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Japengo cafe: The master of medley
You have the world on your platter at this cafe, but it?s safe to stick to the East, writes Vidhi Bhargava.
Looks can be deceptive, and I believe in this more so after a meal at the newly-opened Japengo café at Inox.
The restaurant is a part of an international chain of restaurants by the same name. It looks like an Oriental restaurant but the menu lists Italian, Lebanese and even fish and chips.
A look at the right side of the menu and I felt it would be an expensive meal. Wrong again, for it really didn’t make a big hole in my pocket.
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| A medley mix |
And to top it all, I thought the café would not be too different from the restaurants that open with a bang but have nothing different to offer. And I was pleasantly surprised, yet again.
Expect a café and you’ll be surprised. Unlike a café, the interiors of the restaurant — the jute low chairs, huge paper lanterns in white, wooden furniture and dried straw hanging from the ceiling — are slightly bent towards fine dining.
Whoever said multi-cuisine restaurants do not do justice to any cuisine, should make a trip here.
That Japengo does not serve any alcohol should not be a deterrent. The fresh juices are are worth trying. The fresh kiwi juice (Rs 150) was really cool (literally).
For starters, we chose the Japengo platter (Rs 550) but we weren’t really prepared for the huge amount of food that arrived.
The variety and quantity is more than enough for two people.
The platter, which is largely Oriental, comes with an array of appetisers that includes fish cake, calamari, salmon, dumplings, salmon sashimi, California sushi rolls, ebi tempuras, mozzarella with pesto and more.
Though our favourites were the char grilled calamari and California rolls (sushi with apples, avocado and cucumber stuffing), the prawn tempuras were equally good, crisp and succulent.
The café, sadly has little to offer to vegetarians. There are a couple of salads with only greens, and a tomato mozzarella sandwich.
The message is clear, vegetarians accompany your non-vegetarian friends at your own risk.
However, one could try the stir fried vegetables (Rs 250), vegetables in a crunchy basket made of thin sliced potatoes.
Though the presentation lacked spunk it was not too bad to taste. It tasted “Chinese” and we tasted a hint of ajinomoto.
As the name suggests main emphasis at Japengo is on the Oriental cuisine Besides sashimi, Japengo offers sushi in three forms, sushi — sushi maki roll and sushi hand roll that is one big sushi shaped like a cone.
For sushi lovers the sushi platter (Rs 800) with 10 pieces of assorted sushi and a sushi roll, or assorted maki Makimono (Rs 600), is a good bet.
However, we chose Unagi sushi roll (Rs 350) with six pieces of sushi. The sushi roll had delicate pieces of barbecue eel, played off by unagi or eel sauce, green nori seaweed flakes and roasted sesame seeds on top, which gives it a unique flavour.
The sushi presentation was simple but elegant.
Non-vegetarians might enjoy the Lebanese fare like the shish taouk plate or grilled marinated chicken (Rs 275).
Though the texture of the chicken is just right, we found it a bit too bland for our Indian palate.
Though we gave the Italian fare a miss we just couldn’t resist the dessert.
The selection is limited but we went in for the cheese cake (Rs 200), which we thought was a bit much. While my friend felt that the base was a bit hard the texture was smooth and the taste amazing.
