In a nutshell:

A relatively value for money Italian food joint with nice interiors, good service & Punjabized Italian food.

Address & other details: Italiano

Meal for 2:  Rs. 1000 onwards

How to get there:  After u cross Guru Dronacharya Metro Station while going towards Delhi on MG road, there is a traffic signal – Nathupur. Turn left & keep driving straight till u reach a crowded marketplace. Keep driving thru the market till u find Wokamama signboard on ur left. In front of the building u wud find valet parking. Leave the car, get into the building thru an external staircase & on the first floor is Italiano.

Cuisine type : Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian

Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has paid for the full Bill & tips also. http://www.yummraj.com does not have even one featured / sponsored reviews. YUMMRAJ believes in going to a restaurant in anonymity, as a normal guest, experience everything & give a honest account of the same to you.

I rate all the food items & then give a final overall rating which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster.

Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:

We had been hearing about this restaurant in Nathupur for long & we ended up seeing this restaurant on our way to Spoonful of Soul. We decided to visit the restaurant the next day & that turned out to be quite an average experience.

The interiors were nice. Lighting was dim in general. Candle on the table was the only source of decent light in addition to the very dim overall lighting. A bar area was at the extreme end of the Dining Hall & a comic statue of a bar-man drew my attention.

The service guys were good but looked like the under-paid & somewhat ‘bechara’ type. Of course they were unable to answer quite a few questions regarding the food that was being served & hence we had to use our guess work.
In our pasta there was hair. I called the guy & showed it to him. He asked something which meant ‘Is it ur hair or the cook’s hair’!!!!!! as he contemplating taking the hair sample for DNA test? I don’t know. He did not finally charge for it though.

The restaurant had ‘authentic Italian cuisine’ pasted all over – needless to say that claim was light years away from reality. What turned up on plate was ordinary punjabized food. Too much tomato in everything, too much chicken on the menu, as if there is nothing nonvegetarian in this world beyond tasteless poultry bred chicken.

Detailed Description – In case u have the Time to NJOY reading:

We started the evening with Minestrone di Verdure con Parmagiano e pasta – vegetable Minestrone soup with Parmesan, pesto & pasta. For the uninitiated, Minestrone is a thick soup of Italian origin made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice. Common ingredients include beans, onions, celery, carrots, stock, and tomatoes.

There is no set recipe for minestrone, since it is usually made out of whatever vegetables are in season. The soup can be vegetarian, contain meat, or contain a meat-based broth.

The minestrone soup at Italiano obviously had no meat stock in the base. It had a tomato base – something that I call tomatoeeeee. It happens when a tomato based dish is not cooked optimally. The veggies in the soup were crunchy which was good. The taste of parmesan was not obvious due to te puny amount sprinkled over & the pesto cud not make a mark. It ended up as a slightly different version of the tomato soup served in the evening Rajdhanis. I give this soup a 2/5.

Post the soup we ordered Pizza Quatro Formmaggi – Four Cheese Pizza. We asked the guy to add pepperoni extra & charge for it. Our memory was live with an awesome Quattro formmaggi that we had at Mediterraneo, Khajuraho.

The pizza at Italiano had a thin hand rolled base & the cheese toppings were good in general. The parmesan one was the best & the normal cheese one was the worst of all. I liked the cheese that tasted more like hung curd. The pizza was juicy as well & the peperroni surely made a huge difference. It was good but short of great. I give the pizza a 3.5/5.

We then ordered a Lamb dish – Agnello di fungo – Lamb cooked with mushrooms in brown sauce flavored with wine, served with vegetables & garlic bread.

This sounded great but ended up being a disaster. It was as if the goat fell into a ditch of tomato puree, died there, got auto marinated & then cooked & served in a sea of tomato!!!!!! Where was the brown sauce & where was the wine? Did someone drink the wine & had none left????? It was a terrible onslaught on my tastebuds & they still cringe at the prospect of having to eat this dish again. I give this a 1/5.

I don’t know what was wrong with us that day. So even after such an experience, we thought of ordering some more food. We asked the waiter ‘Can u suggest something good that does not have tomato paste’ & he suggested ‘Fettucine con noci e gorgonzola’ – Fettucine in alfredo sauce, walnuts & gorgonzola cheese, a Pasta.

This pasta was made with white sauce that was blander than a British Chef wud serve his mashed potato!!!! There was no twists & turns to the tale & it seemed just to b a stomach filler & not a taste enhancer – as if the destination is more important than the journey. It even had sub optimal salt. A sprinkling helped but not much. ……………….. & it was then that I noticed a hair in the food, which led to the DNA test story mentioned above. I give this pasta a 2/5.

We had no more courage left in us to order desserts – so we immediately called it an evening – a very disturbing one I might say (Crazy foodies get switched off after a bad meal – in case u r wondering what I mean).

Rating of food at this restaurant averages out to 2.1/5.

Needless to say I will never get back here. If I am in Nathupur & am hungry I wud rather go to spoonful of soul.