Chatz: Just happened upon Horton Place. Colombo’s chicest new terrace is très Parisien. Extraordinary, so glam a terrace attached to an independent salon-spa (Headmasters). Exhibit a hip hairdo poised over their ice coffee made with Italian Avanti. If you accept an encroachment of sugar and ice cream in pristine ice latte, then here is the one place in Colombo where sugar is but a furtive presence and ice cream is pleasantly prickled in nuts.
If in no mood for self-restraint, try milkshake. Having resisted one since June, I venture. And I am brought a most civilised chocolate milkshake. Neither too fat nor saccharine. I tell smart young Ruwan who serves impeccably and understands what he serves that this is the best-behaved milkshake I’ve had. He reveals he generally recommends it to kiddies who get treated at Chatz whilst their mummies get treated at Headmasters. And I feel quite foolish. But trust Ruwan to recommend.
Manager Carim is tortured when I call the venue a “café.” It’s an eatery with grown-up food! The terrace is young and fun, but interiors cleverly incorporate a less frivolous feel appealing to families that throng already.
Chefs consultants, two young Raban brothers, trained in Middle Eastern 5-Stars. Who hasn’t nowadays? But this chef duo lectures at an international hotel school.
Now, the menu. Salad stumps. Vigorous and vibrant, contrasting gleamingly with 5-Star salads that swoop like sycophants. Nice viniagrette too. Pizzas must be thin-crusted, from wood-fired ovens, I’ve always maintained. But Margherita at Chatz, despite the sturdy base, impresses for it’s well-baked even if not wood-fired and plush in a puree prepared with premium fresh tomatoes and herbs and not an overturned tomato can. Burgers excel- no cheese or mayo, just homemade bread and enjoyable patties. Wok kottu provides innovation.
 |
| Barefoot: Culinary art taken to a new level literally and metaphorically
Pictures courtesy Barefoot |
But Chef Raban Jr worked at Dubai’s Latino House and his speciality fajitas seem the favourite. Arabiata hasn’t ardour, like the chocolate desserts. The brothers contend curiously that it’s because locals dislike spice and chocolate so they decided upon the “Middle Path.” Whilst this might be philosophically sage, I’m unconvinced about the epicurean efficacy. However, Pastry Chef Raban Sr. attains leaps of loveliness with Colombo’s finest fruit tart: strawberry, mango, grapes, apple cradled in delicate homemade pastry (and not that factory-made cardboard 5-stars now resort to). Miss not Colombo’s best strawberry cheesecake (another superlative) that rests on a sugar-diminishing salty bed. It IS made with pure Philadelphia, chef even wishes to bring me the box to dispel doubts about apocryphal substitutes.
Commons: Has lately extended Sunday breakfast daylong. Yes, you may breakfast at midnight, if you haven’t become a pumpkin. 5-Star convenience without 5-Star prices. And you also have an all Lankan breakfast platter that launched at midnight today. Why have cereals and croissants when tradition is so much tastier? Relish it on a cute garden terrace where tranquillity is hammocked between towering walls and an arch of trees shoos away all sound. You hear only the crunch of onion and green chillies in the two pol rotis beside which laze a couple of enormous kiri bath pieces resembling albino whales. Katta sambol is appropriately snappy. The milk rice I’d prefer creamier. However, it is explained that a lighter interpretation is more sensible when the kiri bath is ensconced by a mound of kottu rotti and a luxuriant curry accompaniment. The platter apparently serves one. One with a gargantuan appetite. But makes it value-for-money.
Drown calories with salubrious sour sop juice, a local speciality I’ve only just discovered. Tradition is great but coffee is greater (alas!) and coffee is crucial at breakfast, particularly at midnight, particularly when Commons does a consternating fifteen odd hot coffees alone (spiced coffee, amaretto-laced Bianco, Irish cream Venus...). Where else in Colombo or even anywhere? I like chilled drinks but Mexican Mocha liaises your morning coffee and fresh orange (what a creation!) imbued in dark chocolate. Fudge-filled hot Black Forest distinguishes itself from ubiquitous iced versions. Chocolate Chunk Cookie Latte the self-indulgent will ever succumb joyously to, even after the mighty midnight platter.
From November 17- 30 night owls can celebrate kottu rotti in fancy dress : a pageant of kottu with seafood & chilli flakes, spicy lamb & coriander, teriyaki beef, lamb string-hopper... I prefer their classic kottu, this being without doubt Colombo’s best kottu for it actually has kottu and not just roti, indeed an abundance of veggies or meat and it’s lashing hot with chilli. However, chef says they had to re-invent lest regulars bore. Is it possible? Never! Nevertheless, the fancy kottus are fancified further with regalia of pert pepper sauce, dense four cheeses, biting hot garlic, fiery chilli mustard. Leaves you feeling hot, hot, hot. Feel hotter still plunging into a pool of Nazeem’s super sumptuous hot chocolate.
Barefoot Garden Café: Dominic Sansoni says he has lost track of time. Timelessness certainly pervades antiques adorning his garden café. Time stills in photographs tessellating the just-introduced photo gallery (spot a black-&-white of mist-mantled, mid-morning, melancholic Galle). Timely is a café terrace launch. Dominic deplores “fine dining” but is taking culinary art to another level- literally, with a new balcony terrace peering over the down-to-earth garden café.
Meagre though the décor, the ensemble charms bringing barefoot tourists, well-shod locals and the boho-chic for bar quizzes, jazz and theatre. But dining itself becomes a performance watched by antique hybrids with boar heads, elephant heads, decapitated heads, sculpted rock, contemporary contortions, a sagacious Lord Ganesh, a mural stretched behind the bar, a tree trunk searing out of concrete ceilings. Prakash serves diligently and suggests peanut-butter smoothie, surprisingly not cloying.
Unusually, vegetarian dishes are priciest... As-good-as-in-Aleppo falafel is pocketed in pita but cucumber raita usurps tahini’s right. Humous is tussocked by raw veggies. This costs Rs 700. The brownie is a defiant Rs 550. London prices cower besides.
Tourists and expats don’t mind. The torte is tragic, but warm nut pie like an ivory casket is bejewelled in cashews. It’s extremely sweet but not irritatingly so and I found myself shovelling spoonfuls with great glee. Oh, were Dominic’s delicious humour on the menu. But if his menu is pricy, his wit is priceless! |
E-mail
