Sweet and sour

Don’t let the name fool you, Cafe 76 is a full fledged restaurant with a long menu and plenty of main courses.

A stone’s throw from Zamzama, but without the crazy traffic and cramped one-way streets, sits Cafe 76, nestled in an upscale residential area which has sadly decided to rent out space for commercial use, thus ending an era.

Surely it is now just a matter of time till the bustle of commercial Zamzama relocates itself to one of Karachi’s oldest suburbs and commercialism wipes out the last traces of a genteel old city. The garden outside makes for a pleasant view and the restaurant is cosy but cannot easily accommodate more than four people on one table except inside a room all the way inside, which is far from convenient.

Don’t let the name fool you, it is not a cafe but a fully fledged restaurant with a long menu and plenty of main courses.

For starters we sampled the chilli garlic shrimps served in a crispy tulip —which was far from crispy but the shrimps at least were grilled to perfection, neither hard nor slimy. The accompanying sauce, which was generously supplied, was the right amount of spicy and tangy. Their baked potato, oddly their most popular dish, is worth a try, while their mozzarella sticks are best avoided and barely qualify as either mozzarella or sticks.

Having been wowed by the shrimps, feeling adventurous and confident, I decided to take a risk and order the Chef’s Special Steak, without asking what the sauce consisted of.  While I usually don’t care for sweetness with my entrees, this steak hinted at sweetness without over-pronouncing it, containing balsamic vinegar and soya sauce. The mint lemonade was fresh and more of a slush than a drink, very cold and very refreshing and better than the version of this served at an established Zamzama eatery.

The service is a little slow but to make up for this the waiters are friendly and polite. The ambience is conducive to intimate dinners; go with a small group of friends or your significant other. Because it’s divided into three small sections it tends to get very loud if you go during peak hours but if you are lucky enough to get the atrium right inside and close the doors you can have your own private dinner with a mini fountain to add to the serenity. The food is a mixed bag of good, bad and so-so, and with restaurants in Karachi it is almost impossible to predict whether standards will rise or plummet. Currently, it’s most certainly worth a visit.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2010.