Till Saturday
I had never been to Diva! There - my guilty secret is out. O.K , lemme correct
that - one of my guilty secrets is out. Living in Delhi
and admitting that one has never seen the inside of Ritu Dalmia’s original Diva at Hauz Khas Village is like committing social harakiri
. So , of course , one had never done it – admitted, that is . But come
Saturday, we sailed majestically to the cafe –only to be brought up short by
one of life’s inescapable truths, which is, in Diva the door is not opened to
the outside. It has to be pushed to the
inside. But the good thing is that even if one does do it, open to the
outside , one is not looked condescendingly at . Nah ! Ritu’s battery of ‘Servers’ ( ‘waiters’ would be blasphemy) are
God’s own angels . They smile understandingly and unobtrusively open the door to the inside to let you know
what you hadn’t known till then and then seat you at one of the three tables
for four. The other three tables are for two . Cozy is an understatement and I
smile at the adorable tot dangling over the back of the husband’s chair.
In the meantime a basket of bruschetta and the
menu cards have been placed in front of us and we eat the bread and pore over the menu . We look up to
confabulate but by then one of the angels has floated over to us and is smiling
beatifically. “Ready to place your
order”. A devil whispers in my ear –“ that is being super efficient “ but I
push the devil away and , returning the smile- albeit not so beatifically-
simper- “what do you recommend?” The angel is very firm about the penne pasta
with eggplant but here I get slightly distracted. M , by now we know his
name, looks one of us alright but hey he
doesn’t talk like someone from Lajpat Nagar ( don’t ask me why Lajpat ). He
talks like one of them.Maybe a crash course in ‘speaking
English the Italian Way’
is mandatory for everyone at Diva ?
We order a
pizza margherita, a risotto and the penne pasta with eggplant. A very
attractive girl catches my eye and by
the time I finish checking out what she is wearing – beige trousers with a
white shirt that is not tucked in but
belted to emphasize the tiniest of waists- the pizza arrives. It is
rectangilish /ovalish in shape and extremely good. Next to come is the risotto.
Here I pause because I must confess that the risotto left me with mixed
feelings. Firstly - but maybe this one is because of all the episodes of last
season’s Master Chef I had watched ,where the
presentation was as good , if not better than Gordon Ramsay’s scowl – because
it looked exactly like what my dishes look at home when there are no guests but
only family. You know , very comsi comsa. Secondly, it made me promise to
myself that I must do some research on what is a perfect risotto. What I am
trying to say is that it was nice – but that
it wasn’t perfect.
How was
the pasta ? entirely forgettable and , though pride is one of the seven deadly
sins, better pastas have been dished out from my kitchen .
But then
the angel brought me back to earth. How? By placing before us the dessert-the best ever chocolate cake . It came on a wooden
platter with a floating candle on one end
and thin geometric lines of
chocolate sauce at the other. The cake was served with vanilla sauce . Mmmm
We get up
to exit. I open the door. Ooops. Did it again .This time I pushed it open
forgetting that now it had to be pulled in. From the corner of my eye I could
see one of ‘them’ rushing to do it the
right way.
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