In a nutshell:

Cool interiors, nice ambience, warm staff, good place to hang out with friends, good for a date as well, but food – average, inconsistent – good at times & bad at other times.

Address & other details: Cafe Bel Cibo

Meal for 2: Rs. 800 onwards

Cuisine Type: Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian

Short Description – In case u r in a hurry:

You’d love the atmosphere. A bright colorful interior with lots of super cool detailing, a large graphiti,

nice little figurines,

books

……………… The interior designer excelled in his / her work.

I heard from two different sets of foodie friends that this new place is good. Both of them have had good experience here. So decided to go there for the first time to have some pizzas.

We were impressed with the look of the menu card as it arrived – the design, looks & feel.

Menu options were focused, not too many & not too less – soups,salads, pizzas, pastas, lasagnes, starters, sides & a mezze platter.
Service was good.

The food looked great & very appealing. Some of the food was good. Rest was a disaster. Since my friends have liked it on previous occasions, I guess it was my bad luck – maybe the chef was not around / absent / left the restaurant & the trainee / someone novice was around to cook our food.

Whatever be the case, it was frustrating to pay full price for the food & get something stupid on the plate. In fact if u r as unlucky as me, U might also turn up there on such a bad day.

I am surely not going back there to re-try & waste my hard earned money.

We ordered a mezze platter, a pesto based pizza & a Belgian Chocolate drink & fresh lime soda. A part of the platter was good, part average. The Pizza was a disaster. The Chocolate drink was good but not what we expect in Belgian Chocolate. It turned out to be like a Belgian ‘Milk Chocolate’ – not dark. The fresh lime soda ‘sweet & salt’ was ok.

Detailed Description – In case u have the time to enjoy reading:

The platter, when it arrived, looked great.

The Mezze platter had three items – the first was something like a flat samosa with a minced chicken filling. The filling was nice, juicy & mild in taste. The outer layer was thin & crispy. Good overall.

The next in the platter was something like a chicken chop. It had a thick , crispy outer layer & surprisingly the same filling as the samosa!!!! I have never had a platter with two out of three items having the same filing. Overall taste was not bad but nothing great as well.

The third was barbequed chicken chunks – low on salt. The taste completely went wrong. The flavors were mild & after sprinkling salt, the food tasted good but again – nothing great.

All this was served with 4 dips. One was hummus & olive oil. Good to taste. The second was hung curd. Good texture & taste. The third dip was aubergine based – similar to baingan ka bharta in texture. Bad to average taste. Proportion of salt was incorrect again. Irritating, especially when that happens for the second time in a row.

The fourth dip had a slight punch, a creamy texture & was enjoyable.

For maincourse we had ordered a pesto based Pizza (instead of the usual Tomato based).

The experience was similar to – guys drolling over one of those near perfect look models who seem to be chiselled out by God himself but then hell breaks loose as soon as she opens her mouth!!!!

So, once again, the pizza was outstanding to look at.but horrible to taste. I guess the person making it forgot to add salt at all!!!!! Third time in a row. Weird. I cud not believe my taste buds. I checked with my co – diners. They were also in a state of shock.

At about the sametime the (I guess) Manager walked up to us & asked how the food was – we said – ‘no salt’. All he did was to hand us a salt sprinkler that turned out to be semi jammed – resulting in no salt at times & huge amounts on another time. We kept spraying & eating.

Needless to say, sprinkled salt on food vs. salt added to food is a very different experience. Sprinkled salt can never be uniform & it always hits the taste buds separately unless the food has a soft texture like mashed potato / baingan ka bharta.

The pizza was thin crust, had pesto layer, was covered with mozzarella & different kinds of Bell peppers & topped with Anchovy fillet. Leave apart the salt, the pizza was not juicy likeu get in Toninos / Spagetti Kitchen / Hilton / even Wow Italia in Food Court MGF Mall. What had all ingredients for & could have been an outstanding & memorable Pizza, turned out to be a disaster due to execution issues.

…………….. as I say – ‘My taste buds sat thru a Horror Show at Cafe’ Bel Cibo after paying for a family drama’.

We did not have the courage to order for dessert & hence I settled for the balance ‘Belgian Chocolate’ drink. It was thick, creamy & good for kids – no dark chocolate but just milk chocolate.

My companions settled with the remaining glass of Fresh lime soda which was not bad.

My friends loved this place on separate occassions & we had a horrible experience. ‘Inconsistency’ is something that is dangerous for a new Cafe that has opened in a Mall that gets probably less footfalls than Mansarovar lake in Winters. Hope the owners do something about it – so that not many more hapless guests feel this way.