|  When I met young Sohrab Sitaram, partner of Tabula Rasa for a food tasting I was pleasantly surprised. The restaurant was almost full and the dishes served were lick smacking delicious. Most of them were finger foods. I told him the whole concept reminded me of Tapas in Spain . 'We serve mainly tapas here. I had been to Spain for vacation and was impressed by tapas style of food serving and wanted to introduce it in India ,' smiled Sohrab.
The restaurant qualifies as a Tapas Bar and hence the rating T. The food quality was from Good (salad) to Terrific. Majority would rate the food dished out by chef Kushal Pal (KP) as Terrific, deserving the T rating.
The ambience of the place is conducive for mingling and relaxing and is terrific. Obviously, the music is not Beethoven or Beetles but full of young and heavy duty sounds. Some members would have found it too loud. But everyone conceded that for this kind of a bar, the ambience deserved a T(Terrific). Commented Dipankar Sanyal , a member from Gurgaon, ' The place by itself was good. They have created a nice ambience, music was meant for younger folks - I believe we are out of place there'.
Obviously, Sohrab and his partner Rohan Gupta have hit the right notes from what one saw this evening. The Terrace with the beautiful bar setting was very inviting and full of clients very early in the evening; the 30-odd members of the Delhi Wine Club were comfortably served the Grapus Chardonnay and Merlot with Sauvignon Semillon from Cumulus , Australia . Both the whites were crisp, fresh and energizing as the summer seemed to be setting in while were standing around. Grapus Merlot was lean and acidic and barely passed muster as quaffable wine.
 The music inside, where we shifted for dinner was understandably very loud and presumably in tune with the young clientele. But the dB level clearly overpowered even my usual 3-digit dB level at the wine presentation. Our introduction of wines disappeared into thin air.
For service rating, I draw upon my years in IIT Delhi where we got grades during exams and not marks. If you got less than 40% in a subject, you got an R in it; Re-appear. This implied you had to appear in the exam again after a couple of months, studying the subject hard. If you flunked, you had to repeat the whole year in all subjects.
I am afraid the members' jury awarded a unanimous R with a wide margin.
Comments a regular member Arun Batra, 'From a wine point of view, apart from the interaction we were able to have with you on the terrace, the music level was far too high inside to enable you to make any periodic hearable comments as is the custom to guide us on the wines being drunk -neither were the servers of any help nor was there a wine list on the table for reference.'
Says Dr. Subir Chaklader, 'if I may say so, after attending hundreds of dinners at James Beard Foundation, Julia Childs Foundation in New York including Wine Institute, and French Culinary Institute of New York I have some understanding as to how a Wine Dinner should be conducted.a restaurant which knows better how to handle a group as large as ours, knows the details when, and how things have to be managed, dispensed, and served especially when they have a guidance from you.'
Added Dipankar,' the food was insufficient. They could not figure out a table of 8 cannot
share 6 small pieces of bread, one plate of salad and one plate of whatever
servings came our way. Serving pieces of dessert without individual plate was another
experience. They are just not equipped to serve. they need serious training.' List goes on ..
 In the defence of the restaurant I should comment that in a Tapas bar you would pick up from a common plate, onto your own small plate. Most Spanish bars have small, elegant Tapas serving plates. But the insufficient food and lack of co-ordination between the serving staff was the key factor that resulted in 'tragedy of errors'
A regular and founder member Ravi Sachdev summed up the experience of the whole evening by his comments, 'it is a terrific place with lovely ambience and fabulous food. I loved the wines too. Service lacked professionalism but perhaps they were short of waiters or too many people landed unexpectedly on a Wednesday. I would not want to come for a quite dinner but I will definitely come back for an evening of fun with friends.'
I think the place has become too popular and too successful too soon for which Sohrab and Rohan need to be complimented. That, people were standing in line to enter when many were threatening to leave, never to return again augurs well for the business, but in the short term. Service may not always be a criterion for selecting a restaurant or a bar (even Michelin rates a restaurant for its food quality but not service) but poor service can eventually blemish the image of any restaurant.
Most world class chefs I have come across in Europe and the US , including Michelin 3-star chefs emphasize that they give as much weightage to service as food quality and presentation. Star chef Heston Blumenthal, owner of The Fat Duck Restaurant where the 5-figure meal can be enchanting, tells me,' We try to gauge the mood of the clients to determine which food to suggest' .
Says Chef Jose Louis Estevan of Lagrima Negras Restaurant at Hotel Puerta America , in Madrid , 'We have a Maitre d' between the chef and also the sommelier, whose job it is to ensure excellent service. He has to have the sixth sense. He must sense the sensation of the client and guess what he wants.' Of course, that is a fine dining 65-cover restaurant which is full every night and needs reservation
Tabula Rasa is a great place to enjoy Tapas and let your spirits run high in a very congenial atmosphere, but I would avoid it for casual fine dining and for the time being, even dining. When the restaurant Re-appears with passable service grade, it will become glorious for a great evening out for dinners too. |
