L’Addresse Kitchen and Bar Review (Rajouri Garden, New Delhi )

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L’Addresse Kitchen and Bar Review  : Its always nice to eat at a new place and enjoy the novelty it offers. And this place with its Mediterranean inspired interiors was a refreshing choice when four of us decided to go out for lunch.

The Ambience :

The ambience is picture perfect. You feel transported to cobbled bylanes of Santorini because of the predominant use of aquamarine and cream colors and the quaintly painted vistas framed by faux window shutters with faux flower filled balconies to boot.

Then there are cozy nooks strewn with comfy cushions , framed by pastel drapes enclosed by beautiful handmade grills. Very impressive !! The ambience sets the mood for a relaxed time to be spent with your loved ones with tinkle of glasses and happy chatter.

It would have been wonderful if the decor harmonized with the menu and music. Unfortunately, the loud thumping music brings you back to Rajouri from Greece with a thud. The MENU too,does not adhere to Med cuisine, so all the usual suspects – Mexican,Thai,Chinese,Lebanese ,not to forget Indian,make their token presence felt.

I personally feel that a great opportunity was lost here to be a trailblazer instead of traversing the much beaten path of serving exactly what everyone else does. A Mediterranean speciality restaurant in West Delhi would have been one hell of an experience to look forward to !!

The Food :

Coming to the food, we started with :

A WATERMELON N FETA SALAD :

Miniscule pieces of Feta with poor quality lettuce which was bitter to taste . Mercifully ,the watermelon was fresh n sweet.

GRILLED VEG N PINE NUTS BRUSCHETTA:

Felt shortchanged as the pine nuts had done the vanishing act to be replaced by peanuts. The sensibility to understand that the two are not interchangeable in an Italian dish seemed to be woefully missing. The Bruschetta tasted nice once I’d removed every single peanut from my serving.

VEG MEZZE PLATTER:

The dips were good,so was the Pita. What disappointed was the cigar shaped Falafels. Tasted like a regular Hariyali kebab .No trace of the unique flavors of chickpeas n garlic pounded together.

KHANDANI VEG PLATTER:

I felt odd tucking into Hara Bhara Kebabs,Bharwan Aloo,Paneer Tikka in a Med ambience. All these were delicious and perfectly spiced.The Cheesy Mushrooms were soft n creamy but too bland. At ₹ 1000/- ,I felt the Platter was a wee bit expensive. I would have been more at peace if I had to pay a couple of 100s less than that.

ASSORTED VEG IN CHILLI BEAN SAUCE:

Easily wins the best dish on the table award with its full bodied flavorful gravy with lots of crunchy exotic veggies. I especially loved the sweetness of snow peas in it.

VEG HAKKA NOODLES:

Perfect accompaniment to the veggies .Very well executed.

In Drinks we ordered the virgin versions of:

GREEN APPLE MOJITO:

Yummylicious !! Full of chunks of green apples n Mint.

KIWI MOJITO:

Now, this being my favorite flavor in drinks I ve tried the Kiwi version of a Mojito innumerable times. This one was the worst. With a hideous bright green colour, I knew it had added artificial flavors before even taking one sip. It had that synthetic taste that comes with using flavored syrups instead of the real fruit.Didn’t expect them to be stingy about half a Kiwi.

REGULAR MOJITO:

This one was good.I tasted my friend’s and wished I d chosen this one.
They don’t have coffee machines so we went ahead and ordered tea and coffee anyway because my friends wanted it. Both were very milky n average in taste.

The Service :

The service here was slow and dithering to begin with. Our server just hung about unsure about what he was expected to do. It improved dramatically during the course of the meal and made our experience a pleasant one.

Its a 3.8/5 on the MOVILICIOUS METRE .

GlossyPolish Verdict :

I would recommend this place to you all because it’s still finding its feet. I ll be back to try their Pizzas and Pastas and the non vegetarian options. Hopefully ,they ll be playing music which is more synchronised to its ambience .