Dubai Food Review: Farzi Café, City Walk
#DubaiGetsFarzified as Zorawar Kalra brings Farzi Café all the way from its home base, India, to the Middle East culinary food scene - Dubai.
Farzi Café (translated to as "illusion" in Persian and "fake" in Indian), offers more than just a taste of the authentic Indian cuisine. It is also known for sprinkling its food with worldwide ingredients here and there, and blowing your mind with its gastronomic illusion.
Ambiance
(c) mahiblog.com
As we walked further down City Walk (Phase II), you will immediately see Farzi Café lit up so beautifully with its golden shimmer radiating all throughout. From the outside, you will catch a glimpse of its classy and vibrant decor making it feel like you're just about to walk in a 5-star fine dining restaurant.
Inside Farzi Café were eye-catching light fixtures, interesting inverted hanging pots, and wonderfully coordinated dining setup. This is the perfect fusion of Arabic and Indian put together into decors.
Service
One of the things that fascinate me most about Dubai is its luxurious lifestyle. But sometimes, because of this, service gets downplayed by even the biggest names in the industry. Gladly, Farzi Café raised the bars even higher.
From the moment we walked by and asked if we could check the menu, we already received such an amazing service. This convinced us even more to sit down and try Farzi Café for ourselves.
We were attended by not just one, but by three servers and was approached by the manager twice introducing and welcoming us to Farzi Café. Everyone was very well-trained. They helped us with the menu and described every dish and drink served to us; they were polite, friendly and know their menu offerings very well.
Food
(c) Sarah Zonio, 2016
From a fun and quirky menu design, we are absolutely thrilled to find out what Farzi Café has in store for us.
Literally translated from French as "entertainments of the mouth", the amuse-bouches that came in a couple of minutes after our order was placed, served its rightful purpose by perfectly teasing our palates. All it takes is one shot of these charming beauties to sweep you right off to the delightful dishes that are yet to come.
Very posh, very delicate-looking, and definitely very tasty. Our Tomato Essence was a classic tomato soup with buffalo mozzarella and sprinkled with basil love.
Heading towards the non-vegetarian starters, we took a little leap by ordering the Braised Lamb Chops. Serving lamb can take a lot of skill to be done right. But this impressed us with no sweat because slicing through, the lamb was surprisingly so tender! Later, we found out that it was braised for 24 hours and then seasoned with not sesame seeds, but amaranth seeds - which are also known as micro popcorn. Aside from that, they also use galangal (a typical Thai seasoning) to remove any aftertaste or bad smell. Fantastic!
(c) Sarah Zonio, 2016
Served on an impressive miniature pick-up truck was our Tiffin Box Potato Burger stuffed with herbed potato patty, sliced cottage cheese, and tomatoes and mint chutney. Although it falls under the vegetarian category, we were beyond happy that it exceeded our expectations for a vegetarian slider. At the same time, kind of bummed because even if it came in as a twin set, we still felt as if we needed (and wanted) more. Or perhaps it was just our greediness kicking it. (Ugh, just thinking of it makes my mouth water)
Up next, we had the Cayenne Spiked Prawns. It was mildly spiced perfectly balancing the zesty lemon fried rice.
(c) Sarah Zonio, 2016
We took one more leap of faith with Farzi Café's Mutton Pepper Fry and again, it did not disappoint. It was bursting with flavour but at the same time, careful that nothing else takes the spotlight away from the gorgeous looking, juicy mutton. High praises on this one!
Our last one from the mains was the legendary and ever-famous Chicken Tikka Masala. It is classified as a traditional classic with tender chicken morsels in San Marzano curry. This left us speechless! The curry had a sharp and savoury taste to it, screaming Indian food. Served with a cornish cruncher naan, the bread was delightfully so soft and well fit for the curry. Rolling in the curry and chicken in like a wrap makes it all even better. Trust us when we say, we literally polished clean this dish. It was that good!
(c) Sarah Zonio, 2016
Finally, "never leave any restaurant without sampling their dessert" is what we live by. So we did. The Risotto Phirni Oxide was so fragile that it was demonstrated and introduced to us by Chef Ismail, the person behind this outstanding molecular gastronomic dessert magic (ok, I think I went overboard with the adjectives there. Can't help it!)
Consisting of risotto, milk cream, crackers, pistachio, and a mousse that was frozen for over 210 degrees Celsius of liquid nitrogen is already impressive. How much more with its explosive flavours - sweet, crunchy, melting, milky - absolutely breathtaking!
Conclusion
Dining at Farzi Café was indeed more than just about its food. It was an experience - a Michelin star-worthy experience. I'm not even exaggerating there! With bursting flavours, a unique concept, and finally a Dubai restaurant that doesn't make your wallet cry, Farzi Café bought us to a whole new culinary dimension. It was a magical and an unbelievable adventure. So if ever you pass by City Walk (Phase II) next time, please, please do not hesitate to dine in at Farzi. Or better, after reading this, call them and reserve a table for you and your friends pronto! Trust me, they fill up in a blink of an eye.
Save the date and reserve a table at Farzi Café: 052 689 2012/ 04 394 2556
Location: City Walk (Phase II), Al Safe & Al Wasl Rd. Intersection
Hours: 12 NN - 3:45 PM; 6:35 PM - 10:45 PM
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All views are my own and all photographs are © Passport Bites, unless otherwise stated.
Note from the author: This was originally posted on passportbites.wordpress.com, dated May 14, 2016
