Jul 31, 2006 12:09 AM
1917 Views
I am a self -proclaimed foodie. I can safely say I know most of the good restaurants in Delhi :-)
When we moved to Bangalore - in my quest to find the best restaurant for every cuisine, we visited I-talia at the Park because I was told it was the best Italian restaurant in town.
Whoever told me that needs to either get their taste buds checked or have their heads examined.
The restaurant is tucked away in a corner of the Park Hotel off M G Road. The decor is very basic and we thought the patio outside the restaurant was much quainter than the restaurant itself. My alarm bells should have gone off when we were the only people in the restaurant other than one more couple - on a saturday afternoon at lunch time!
It started off well because they have a decent selection of wines and other alcohol. I ordered a mint & lime spritz and my boyfriend ordered a Campari and some beer.
The house provides a basket of freshly baked bread and this is very very good. Dip those freshly baked buns into a mixture of balsamic vinegar, olive oil and some chilli flakes – ah! Divine. But that is where the good experience ended.
For my main course I ordered the penne with garlic & cauliflower and my boyfriend ordered beef ( well done) When the food arrived, I was really taken aback - firstly by it's appearance. It looked like boiled and oiled pasta. The chef had shredded cauliflower and garlic so it was one big lump and he then apparently forgot to cook it! So I got raw garlic & cauliflower pasta and my boyfriend god rare beef! It was so rare that the blood was oozing!!! I sent the pasta and beef back. While the beef came back ok, it looked like the chef had just reheated the pasta and sent it back! We were getting late as this entire procedure had taken more than 1 and a half hours.... so I just ate what I could (not much) and then we ordered dessert. I had the tiramisu and my boyfriend had the cassata. The presentation of both desserts was fantastic. And you really can't go wrong with a cassata ( basically it's 3 different flavours of ice cream assembled on a slice of sponge cake) but my tiramisu was nothing special. I think the chef decided - if I put loads of alcohol, they wont realize that the dessert itself has no flavour. All I could taste was the alcohol.... we ate a couple bites and left it.
All in all.... I will never go there again. The service is ok but when you're paying about 500 rupees/head for food + drinks... I want a little more than decent service. Wot say you?
