Cafe Pascucci, MG Road: Restaurant Review

Where is it: Bang on MG road a little before Kaveri Emporium and the Brigade road signal

What kind of food: Italian pastas, bruschettas, parmigiana, salads and desserts... and yes they do offer coffee if that is your poison

Pricing: Moderate, Meal for two Rs 350



Ambiance & atmosphere: Cafe Pascucci is one of those conundrums - its right on MG Road in full view of anyone who has ever traveled to the Mecca of Bangalore coolest wannabes... ahem... I mean coolest and hippest crowd, Brigade Road. Strangely though surprisingly few people have stopped by at this joint seemingly drawn to the CCDs, KFCs and now Matteos that dot Brigadeland.

The cafe has comfortable couches and chairs done up in pristine white that give it a distinctive look compared to the popular cafe chains. Red, white and black are the thematic shades of choice, overall the decor and furniture lean towards stylish minimalism. The seating is well-spaced out and the area is well lit, so no crammed-in feelings of claustrophobia unlike some other similar establishments. The large floor-to-ceiling sound-proof glass entrance wall/door means you can idle away your time gazing at the crowds pass you by and still be spared the incessant noise and dust.


What we ordered: The menu has decently shot pictures of most of the fare on offer which helps. We went for a regular cappuccino, a veg pasta and baked chicken parmigiana. The menu has a sizable number of options to choose from ranging from salads, pastas, risotto, the compulsory assortment of coffees that has apparently become the norm, piadina (a kind of traditional Italian bread), lasagnes, sandwiches and of course pizzas.


The pasta was the first to arrive. Pascucci has a "create your own pasta" option where you basically choose what exactly you want to add in to your basic pasta mix. The pasta was cooked well, not over-cooked and soggy nor was it underdone and hard. The sauce was well flavoured and did not taste like they had dumped a bottle of "Ragu" or "Prego" into a bowl of pasta. The sun-dried tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables were fresh and had the right amount of crunch to them. The garlic bread was nothing special but the pasta itself importantly was very good.


Our second dish was the baked chicken parmigiana. Parmigiana consists of chicken slices layered with cheese and flavoured with marinara red sauce. The chicken breast slices should ideally be shallow fried after being dipped in egg and bread crumbs. However the Pascucci version seemed to has skipped the bread crumb step which took away from the texture of the dish. The chicken did however taste okay and was cooked well. It could have also been plated up in a more visually pleasing manner. I'd give this dish an overall average rating. They do have a range of quite nice desserts which we had sampled in the past however we decided to skip them on this particular visit.

Rating:



Excellent for pastas & spagetti. Good for desserts. The other items are hit and miss.