Over the last few years, the word ‘café’ has completely changed in its meaning. From a place which was well lit, focused on salads, light food like sandwiches, all day breakfast, shakes etc and being easy on packet, café’s suddenly have started focusing on alcohol. The difference between a normal dine-in restaurant have blurred, more so because many of these restaurants have also started opening throughout the day instead of the set hours for lunches and dinners. Gurgaon either does not have good cafes or they are so small and dark that the feeling of openness and joy of few hours sipping coffee and reading books have disappeared. With these thoughts in my mind I visited the recently opened AMPM café in Galleria.
AMPM café is situated on the second floor of Galleria mall with no access through lift. One will have to pass some of the small shops on the way that will have customers outside the narrow lanes disturbing the smooth flow. However once inside it looks like an oasis in a dessert. It has well-ventilated interiors with equal number of seating in the open balcony from where one can check the greenery outside.
My daughter started with the Magnum Upside Down, a thick shake with brownie, cone and cream topped with full magnum chocolate bar dipped in it. It is sinful in every sip/bite. This will be my meal if I am not watching my sugar intake. I went with crisp pork ramen soup. There aren’t many places that serve ramen in Gurgaon and thankfully AMPM café has also priced it very moderately at just Rs265. I would have liked a flowing yolk in the boiled egg, but this one that has baked cheese on top of it, is also a good option.
My wife went with AMPM chaat (Rs235) which is their version of papdi chaat in cold curd topped with bhujiya. Served with palak patta on the side, it is again a good recommendation to try. The mushroom and cheese melt sandwich has 4 loaded halves of the breads with cheddar and mushrooms.
Now the list of what I did not like. Pork belly is an art. From the quality of cut to way it is cooked, is what makes difference to the final product. Chef mentioned that it was cooked in sous vide but the texture of pork was still tough. I love pork crackling on the belly, but it became so tough that that it became un-chewable. AMPM café serves butter chicken slider that has small garlic naan with butter chicken on the side. While I agree that everyone has different idea of a good butter chicken, but I could only get flavors of loads of butter on this.
We ended the meal with AMPM Monochrome, a dessert with nutella chocolate mousse with creamy vanilla scoops. Overall, a good meal even if there were a few misses given that it is operationally very new. It will surely see me more often given the combination of service, food and its ambience.
Rating (Out of 5)
Food: 3.5 | Service: 4.5| Ambience: 4.0 | Overall: 4.0
Meal for Two: Rs1500 | Wheel Chair Friendly: No | Credit Card: Yes | Alcohol: Yes | Timings: 8am to Midnight | Child Policy: Children not allowed post 7pm
Address: AMPM Café & Bar, R-3, 2nd Floor, DLF Galleria, DLF Phase-4, Gurgaon | Phone: 9717780492
Disclaimer: This review was done on an invitation from the restaurant. Due judgement and care has been applied by the author to remain objective and unbiased in the review, but readers need to consider this review keeping this fact in mind.
