Bon Appetit - Review

I am fond of hanging out in cafes and restaurants but none of the places I visit in Kolkata satisfy my soul. There are places like Flury's, KFC and MCDonalsds'. But they are there. They have been. I always felt something is missing in them. Either they are too open and loud or too conservative to make people cozy, at home types. In Kolkata there is none like Candies', one of my favourites! Nothing beats it. Not even Oly Pub (which recently has got little conservative, paisa do, peeyo, bhaago). I used to paint this idea, a dream of opening a cafe cum resto. Homely, cozy, where you can just hang over a coffee or something all by yourself, read on and no one to bother you. I won't say I found one but few days back I found one, which made me so cheerful, at home, laid back that I felt like sitting back and relating to my dreams of opening one during my college days.






I used to pass by this place, I have many times. I always ignored it. I used to think it's just a coffee parlour for young couples to hang out. However when this friend of mine took me there, I was blown off at first shot. Bon Appetit, a small cafe made out of the front extended portion of a bunglow type house in Salt Lake's AD Block. You get food at reasonable rate and you can lay back and kill your time. As you enter you find plastic chairs and tables kept. Nothing extraordinary decoration has been done. You have both self-service and ask the waiter options. There are books and magazines lying for you to pick up and read. A music system, the one's we don't use it anymore has been put up and the radio has been kept on. Normal ceiling fans and table fans put up across the corners with a hut-type ceiling made out of bamboo structures. There is an aquarium, transparent one, whose other side is the garage of the bunglow. 






Everything that has been used here has been taken up from the house. From the plates to water bottles. Just like home. The food is good. Some food combinations are great. You get Baked Beans on Toast which very few cafes offer. There are these speacial paranthas for the day. Like for Tuesday, you only get Aloo Aanchar Parantha. And Cheese Parantha is always available. The chocolate avalanche is huge! Three can't finish off! All in all, it's like your living room combined with your kitchen. The place is not big. At a time maximum thirty five people can accomodate.






The main point of this place the founder's idea of turning the empty front place of the house into a cafe for everyone. It's not that only young folks visit. I saw people around 50 years hanging out there!






The cafe has been decorated to match the sophisticated, posh nature of the area surrounding it, to the nature of the Salt Lake city folks. With City Centre mall so near, still Bon Appetit is having full house even at 3 o'clock in the noon. I felt if my house would had been across the street, I would had come frequently to have coffee or a snack and lay back and read over or scribe down something. 






Well the negatives, it's a small place and even for 35 people there is only 3 folks attending the services. And about the decorations, well you can put couches at the corner and increase the library.






My teen dream of opening a cafe was brought back again by this small cafe. I guess am gonna take my friends coming over from different cities at least once, not just for mere sight-seeing or enjoy the food but at least to make them wonder over how creativity works!



1 comment:

ani_aset said...

nicely done review with pictures.

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