If you travel down the borderline of St. Paul’s in Bhopalpura you’ll happen to cross a beautiful garden restaurant popularly known as Taste of Culture (Veg and Non-Veg). If you happen to be me, you just can’t cross it.

You somehow will find yourself seated at one of the tables, eager to flip through the menu, looking forward to having a good time.

The main gate of the restaurant opens up to a huge lawn with tables (for four) strewn across in a thoughtful pattern embellished with a fountain at the exact centre. It wasn’t on at noon, which was when I had visited the restaurant, but its presence made the green carpet look good.

The restaurant dining area is divided in 5 parts: The main hall, two private huts, one discotheque cum dining hall, the garden and two tables under a small shed overlooking the garden.

The private huts, by the way, charge Re 500 per meal exclusive of the food charges and can manage a group of upto 15 people.

We were there for a lunch, and by the look of it, the restaurant was completely empty. The service we received wasn’t great. Drinking water was served almost with the starters, waiters weren’t available at hand (we had to shout in the direction of the Kitchen to call one), and the progression of the meal was pathetically slow.

We started with a soup, Makai Coriander Soup.

Makai Coriander Soup

Mexican in origin, this soup has the name to get one expectant, but doesn’t deliver. The makai didn’t taste like boiled, and not soft. Not likeable either. I mean, even if it’s not a sweet corn soup, the corns are supposed to be soft and squishy. The gravy was strong and contained too much of garlic for my taste. It was not until later that I had realised that garlic is the Chef’s weak spot.

Crispy Baby Corn

One doesn’t learn. After the poor quality of makai, we were apprehensive about this dish, but it turned out just fine.

The deep-fried baby corn served with capsicum and onion rings were almost delectable in taste. The baby corns were relatively better.

We liked the starter.

After a long gap where we were staring at the beautiful Grandfather clock down the room, we were served the main course.

Cheese Steak Sizzler

Mashed homemade cheese patty served with French fries and fresh vegetables.

As sizzlers are supposed to be, this one wasn’t sizzling hot. In fact, it wasn’t even hot. It was warm.

The fresh vegetables were carrots, cabbage, baby corn and green peas. French fries weren’t salted, and we didn’t have a salt sprinkler on our table, and we couldn’t ask for one, so we ate it that way.

Cheese patty was delicious. The quality of cheese didn’t support it, but the preparation was complete. Maybe they should use a better supplier of cheese.

Oh I nearly forgot! Every cheese patty was topped with a pineapple slice. Made my day!

Pesto Pasta

Creamy white cheese sauce pasta.

Disappointing and didn’t appeal to the sense of taste at all. The pasta seemed dry and lost on the red sauce. Garlic met us again here. We did empty the plate it was served in, but we didn’t particularly enjoy doing so.

It can be concluded that Taste of Culture is trying too hard. They have included so many cuisines that they are losing their grip on the handle.

Agreed that they have a beautiful surrounding and maybe conform to a do-not-disturb-the-diners protocol, but that doesn’t make up for the average food they provide.

I couldn’t find any Go Fida factor here, but I did notice the staff gearing up for a big party in the Discotheque scheduled that evening.

Or maybe it gets better after sunset. That’s for our gourmand readers to find out!

The bill we were presented was of Rs. 609. Not acceptable to me at all.

I request the readers to contradict me by describing their personal experience.

The weekend is round the corner. Check out our Lifestyle section for suggestions and as always, have fun!