Merci, Côte Rôtie!

I’ve woken up many days with the wishful thinking that I can pack my bags and take a spontaneous flight to Paris - I get such feelings from time to time as I’ve mentioned before in one of my blogs: Je t’aime, mon Cafe Rolle.

(somebody take me there already, jeez!)

It’s only a matter of seconds before I peak outside my bedroom door and find my mother not exactly pardoning her french at somebody on the phone. So much for dreaming about Champs-Élysées on a beautiful Sunday morning, really. 

Even though spring has been uber kind to us this year by sticking around since December (winter whah, winter who?), we like to celebrate it in March - just ‘coz. 

My only fix to this specific day was to try out the new french cafe in town: Côte Rôtie. I had a super tough time trying to pronounce that name so I googled it and the first search that showed was How To Pronounce French Wine # Côte Rôtie.

I ended up spraying it, not saying it so I might stick to calling it “that new restaurant in Alliance Francaise”.

Anyhow, so a bunch of us walked in to a pleasant looking bistro, located exactly where the old Cafe Flo used to be. The weather was quite nice and well, the inside was completely packed, so we sat outside and a very welcoming server was immediately available to assist us. We received our brunch menu along with the regular one and within five mins, the server convinced us to order their Grilled Kale & Beetroot Salad.

I’m getting married in a few months and the first thing I order at any restaurant nowadays is a salad, just so I can feel all “healthy” and “fit”. Forget what follows, please. 

To accompany this nourishing starter, we also asked for Truffled Eggs & Gruyere (tee-he-he).

These two arrived on the table pretty soon and after many years, I understood the “art of plating”. Every time my chef brother visits us from Houston, he’s always complaining about the lack of culinary training most of the restauranteurs in this city have. However, as soon as our appetizers arrived, I knew this place was led by a chef and not just a ‘good cook’ or a businessman.

Kale & Beetroot Salad

As beautiful as it looked, the salad was absolutely delectable! There was some char-grilled sort of taste in those Kale leaves which blended in perfectly with the Beetroot, bits of Ricotta cheese and fresh figs. I could do this for a healthy meal, err day!

Don’t even get me started on the Truffled Eggs because i don’t have words to describe my happiness about having this meal in Karachi let alone trying to explain how I felt eating this wonderful variation of eggs. OMG, it was SO DAMN GOOD! Starting from breaking into it with my fork, the perfectly runny yolks that made their way through every layer of fine Gruyere cheese and rye toast, to the truffle sauce that topped this chunk of heaven was definitely love at first bite.

Truffled Eggs & Gruyere

Next up was their super fresh bread basket that totally ended my no-carb game because it was so fresh and so soft!! Nevertheless, I was consistent with my health regime and sipped on the very refreshing ABC juice (Apple Beetroot Carrot - if ya already didn’t know). Loved how well balanced the natural flavors were.

The french music that was playing in the background added to the already soothing ambience, reminded me of a french song I loved while I was in college - Les Champs-Elysées by Joe Dassin. Such a jazzy feel.

The mains arrived and again, the food was an absolute pleasure to look at. It was the kind of presentation that made you want to imagine every flavor you are about to experience.

Croque Madam

Croque Madam - definitely topping my list. I’m so glad that Côte Rôtie actually went out of the box to bring something unique to the table. Typically served with ham, this variation of Croque Monsieur was substituted with turkey and surprises you with a mustard-meets-wasabi kind of flavor in every bite. Loved the melted, quality shredded cheese over the fresh butter bread. Since I’m more into savory than sweet, the cherry in “with a cherry on top” has always been an egg for me, so this was a winner for sure! The flavors that burst through every layer was nothing less than a treat!

French Omlette with Gruyere Cheese

I bit into the French Omelette with Gruyere Cheese and wondered why and how everybody else in the city promotes their eggs when they taste nothing like this one! It was so simple, and you could tell that the chef focused on nothing but the essence of every flavor that made up the dish. A treat for the eyes and tastebuds - a rare encounter nowadays.

Scrambled Eggs with Salmon

Another item on the table was the Scrambled eggs with Salmon & Cream Cheese on toast and was definitely as good as it looked! I haven’t yet acquired the taste for salmon so I only took a bite of those rich, fluffy eggs and since scrambled eggs are my weakness, that was a party in my mouth!

Even though all of us had slipped into major food coma, after that eggs-tremely heavy meal we couldn’t have gone without a healthy dessert. You see how I always sandwich my diet in the middle somewhere?

Nora’s Got Sweet Tooth granola with homemade strawberry jam & vanilla yogurt was such a nice blend of sweet flavors. You can easily tell the top quality of all the ingredients used and it also gave me the energy I needed to get up to go home! This Nora lady has really good granola, by the way!

Nora's Got Sweet Tooth granola with vanilla yogurt and homemade jam

I wish I could say that this was the end so I could conclude this in another over dramatic paragraph, BUT, it was just so good that I had to go back next Sunday! 

Since my father has an extremely fine taste palette and knows his food as much he knows his kids, I really wanted to take him there. 

We sat inside this time and the ambience inside was even more beautiful than the last. The community table is a concept very new to Karachi so it was great to see it enter the scene. I knew there was a trained chef behind the scenes, and you could see the owner completely involved in the kitchen and also peaking out the little window to see his customers from time to time! Very cute!

Besides reordering some of the stuff from my last visit, we gave the Bresaola - Mozzarella - Pickled Chili sandwich a shot and boy oh boy, I couldn’t believe (again) that I was sitting within the boundaries of a bistro in Karachi having such good quality air dried meat. The discussion on the table for the longest time was if this meat could even be from here - it was delicious.

Bresaola - Mozzarella - Pickled Chili Sandwich

 

Like always, my dad always asks the management to suggest their best pick and his recommendation was the French Burger. Pretty risky to suggest a burger to us because we are always on a mission, any where around the world, to find the best burger in every city. This was some fine quality meat, marinated in a splendid manner, cooked to Medium perfection and served between a high-quality bun. The next time I crave a burger in this city, I’m heading straight to Côte Rôtie to satisfy my burger brain! Melt-in-the-mouth would be an understatement… to say the least.

French Burger

We ended with their Chocolate Tart and for the first time in months, I couldn’t care less about the calories I was about to consume because that pure block of chocolate with an oreo crust only promised real cocoa flavors. I gobbled down the strawberry it came with, because it’s fruit - you know… healthy and all!

Chocolate Tart

As you can tell, I had a pret-tay awesome experience at Côte Rôtie. You can feel the appreciation and passion for food in the air of that little place and I would go out of my way to acknowledge the rare places that offer top quality cuisine. 

Merci, Côte Rôtie. You made my day(s)!