Shweta Bagla is a marketing officer at IME Ltd. She loves to socialise with friends and family and she believes food is a nice way to socialise

Amongst the fancy restaurants in Lazimpat, Rato Mato Organic BBQ and Bistro is a recent entrant. This place caught my fancy as I believed it was located in Jhamsikhel. I was wondering if it was a branch of the same place or just a namesake. It turned out that the place had relocated itself post-earthquake.

Despite unappealing exteriors of the building, I decided to go there for lunch with my colleagues. The building looked untidy and ragged from the outside and the entrance was stinky. It has no parking space even for bikes. The metal staircase was scary and steep. Its interior was not pleasing either. An ordinary and unmanaged open kitchen was right at the end of the staircase while the bar was in one corner.

The owners could have placed the bar at the entrance rather than the kitchen as open kitchens are suitable for places with good interior. The tables were small and rather uncomfortable for four people with little space to walk between tables. Disappointment surfaced in me as I was expecting an exquisite and warm place but this place was far from one.

We were now banking on the food to make our visit worth while. We ordered mojito, and coffee. Mojito was average, but the coffee had too much milk and was sprinkled with cocoa powder.

The menu, as expected, was a toned down version of what they had to offer. Since there was no electricity, many things mentioned in this smaller version of the menu were also not available.

We settled down by ordering Veg and Chicken Spring rolls, Veg Fried Rice, Pork Chilly, and Veg and Chicken American Chopsuey. Our orders arrived within a few minutes, which was a respite — we could at least eat together.

But the food was served on stained plates and the presentation was below average. And we could see the finger prints too on those plates.

After all the disappointment we were not expecting much from the food. Thankfully the food was okay. The Pork Chilly was amazingly well-balanced and was the star of the entire meal. The Chopsuey had enough sauce and the noodles were perfectly fried.

But the Spring Rolls was a failure, it came without any dips. We asked them for hot sauce and they served us with a dip

which was really good. The spiciness and punch was amazing and the Spring Rolls tasted heavenly with this sauce. However, we could smell stale oil, used several times in every meal they served.

I hope the restaurant reviews its overall service experience and improvise not only to live up to the name it had made at Jhamsikhel but also to provide tough competition to the other eateries at Lazimpat.

RATINGS RATO MATO

Ambience: 1

Food Quality: 3.5

Presentation: 1

Hygiene: 2

Value For Money: 3

Overall Satisfaction Value: 2