The story goes that in 1762, John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, his hands full -literally, what with commanding the power-hungry British Navy and his compulsive gambling- had no time for food. Therefore, he bunged, apparently at the cards table, between two slices of bread some meat and le-voilà happened one culinary smash-hit not invented in France.
Délifrance:
But nobody quite makes bread à la français, the French counter. Délifrance's breads might be Singaporean imports. Yet the franchise is French. A perennially-packed café is oh-là-là-d. Why didn't I know of Colombo's classiest sandwich bar before? Anyway, when enfin I discover the enclave recreating a Parisian café of old, I'm charmed.
It pays not to dissipate quality with multifarious substandard options for variety. And for such exclusivity the customer pays. Colombo's daintiest sandwiches fit prettily between clipped fingers. Protest one might that portions are slightly too pretty and uncourted by salad or fries. But remember you pay for imported bread what local counterparts cost. Besides, you pay for chic sandwiches not sobbing mayo, butter, ketchup and what not. Délifrance's youngest 20-something-year-old Director Anushka Ranasinghe quips, "It's easy to please the indiscriminate. The challenge is satisfying people who understand food."
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| Bars' sweeter interpretation of the sandwich:Three-tiered ice cream sandwich |
Satisfactory: out-of-the-oven baguettes crisp like crickets slant warmly across trays, ciabatta (the French defer to the Italians sometimes) lounge in baskets. Walnut-&-onion bread is lovely and olive oil bread lovelier still. Spread your bread in select fillings.
Enhance the bread's flavour with uncomplicated grilled cheese, capers, onion, chilli and mustard. Fancier fillings include smoked salmon, seafood mayonnaise, spicy chicken, tuna onion and newly-introduced creamy prawns and tandoori chicken that Rinosh constructs with gloved hands. Baguette pizzas meld pizza taste with sandwich calories, although why the puree is sugared consternates. Otherwise, Manager Mr. Tusith who quietly happens to be quite a chef can get creative on request.
Mr. T and deputy Mr. Ruwan make Colombo's most efficient and genteel café managers. Distinguishing Délifrance from every other café, juniors too are well-trained. They are alert, they remember to bring cutlery and they don't stamp your cutlery with their thumb-prints, cutlery being mindfully dispensed sandwiched in tissue. One finds oneself sandwiched in luxuriously buttered care.
The Oxford Dictionary also defines as sandwich "cake of two or more layers with jam or cream etc between." Therefore, we construe as sweet sandwiches Délifrance's cheesecake: unadulterated Philadelphia cream cheese layered between fine biscuit and throes of dark chocolate or strawberry/raspberry/blueberry coulis. Ample slices and genuine Philadelphia make this Colombo's most-value-for-money "cheese" sandwich. Miss not the fruit sandwich though: fragile pastry base sustaining a custard cushion robed in fruit cocktail; sweet due to unalterably-sweet foreign custard, but so good. Strict sensitivity to sugar displays in homemade chocolate/blueberry muffins. Mr. Thusith's in-house creations by far outdo their outsourced alternatives from some celebrity confectioner.
But customers are clever enough to patronise Délifrance's liquid sandwiches: DF frappes. Espresso and mocha frappés manifest tripartite demarcations, unless you wish your coffees customised to expurgate cream and sugared ingredients like French vanilla from Mr. T's craftily-textured crushed ice. Amaretto frappé, when fleetingly essenced, is splendid. Addictive.
Indeed, Délifrance is addictive. Several staff members have addictively remained since the café's inception about 12 years ago.
Bars:
Sandwiches are massively popular. Portions are massive and popularly sodden and sagging with mayonnaise. Nevertheless, terraces team with people smacking lips over signature Arabic bread sandwiches. Breads are homemade but want distinction whilst godamba roti rolled into interesting Lankan "sandwiches" can be a cacophony of colours.
I much rather their sweeter interpretation of the sandwich: ice cream sandwiches. The three-tiered mass wedged with chocolate cookie, exotic fruit pickle and chocolate-coated potato wafers so overwhelmed during a special promotion it might well return. Until then, plunge through a pool of chocolate isled with a clump of cashews and penetrate slices and slices of biscuit sandwiching just the right quantum of light chocolate cream. The manager had cautioned it's too sweet. Yet, what looks good tastes good and this dessert seems sugar-free.
Wallow in what is one of Colombo's best two chocolate biscuit puddings: the other being thrice the price and a third its size, the Bars option lavished in imported chocolate is wizardry in velvet. Chocolate ganache, sugar-controlled cream cementing bricks of chocolate sponge, isn't vulgarly rich. And dark chocolate sponge buttered with orange bewitches. Someone I tested this delicacy on wondering about its provenance rattled off names of 5-Stars. That it was from Bars extracted disbelief." Time to bar myths that the affordable cannot possibly be sophisticated.
Latitude:
Just-flown-in Napolitano Chef Domenico D'Imperio with his mama-in-the-cucina cuisine sandwiched with witch-craft of a technique is tossing up the inimitable pizza, an Italian sandwich of sorts- after all, it's a tripartite layering of bread, puree and adorned cheese (although unadorned Margarita is always best). Or request the hybrid flitting-between-pizza-and-sandwich calzone. Fresh home-baked foccacia and ciabata packed with chef's speciality traditional Italian salads turn into exciting sandwiches with some imagination. Chef D does the Italian Job better than the eponymous film.
If our Italian guest chef departs on June 10, his job done, then just-flown-in Indian halwai Chambel Singh stays on. His razzmatazz of Indian sweet "sandwiches" have now launched at the Lobby Lounge: fabled Bengali sweet sensation, the mawa sandwich (it's called sandwich) isn't on the dozen items available but rasgullah may be transformed into those satin-soft sheets of mawa and cream scintillating in silver paper film. Gorgeous barfis sandwich almond, pistachio and cashew in structures that are sheer triple-decker decadence.
Bread Talk:
Is imminently launching their sandwich range. We don't quite know when. Until then, experiment at home with fun combinations happening nowhere on the local scene. Get Bread Talk's excellent wholemeal walnut & raisin loaf and sandwich between it slivers of soft goat's cheese to contrast the raisin's sweetness and the walnut's crunch. Otherwise, deliciously dark rye with avocado, Roquefort and rocket makes for a rollicking rye-ght choice. Unless, pour changer, one prefers the alas-nowhere-in-Colombo cucumber and cream cheese English classic. The Earl of Sandwich would surely approve this Pearl of the Sandwich.
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