SICILIA

The place I visited this week is known as Sicilia, and I assumed it is an Italian restaurant. Well, though the food prepared here is Italian, it has a huge backdrop of Mediterranean cuisine! Sicilian food has influences from the Arabs, Greeks and Spanish, and this does make it Mediterranean in nature. The preface at the start of the menu is informative and tells you about the history of Sicilian cuisine and its origins. The menu (since we’ve established it is Mediterranean), has antipasti, homemade pastas, rissottos, shawarma, falafels, babagounush, etc. They also have a well stocked wine menu to make your dining more appealing. For starters, we had the soup of the day which was Minestrone. It happened to be a great choice to start the meal with. It was a generous portion, with ample vegetables and a perfect spiked flavour. We also ordered Funghi Ripeno al Forno (mushroom tossed in garlic) and Roasted Prawns and Cherry Tomato, both tasty and with generous portions. The prawns were especially good — succulent and blended well with the sauce. Basically, if the base sauce is well prepared, its derivatives are bound to be tasty. In this case the tomato concasse (French for ‘crushed’ and a term that can mean ‘sauce’) was so well balanced, that the Mediterranean Pizza we ordered next also turned out to be pleasurable. Here too, the toppings were generous. Usually, we get to see more sauce and less toppings; here it was exactly the opposite. For the main course we had Kingfish Steak with Polenta and Asparagus and once again, I was surprised with the portions! Polenta (yellow corn meal) was well prepared; and the fish steaks had a cheese filling making it more tender. Having been served and attended to very well by the staff, I performed an almost ritual by ordering the alltime favourite Italian dessert — tiramsu. I feel incomplete not trying out the tiramisu at any Italian joint. This time (again!) I was impressed by their portion and the presentation. Every single preparation brought to the table had two or three garnishes. And even more admirable, not even one garnish was repeated. The Tiramisu went down well with a hot shot of the classic cappuchino served on the house with the dessert. Overall, a fabulous place to visit once and being treated not only to Italian cuisine, but Mediterranean as well. This five course dinner for two with generously served portions, great presentation will cost around Rs 1500. Bon Apetite!

MY OVERALL RATING:7/10

SICILIA, City Point, Dhole Patil Road, 020-26168555