Cafe Tesu
Address:Essex Farms, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi
Meal for two: 800 plus taxes
As soon as you enter Essex Farms on Aurobindo Marg a turquoise building, Café Tesu pops up to your left. It is a trendy and welcoming spot that marries the wonderful worlds of food, coffee, art and imagination. The place offers an artisanal blend of fine food and fervour. Vibrant, spacious and well lit with ample daylight; you can enjoy a meal as pleasant as the Tesu flower, in the bright setting. The wooden seating arrangements, the bright flamingo brings a funk to the place.
With merriment in the air and the city soaked in irrepressible spirit, we started out by savouring Café Tesu’s special menu that commemorates this festive spirit.
The café offers an eclectic food menu; there’s everything from pizza, pasta to sushi and dim sums with English egg benedicts along with fish and chips thrown in between. This place is an ideal spot for enjoying a relaxed breakfast. If you’re looking for a light and healthy start, you can also pick fresh fruit parfaits, cereals and fruity granola pancakes that are served with yogurt. For a more hearty start, dig into all-star french toast made with custard batter or banoffee waffles with warm brûléed bananas and rich cinnamon butter. The menu also comprises of an extravagant egg selection that includes fluffy egg white omelets, spicy sausage and cheese omelets and classic scrambled eggs with chives.
Next I chose the Whiskey Barrel coffee which was a rare barrel-aged and naturally flavoured coffee. Another option was Ivory Coast Mocha coffee. The whiskey flavour was strong but not overpowering, while the mocha beautifully complemented the coffee in the other.
Moving on we ordered freshly baked artichoke and mushroom, which was nicely baked and crispy. This was followed by a mushroom cappuccino, a soup which was served like coffee in a mug. Peppered with almond flakes, this was lusciously warm, smooth and soothing, perfect for Delhi winters. The next thing they served us was double cooked al funghi—tiny fried balls of mushrooms with cheddar and parmesan cheese, served along with chipotle mayo. It was scrumptious and went well with mayo.
The dim sums were the highlight of the evening, especially the fiery chilli garlic vegetable dumplings and the crispy onion relish dim sum. As the bamboo basket cover was lifted, hot steam escaped, signalling my taste buds to get ready for a subtle blast of flavours. Next, on our platter was sushi; Cafe Tesu serves them in pieces of four, eight or twelve. I ordered the asparagus tempura and spicy avocado. Though the plating was impressive, the spicy avocado sushi too was done right and gets thumbs up. For the first-time visitors, they serve four kinds of sushi in vegetarian and non-vegetarian options, so if you can’t decide, I suggest you devour them all.
Finally, we ended our meal with a high dose of sugar and had bread and butter pudding, an apple and cinnamon crumble and mini blueberry muffin, perfect for those short on time and looking for a quick grab and go.