Soul Deli Cafe

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SDC is a hip new basement café on MG Road, in the location of the now defunct Underground pub. The place has a very New Age lounge feel with a waterfall at the entrance and outdoor seating with neat chairs and even fans to cool you. The indoor A/C seating area is done up in with dark wooden furniture with clean lines, trendy ceiling lamps and a little deli counter with desserts, breads and cheese in a corner.

The menu is a very interesting mix of beverages, soups, salads, sandwiches, pastas, grills and desserts. We tried the citrus cooler and the mango lemon fizz and both were very refreshing and surprisingly not too high on the sugar content. The chicken tikka salad was good with succulent marinated chicken pieces, iceberg lettuce, red and yellow capsicum and onions and was exactly the right size for a starter salad for two. The salad came with a fresh, warm bread basket and chilli herb butter which was delicious. We picked the Friendly Lion and Tuna Melt sandwiches for the main course. A word of warning – the sandwiches are huge and definitely are more than a meal by themselves. They come with sides of crispy onion rings, French fries and lettuce, cucumber and carrots. The Friendly Lion consisted of avocado spread, roasted green capsicum, jalapenoes and tomato on white bread. Absolutely delicious, it reminded me of sandwiches from NYC delis. The Tuna Melt was authentic too and fantastic as well. Other interesting options which we did not try included the chilli burgers, the Philly Cheese Steak sandwich and Moroccon Chicken. The sandwiches being too heavy, we did not have room for dessert.

A meal for two is approximately Rs.800. Couple of suggestions to the restaurant – service needs to be improved. It was slow at times and many a time we felt like they were being a little too intrusive when we were taking our time to decide our order – a café will have the feel of a café only when it allows people to linger. Another very strong suggestion – please change the music. It was awful and wandered between New Age instrumental to Arabic (?) music. The food, though, is a winner, although I think it is a little too pricey by café standards.

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