Went back to Kaffeehaus today for lunch, which is a Swiss Cafe that opened about a month ago here in Trivandrum… This is the visit after my last post about the place and I found the place to be decorated in the Halloween theme as they have a Halloween fest going on this week…
This time, I chose the Nudelsalat Mit Hühnchen which is a Pasta salad with Chicken… Then for mains decided to try the Raclette, which is a swiss speciality dish with molten cheese and a set of toppings and then for dessert, took whats called Jungfrau which is basically Oatmeal Cookie served with Ice-cream… I also took a glass of their Cold Coffee to drink with all this… 🙂
So, the first course was the Nudelsalat Mit Hühnchen… Essentially this is a pasta salad consisting of Farfale pasta along with fresh veggies and grilled Chicken served on lettuce and dressed with house dressing of your choice… The choice of dressing included Mayo, Vinaigrette and Yogurt… Considering health quotients, I went for Yogurt this time… The salad was therefore tossed in some Yogurt and topped with some chopped Parsley and included, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Carrots, Bell Peppers, Mushrooms, Pumpkin Seeds (I guess as per the Halloween theme going on), diced Grilled Chicken and some Croutons in it… The salad was indeed seasoned with some salt and pepper… 🙂
It was indeed a refreshing salad, although to be completely frank, the presence of the Yogurt really made me feel like its a fancy Raita 😀 😛 The Veggies were all clearly freshly cut and clean… The Pasta was cooked perfectly to al dente and the Pumpkin Seeds gave it the essential crunch/nuttiness to the whole salad… Only complaint however is that I found the croutons to be hard to chew and the yogurt was slightly more sour than what I would prefer… Other than that, it was a nice refreshing salad to have as a starter…
Once I was done with the salad, they brought in the Raclette… Its essentially dish thats prepared on the table and so, they first brought in and set up the electric Raclette Stove (what you see at the back in the first pic below)… Then they brought in the Cheese slices along with all the toppings and seasoning options and also some toasted bread to go with it… The owner informed me that normally they don’t serve the bread but here due to popular demand, they started including the bread as well…
So, the Cheese traditionally used for Raclette is actually known as the Raclette Cheese which is a Swiss cheese made of cow’s milk that they make it as a wheel… Then what they usually do is that they cut that wheel in half and then start heating the cut side and melt the cheese little by little and then scrape the molten cheese all over roasted potatoes and then eat it with pickles as condiment… Here however, as the owner informed me, due to popular demand, they use Cheddar cheese (a bit disappointed as I was hoping to try the Raclette cheese)…
The toppings given include Sun-dried Tomatoes, pickled Jalapenos, pickled Olives and Gherkins along with pieces of cooked Potatoes… Once again, as the owner informed me, due to popular demand, they included some raw onions and tomatoes as well… While placing the order, the waiter informed me that I get to pick optional additional toppings that include Chicken and Bacon… I went for the Chicken option… For seasoning, they gave me some Salt, Ground Pepper and powdered Smoked Paprika…
So, as can be seen, the way they serve this dish is in a DIY format (the staff is as always very eager to help you out)… But being completely new to this and being the DIY model, I asked for help and the owner showed me how to do one and even though she was willing to help further, I did the rest myself… So, essentially you need to melt the cheese using the stove… You can either put in the small trays, just the cheese and melt it or you can put in the toppings as well and get them toasted while the cheese melts… Once that melts, you can scrape it out using a spatula thats given and eat it as it is or with the toasted bread as shown in one of the pics above…
So, the bread was amazing as it was toasted crisp in butter and flavoured with a bit of garlic… The Cheese even though the owner mentioned to be Cheddar, to me, it didn’t taste like any of the Cheddar cheese that I have ever had… To be frank, I thought it might actually be the Raclette Cheese… This is because, all the cheddar that I have had had a sour component to its taste… That was completely missing in this and it almost tasted like the processed Mozzarella, that we get in most pizza chains but not exactly it… Anyways, the pickled toppings worked great with the cheese and the bread and addition of the Chicken gave another dimension to it as well… The chicken is the same grilled chicken that was served in the salad, but diced to smaller pieces… However, even though the owner mentioned that the raw onions and tomatoes were added as per popular demand, I didn’t like it in this…
So, altogether I think this is a great experience, especially if you have company to have this… But if you are with kids, then you need to be careful as that stove can get really hot and we don’t want the kids to burn their fingers… Of-course, you’ll need some patience too as you end up having to wait for the cheese to melt 🙂 I tried making one like a grilled cheese toast and I must tell you that it was the best one I ever had… I would definitely recommend you try doing the sandwich with this… That is, melt about 4 slices of the cheese (might wanna use two trays) with the toppings of your choice (I went for Chicken along with all the pickled ones and potatoes) and when they are ready, scrape it on to a piece of the given bread and then season with a pinch each of salt, pepper and paprika and then close it with another piece of bread and try having that sandwich that you just made… 🙂 So, as you can see being DIY, you can eat it however you want… 🙂 However, the only complaint or rather suggestion I had regarding the Raclette that I got was that I felt that they could’ve reduced the amount of Chicken by half and included more of the cheese… Regardless, its a must have that I am sure everyone will enjoy…
Once I had my fun with the Raclette, I ordered a dessert, which I picked this time to be their Jungfrau… The Jungfrau as per their menu is essentially their Oatmeal Cookie served with Vanilla Ice-cream… As can be seen from the pic, they have topped it off with some Chocolate sauce and some White Chocolate Chips… Also, as a drink, I had been drinking their Cold Coffee all along till now… They had served it even before the salad 🙂
Regarding the Cold Coffee, it was indeed lite and refreshing with a strong presence of Coffee in it… They use a machine by Lavazza (known as Italy’s finest Coffee) for all their Coffee options… So, felt quite a kick in my palette to be completely honest and I found the sweetness level to be medium, just the way I like it, which means that if you have a strong sweet tooth, you might need to pour in some sugar/sweetner from the packets that they give you… 🙂
Now, coming to the Jungfrau, I found the Oatmeal cookie to be warm and slightly soft in the inside and crispy on the outside… The sweetness level is as one would expect from a cookie (if I am not mistaken, I detected a hint of honey in it) and the Chocolate Sauce and the Vanilla Ice-cream perfectly complements its favours… As can be seen in the pic, it essentially came like a sandwich with the scoop of ice-cream between two pieces of the cookie… I don’t think the White Chocolate Chips add anything in particular to this, but since its there, well and good 🙂 The Vanilla Ice-cream had a rich taste of Vanilla in it and it is definitely one of the better options of Vanilla Ice-creams that I have had so far… Altogether, a good dessert to have… 🙂
So, this was my third visit to Kaffeehaus and got to try what I hadn’t had before, especially the Raclette which was my very first time trying it… Safe to say, that its going to be my regular choice from now on 🙂 Anyways, check it out and let me know how it felt 🙂
