A Chocolate Affair
13A & 15 Dheeraj Arcade
Pali Naka
Bandra W
Mumbai 400050
Tel: 26425287
As the name suggests, this is where chocoholics should go to get a fix. Or those who are on strict diet when they want to be unfaithful to sprouts and lettuce. Conceptually therefore it is wickedly delicious. In practice though a little more effort to inject a dash of evil and a frisson of adventure might go a long way.
We started ambitious and decided to try out a sweet pizza and the highly recommended Spanish churros with a chocolate dip. The pizza was fruity – the menu said banana and strawberry with marshmallows and chocolate sauce. Am pathologically opposed to bananas so asked that they be omitted and was wondering where they would get strawberries which are so out of season right now. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when they were replaced by pineapple chunks, which as it happens I am also opposed to. Ah well, remove carefully and then bite in. It was, in fact, quite delicious. It could have done with a bit more chocolate sauce in my opinion, but then maybe sometimes less is more. You are offered a choice of dark or milk chocolate but since I am pathologically opposed to milk… sigh, never mind.
The churros I must admit were not so successful. The dipping sauce – again a choice of dark or milk – was fine. The churros however were a bit stodgy – all that fried dough just sat heavy on the tongue with not enough flavour to redeem it.
Still, one of out of two not bad so far. To cut the sweet and give us some time to recover, we then asked for the savoury menu. This is a selection of sandwiches, alas all chicken for the non-vegetarians which I am also pathologically opposed blah blah. So we tried the eggplant and mozzarella sandwich which was truly excellent. The bread was white (this is an affair after all, not a heavenly sanctioned and legally notified meal) so it collapsed a bit but the filling of brinjal, tomato, garlic, onions and cheese was flavourful and more-ish.
There’s a selection of teas, coffees and chocky drinks. I opted for a tea to cleanse the palate but the more adventurous tried a nutty overload which was chocolate and nuts and such. Had a sip – it was good and heavy.
Then we thought maybe one more indulgence and tried the cookie sandwich – vanilla ice-cream, cookies, chocolate sauce – and were not disappointed at all. It had a good variety of textures – crisp biscuit, soft ice-cream, sticky sauce.
There are a few objections though. The menu needs a little more – chocolate with chilli, more chocolate less doughy stuff and so on (there is a cake counter though). The décor was very been there done that – Barista had done the orange wall theme long ago as my architect friend pointed out. The chairs were not very comfortable – they should encourage lounging after all. And the music was ghastly Bollywood, which I am most definitely pathologically opposed to. Even worse, it did not fit the theme. Something flowing and cosy with a hint of the devil required to match the theme.
Very repeat visit-worthy though.
Three stars
Meal for two (no alcohol): Rs 600/-
To watch out for: no credit/debit cards accepted yet
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