place where it makes complete a sense to just go for an-only-dessert outing because the sweet offerings are so unique. Sample the hot chocolate foam with a rum granita, the sweet crushed rum soaked ice covers the bed of the glass and the hot chocolate foams invitingly. A sinful start should end with as much sin! Cut through the middle of the foam and dig out some rum infused ice, have it both hot and cold. The next one was chocolate marquise, the designer chocolate cake covered with zebra printed transfer sheet that the Caffé gets from Paris, this was all about la dolce vita we so longed for.