Most restaurants strive hard to have you back at least every 15 days. Frankly, a tall order in a city spoilt for choice. But shiro somehow manages this feat with ease

It is indeed a tough job. Perhaps, almost as tricky as the government trying to make Anna Hazare give up his fast. Behind the merry and unruffled faces that greet us graciously and guide us to our reserved seats are men/women who are paddling like hell underwater to make you break bread at their joint once, and again and yet again.



Managers and their wives to whom they take back home the problem, consultants who extract a fat fee, owners and their in-laws, chefs and their humble underlings wreck their brains to come up with something new to keep Delhi's moody janta engaged. That is exactly why someone creatively comes up with a tri-colour cake on Independence Day or a Dhoni or Sehwag cocktail to give you a heady high during the matches.

Scoring that brownie point
Unfortunately, not all schemes lead to scoring a brownie point with the Dilliwala. Many a 'flavour of the month' turns out to be menus with no fizz. Last weekend when I was informed of the 'taste of monsoon' at Shiro, the Pan Asian restro-bar in Chanakyapuri, the skeptic lurking inside me took over.
u00a0With the kind of rains we have had this year, confronting a monsoon menu felt like Lagaan's rain-parched Bhuvan trying to take on his mighty rulers. But I entered the dragon's liar and I must say I came out unscathed and even smiling.



Walking down those stairs makes you feel you are in a bad Chinese martial art movie. But once you stepu00a0 inside the 6,500 square feet restro-bar, you feel you have been transported to a surreal Kurosawa dream for the first few crucial fleeting seconds, until your eyeballs get used to it all. If a restro-bar can do that, I think the designer is worth his salt.