Tantalising Taprobane

By Cheranka Mendis

 Placing itself on equal footing as ‘The Line’ restaurant of Shangri La Singapore, the newly-refurbished Taprobane restaurant at Cinnamon Grand offers all food lovers, a variety of gastronomic delights all throughout the day.

Open 24/7, the restaurant, which followed a coffee shop theme previously, revamped its menu, upgraded its status to a more upmarket coffee shop and is now offering a wide range of dishes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack menus.

Almost hidden from the usual hang out ‘busy’ places in the hotel, Taprobane is a restaurant where you can pick your cosy corner and sit down for a meal or snack. This is not to say the place is not busy. Walking in on a weekday evening, we found the place almost full; however the well spaced out seating arrangements gives diners privacy without isolating them too much.

 The new menu

Director Catering K.M.R. Morugama joining us for a quick chat before we start on dinner tells us that the 24/7 up market coffee shop is the new trend in the market.

“We did a few market surveys prior to advancing on the upgrades. We looked at what the trends were in the region, especially in Singapore and Malaysia which are countries with a high tourist turnover,” Morugama said.

He stated that the focus was on how best to serve upmarket clients, who make up the majority of the diners at the hotel, and in general in Colombo itself. The new menu which has included a number of innovative and improved dishes in both their buffet section as well as the a la carte section was launched in mid April, he said.

“We exercise the same standards one would receive when dining at The Line restaurant in Singapore.”

The lunch and dinner buffets are changed daily so that repeat customers can taste different dishes.

The response so far has been positive, Morugama expressed. And that is putting it mildly. Ever since the new menu was re-launched, the restaurant has experienced close to full capacity on a daily basis. And it only gets busier on the weekend starting Friday.

Dinner time is, as expected, the most active time of the day while the midnight snack menu is fast becoming popular among the late night party people.

 The best brunch in town

He assured that the grilled items are among the fast moving items on the menu. “We have combined fusion food and grills in a manner that most find best suited. The brunch however is our best meal,” he said, adding “that is what almost everyone says.”

But for him, all meals are equally important and equal care and monitoring goes in to the meals, be it at 12 in the afternoon, eight in the night or three in the morning. “We practice high standards when preparing each dish. This is important to us as we aim to deliver the very best to our clients.”

Known as the ‘best brunch buffet in Colombo’ the brunch at Taprobane is said to be a feast- both to the eyes and to the rumbling tummies. “This is not something we say just because,” Morugama assured, “we say it is the best based on a market survey we conducted in Colombo city hotels.”

From smoked salmon to meats to seafood – the brunch has everything. There is the usual brunch, a beer brunch and even a bubbly brunch, which has become quite popular among the diners.

 Sampling the dishes

The spread, as expected is sizeable. The salad bar has an assortment of items from a spread of hams and sliced meats to salads and olives. Two varieties of soup stand in shiny soup kettles next to a mini sushi bar.

From marinated calamari with wasabi mayonnaise to a spread of sashmi and sushi rolls is available for all sushi lovers. The only thumbs down is that the wasabi is not as hot as you expect; but dumping a whole load of it with the soy sauce help get over the minor drawback.

The dinner spread is amazing. One thing that is worthy of mentioning is that Taprobane pulls no cheap strings where the meat is concerned. From lamb, to turkey, to chicken to pork- everything is served. Richly colourful and smelling divine, the meat items were cooked to just the right amounts so that it is neither too soft nor too hard.

Crispy where it should be, all sauce-y as needed, the spread both looked and tasted very good. There is the usual rice (two kinds), noodles and even naan with tandoori chicken. But it is not just the meat, there are plenty of vegetables to keep the vegetarians happy.

Another highlight of Taprobane is the pizza corner. One gets to pick from chicken, beef or vegetable and gets to customise it with extra cheese, no cheese or more spice. This is truly delicious and we recommend anyone to try this before the mains as it could fill you up easy.

There is also an action station for nasi goreng and hoppers. Being the spice lovers that we are, we requested the nasi goreng to be extra spicy and this was made to just the right amounts. The hoppers came crispy with the egg perfectly broken and the yellow smiling brightly up at the expectant diners.

 For the sweet lovers

For some, the quality of the dinner can be judged by taking a look at the desserts. For some others, desserts are taken as starters at any meal. Maybe this is what they had in mind when they laid out the dessert section right at the entrance of Taprobane.

This itself is a welcoming sight enough for anybody to rush in and take a seat at an empty table at the restaurant. From tiramisu to chocolate mousse (which soon became a favourite along with chocolate crumble), pineapple crumbles, mixed berry swiss rolls, chocolate brownies, strawberry cakes to a whole line up of very colourful desserts sit at the counter. The chocolate biscotti is also a must try.

While the usual fruits and ice creams are also available, their ginger mandarin sorbet which is kept alongside the ice creams is a unique must-try dish. Almost like slush, the difference is that the taste is strong at first which soon turns into a sweet ginger taste, leaving one refreshed after the meal.