Shirin Mehrotra visited the newly reopened Cafe Sundance and enjoyed the completely revamped menu.
When the iconic Sundance Cafe shut down 2 years ago it broke a lot of hearts. It pulled the shutter down on memories of many first dates, birthday treats, that first steak and many burgers gobbled over lots of gossip and laughter. A couple of restaurants opened in its place but couldn’t bring back the same magic. Last month Cafe Sundance reopened and gave many ex-patrons lots of reasons to smile. After reading about it on twitter and going through a couple of reviews I decided to check it out myself. But the only hiccup was that I hadn’t been to the original one and didn’t have anything to compare the new one with. Help came via Twitter in form of Prachi Joshi of Deliciously Directionless, a banker turned blogger who was a regular at the cafe in her college days.
We met for lunch and as soon as we entered Prachi told me that the look of the cafe has
completely changed. The old Sundance didn’t have posh looking furniture and the mezzanine floor used to be so cramped up that it was almost difficult to sit there. Well, now the restaurant looks a lot more sophisticated. The wall behind the reception is made into a showcase and there are models of antique cars, typewriters etc, placed in every shelf. One shelf also stacks some old Archie comics. We went on the mezzanine floor and grabbed a table. By the way, there’s a small bar in the corner too.
The menu which looks like a newspaper has been completely revamped. Prachi was a little disheartened to see the famous turtle burgers (burgers with bread shaped like a turtle) missing. The current menu is a mix of American and European dishes. We ordered 2 pints of beer, perfect for a hot afternoon and Mushroom Puffs (Rs 280). The puffs were not very oily, soft and stuffed with mushrooms and goat cheese. While we liked the light bites both of us found the portion to be small. While we were downing our beers the Chef served us two small cups of Mushroom Cappuccino – a very light mushroom soup served in a coffee cup with a little froth on the top.
For the mains we decided to (obviously) stick to the burgers. Prachi ordered a beef tenderloin burger (Rs 385) and I opted
for a fish and chips one (Rs 385). The cafe has also put up a little challenge for those with big appetites; it serves a 20 OZ beef tenderloin burger stuffed with bacon, eggs, cheese and vegetables (Rs 900). If you manage to finish it all by yourself in 30 minutes it’s free. The burgers are served on a wooden platter with a portion of fries and salad on the side. The fries came in a French fry holder or a deep fryer. The fish burger had a fat, crispy and juicy piece of fish coated with a mayonnaise sauce. We weren’t saying a word about the portions this time. Any plans of ordering more food slowly wiped out with every bite of our burgers, fries and salads.
Given all the munching we were up to, we struggled a little but somehow managed to secure a small corner for dessert. After all we cannot betray our sweet tooth. We ordered the only dessert available on the menu, blueberry cheesecake which was not too creamy, mildly sweet and without a heavy dose of blueberry topping.
While the new Sundance Cafe has not retained anything except the name the food is still great and worth a try. All those with those memories that we spoke about earlier can still go back and have the ‘remember that one time at Sundance…’ conversation for sure.
Must try – Beef tenderloin burger, mushroom cappuccino
Meal for two – Rs 1000+taxes (without alcohol)
