Via Milano

Mar 03, 2008

I like it!

A revisit to Via Milano for lunch confirmed most of my previous experiences – heavenly Italian cuisine in cool ambiance. The contemporary furniture with its clean lines and red and white colours, retro black and white hanging lamps, chic white window shades gives the restaurant a neat look without taking away any of the warmth. The white leather sofa by the picture windows which overlook Koramangala’s traffic-filled roads looked very inviting and was the perfect place for a leisurely afternoon tete-a-tete.

There were quite a few kids in the restaurant that day, since it was a Saturday, including my own – but it was still not overly noisy or boisterous. Two Americans discussed business over beers in one corner, a smartly dressed lady worked on her laptop in the bar area and there were two other families and a group of women. I am going to change my earlier recommendation of classifying Via Milano as romantic and say that it is perfect for business lunches and get-togethers with family and friends.

Via Milano has some nice imported wines by the bottle. The choices for wines by the glass are however pretty sad (two to be precise) and when we asked for the zinfandel we were told it was replaced by two other choices – one of which was a Grover’s red wine. I did not like it.

The delicious bread basket with the fresh plain and olive breads and breadsticks along with the six dips and sides appeared – the diced tomatoes, ground basil and garlic, creamy potato mayonnaise and the virgin olive oil, delicious chilli olive oil and balsamic vinegar. My daughter munched on these continuously and had a whale of a time making her own bruschetta. There are only two soup options available – both non-vegetarian – we tried the chicken and mushroom soup with gnocchi. Gnochhi is a small pancake usually made with potatoes (in this case it was) and has a melt-in-the-mouth quality like good cheese. The soup was very good although a bit too filling for one.

The rocket salad which came with pears and lettuce and very strangely a sesame-flavoured, asian-influenced (?) dressing was good though not everyone in our group agreed with me. The mozzarella and zuchinni balls which were deep fried were awesome. The margarita pizza with tomato, basil and mozzarella was good so was the penne pasta which had my daughter licking her fingers. Basic stuff but very well made. I had the spinach and ricotta annellini – it was ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta cheese was delicious. The most interesting looking item which we ordered was the potato pancake with vegetables. Thin-cut potatoes were fried to form a crispy pancake that was piled with multi-coloured slivers and twists of vegetables including carrots, red and yellow capsicums and zucchini. Very, very good!

Service was good and prompt. A meal for two, including alcohol is approximately Rs.1000.

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