JOIN USWhat would you like to have on your plate on cool Sunday morning of October – a tortoise, an alligator, a crab or a spider?
If you think that the last option is inedible, you are right and mercifully, it is just the shape of this insect and the rest of the aforementioned creatures that is created with dough and baked at Raro Bakery in South Delhi’s Defence Colony market.
A sip from a hot cup of Cappuccino and the tastebuds warm up to the aroma of crumbly brownies, soft pastries and nutty biscotti that fill the place. If you are lucky to get a seat, you can sit and enjoy these sinful indulgences in chocolate, caramel and red velvet flavours.
Nothing ushers in winter more deliciously than a warm chocolate brownie. The sight would enchant any sweet lover but a dig into the dessert and the imaginative bubble bursts within no time. Though baked with a good texture, the brownie sticks in the mouth and tastes like a choco lava cake. Well, some might like their brownie that way, but for Metrolife it is a straight loss of one brownie point.
The urge to nibble on biscotti (not as thin as it could be) too dies after just one bite and one reaches out to sweetened nuts to enjoy the perfectly brewed coffee. While the cashews are too sweet the bakery confuses tastebuds by using salted almonds to coat them with sugar!
The excessive sweetness makes it difficult to decide on what is prepared well. Help comes from the sandwiches listed on their menu. A Sundried Tomato & Feta Cheese Sandwich in Focaccia brings the desired change. Excessive cheese makes the bread soggy from inside and the fillings aren’t too crisp. Also, the bread seems over-grilled on the outside, thus losing its original taste. There is no distinct taste of the sundried tomatoes, if present.
On the contrary, the Chicken Mexicana Sandwich is much better. With a mild taste of chicken coated with cheese, it is balanced quite well inside the whole wheat bread. Apart from the unreasonable greasing of oil or butter on top of the sandwich, the rest is worth trying at any time of the day.
Since there is no escaping from the confectionery when in a bakery, Metrolife tries out Raro Bakery’s most popular products – Red Velvet Cup Cake and Classic Opera (pastry). The cheese on top of the former turns out to be essential for the base is too dry. The latter shows the hard work that goes into preparing any pastry. This one with the coffee flavour though tastes like an ‘Indianised-version’ of a French dessert.
While exiting the bakery one eyes the delicious display outside and wonders if being ‘fancy’ is more important than being ‘flavorous’?