First off a very happy Diwali to everyone. It’s been a while since I wrote on Mouthshut, but a recent experience has, shall we say, inspired me.
So I celebrated my 4th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. I figured we’d do something special and seeing as my wife loves Italian food, I decided to take her to Toscano at UB City for dinner. The thing I love most about my wife is that she sticks by me in spite of ridiculous decisions like this, but I digress...
I had been hearing rave reviews about this restaurant for some time now. The chef is a French man who has had experience in several world-class hotels including the Leela Palace -not that it matters to me. My reasoning was French man + chef = evening of unmatched gastronomical delight. A bit simplistic perhaps, but it made sense at the time.
So there are 4 of us, not including the baby, who didn’t count because he was asleep. The staff was very polite and immediately made sure we were comfortably settled. Looking through the menu, it was hard to make a selection, because everything sounded so damn good! Whoever wrote that menu - REAL talent!!
I forget what we ordered for starters, but it was described as packets of mozzerella cheese wrapped in aubergines and baked, served with a salad. Honestly if that doesn’t sound absolutely amazing, I don’t know what does. It arrives 20 minutes later. All 2 of them! No I’m not kidding. A very large plate arrives with 2 lonely looking cheese packets in the middle and a few veggies on the side. Not being one to lose my composure easily, I calmly take my knife and divide the starters so we can all get a taste – all the while explaining that the idea of a starter is not to fill you up, but to prepare you for more. Taste-wise it was a bit of a flop, but I’m optimistic by nature andrefused to recognize it as a sign of things to come.
The wife ordered potato gnocchi with tomato sauce. Her mom had the risotto with porcini mushrooms. My mom ordered grilled prawns and after several moments of indecision, opted for a seafood dish, described to me as fillets of bassa, wrapped in ham and then stewed. I almost fell off my chair in delight on hearing those words.
The gnocchi was perhapsthe best of the lot, although the sauce that accompanied it was unspectacular at best. The risotto tasted musty. The prawns – well there were 3 of them, which is a mild improvement on the starter, but not quite main course material. As for my main course – the most disastrous of the lot – it resembled a bowl of noodle soup with a piece of fish floating forlornly in the centre. It also turned out to be on the tasteless end of the spectrum.
The bill was surprisingly robust in comparison to the portions and quality of food we experienced. I had to cough up around 2.5k – a lot, considering we didn’t drink anything and were still hungry at the end of the meal. Through all this I had maintained an aura of absolute calm, but I’m told my eyebrows flew off my face when the valet guy demanded 100 bucks for services rendered. All in all, this is not an experience I would voluntarily repeat, and I strongly urge those of you who enjoy good food to avoid this place.