A tiny little restrobar tucked away in mg road, the Sundowner, is definitely worth a visit

IT seems a nice enough prospect. To drive out slightly away from the town to a little stand-alone hotel that has only two floors of rooms with a nice enough bar and restaurant. Vista, a sweet yellow hotel right on the bend where traffic from Delhi hits MG road, is just that kind of place. And it manages to tap its potentialu00a0-- almost.


A recipe for quiet evenings

Swinging both ways
Fork it, the neatly done restaurant (except for a television screen, the volume level of which is in the hands of unoccupied waiters) serves Chinese and Continental cuisine. Two distinctive tastes and temperatures but somehow the staff there does not seem to understand that. So they will suggest a cold Caesar salad with hot soup. Skipping the latter was a bad idea because the iceberg lettuce in the salad was yellow and bitter and the server insisted on serving bits, untidily at that.

Mind the mains
But the salt and pepper prawn made up for the unhappy start, as did the butter garlic prawns, though there was not much difference in taste of the two. The Chinese starters are usual fare; the drums of heaven were passable. But main course Chinese is more interesting than the starters. Though the steamed chicken with broccoli was salty, it displayed potential.

It was a pleasure to see egg fried rice on the menu as most restaurants insist on chicken fried rice on the menu, which if you have a chicken (or lamb) gravy is just not necessary. But instead of going for the usual fried rice with gravy, choose the steamed noodles with chicken instead. The minced chicken in sauce layered on hot noodles is rather good. On the other hand, the grilled chicken with mushroom sauce from the Continental menu was just about passable, quite like the service at Vista.

But if you feel like driving out of town on a lazy day, Vista is not a wrong direction to head in.u00a0

Sundowner Bar
Food: Good
Service: Attentive
Ambience: Good
At: Hotel Vista, 162, MG Roadu00a0
Timings: 9 PM TO 1 AM
Ring: 011-46114444
MEAL FOR TWO: Rs 1200 onwards