Shilpa Modi is a Digital Marketing Associate at JWT Thompson Nepal. She surfs the Internet not only to know current market trends, but also for food recipes

Roaming around the busy streets of Thamel, we came across Green Organic Cafe. Being a vegetarian, we thought it would be fun to explore the place. The moment we entered the building, we saw a sign that read ‘Fresh Bean Coffee’ — our love for coffee drew us inside. The restaurant with peaceful ambience was decorated with hay and bamboo.

The balcony area looked pretty beautiful but it was packed with customers. So, we sat inside where we could feel the warmth of sun rays coming through the window.

The waiter handed over the menu to us with a smile. We couldn’t resist our thought of having the coffee. Immediately we ordered Fresh Beans Coffee. But it was no surprise to hear that they served only normal coffee due to load shedding.

For starters we ordered Tomato Basil Soup — the taste was satisfying except for the thick and hard bread served with the soup.

As most restaurants take a lot of time in preparing food, we ordered our snacks along with the soup. Our first order was Paneer Chilli, and Tagliatelle Panna e Funghi — flat pasta sheets with mushroom and fresh cream.

While having our soup, we enjoyed the restaurant’s ambience, and so far things looked fine. To our surprise the snacks came within 10 minutes but the presentation disappointed us. And the food was not up to the mark. The paneer in Paneer Chilli was hard to chew. The pasta looked yummy but the flavours seemed to be missing. Then we ordered a Pizza, but the waiter replied typically, “Pizza hudaina ma’am.” (Pizza won’t be served ma’am.)

We were disappointed and the thought of eating anything else just fizzled out.

As the food was not delicious, we wanted to go for the dessert. We asked for ‘Dessert of the Day’ from their menu, but they were not serving it at that moment.

We then chose to try desserts with seasonal fruits — but before we could order it, the waiter told us that they just had apple and banana as fruits. He suggested us to have ‘Cake of the day’ — a rice pudding cake, which I didn’t feel like eating.

Before leaving, we had a pot of coffee which tasted good. We paid the bill and earned some points on our first visit. They told us that on visiting the restaurant thrice we could eat one item for free. Even this didn’t excite me much, I might not visit the place again any time soon.

GREEN ORGANIC CAFERATINGS

Ambience: 6

Food quality/

presentation: 4

Quality of service: 5

Hygiene: 6

Value for money: 4

Overall satisfaction

value: 5.5