How do you mess up the order, serve the patty well done when asked for medium, serve a burger in a soft torn bun, but still make it awesome? Ask ETC cafe. Brand new cafe, with ample parking space on the first floor with a full fledged restaurant in the ground floor, ETC cafe has something about it. The prices are atrociously low! I mean, Rs. 140 for a burger in a posh cafe located on Rutland Gate? Quite unheard of in a long time.

So, we heard about this cafe and decided to go in. The ambience is quirky and elegant. The egg shaped chairs are surprisingly comfortable. There is a game room with life sized Snake and Ladder, Ludo and even Connect The Dots.

Let's get to the food now. I'll get the bad things out of the way first. The vegetarian club sandwich is very average. Its just a three layer sandwich with only cucumber and tomato. Not the kind of food that the rest of the food represents. The garlic french fries were also a little hard and chewy. Anyway, bad things over so, now the French Onion Soup. Close to the perfect flavour, and served very nicely in a cup, the soup is just right. With a nice little piece of crusty bread topped with cheese, it complements the soup well. And it might just be taken straight of the cup! And then the burger. Beef burger wasn't on the menu, but when I asked, they said they can get it from the restaurant downstairs. I asked for medium, it came well done. The bun was falling apart. But, the burger was FANTASTIC. Superb beef, super soft, awesome flavour with the right amount of onions and juicy!!!!!

Now, we asked for the bill and the owners came up and said that right now, there is no bill. They've tied up with some orphanage and the money you pay goes straight to them. They said they will tell us how much we ate for and that they would like if we pay at least 50% of the bill. Wonder why. We said we'd pay 100% of the bill amount and then the said that some people came in ate, loads, paid peanuts and went. Sad that such an initiative is being misused, but gladly they did not withdraw it. Not sure how long this is, but the above and two cakes together cost us only Rs. 800.

Love the collection of books. Love the menu prices. Love the car park. Finally, I think I've found the place to go if I just need to be on my own with a book in hand or laptop on.....well, lap!!! This might almost just replace Cha Bar. ETC cafe is on Rutland Gate, on the alley next to Ritu Kumar, where the old Apollo Wellness Centre was. 

So, recipe time, now! I love bread bowls. OK, I love bread in any form, but I have a special place for bread bowls filled with soup, but baking those bread bowls seemed like a hassle until I came across the autolysing technique in the CFG forum and life has changed for the better. For this particular recipe, I kept some of the dough in the fridge for about 4 days and then baked the bread bowl to host the beetroot apple soup and the result was a super hit at home! For a vegetarian dish to be super hit at home, it had to be reasonably good and I hope you are able to recreate this at your home too!

The Bread Bowl:

If you have heard about the autolysing technique, then, great, if not, you will be amazed at how easy it is to bake bread - you don't have to knead the bread! Yes, you, read it correctly and your eyes are not deceiving you. I baked four bowls, three of which I baked on the first day and reserved one portion of the dough to sour in the fridge, so the proportions are for 4 bread bowls.

4 cups of flour
11/2 - 2 cups of water
2 teaspoons of sugar
2/12 teaspoons yeast (I used active yeast)
A pinch of salt


Take the water and warm it (if it is too hot, the yeast will die, if it is too cold, yeast will not work). Mix the yeast till it dissolves completely and add the sugar and salt and mix. Slowly add the flour and keep stirring and when you finish, just leave it aside. I had to try twice to get the technique and the proportions right - the liquid quantity is slightly less than half the quantity of the flour. Leave it covered for about 2 hours and when you open it, it should have risen. You don't have to beat it down, just puff it out with a spoon, roll it into nice balls, place on a buttered oven plate and bake it in a pre-heated oven at 225ºC for about 20-25 minutes and your bread bowl will be ready. Slice the top, scoop out some bread and pour the soup.


The Beetroot-Apple Soup

1 cups of boiled beetroots (boil without salt)
1 apple - cut and cored.
1/2 onion chopped.
1/4 cup old-bread in pieces (I used the ones I baked with the above recipe and left in the fridge for four days)
1 teaspoon oil
25 g butter
100 ml chicken stock (you can replace it with veg stock)
Salt to taste

This is a very simple recipe, just add the oil to a hot pan and the butter to it -this prevents the butter from burning. Once the butter is hot, add the chopped onions and cook till it becomes translucent. Add the apples and cook till they become soft, typically it takes about 5-7 minutes. Once the apples are soft, add the nicely pieced bread till it coats the apples and keep stirring so that they don't stick to the pan. Add the cooked beetroots, cook for a minute and pour all of the stock. Simmer till the stock reduces, about 20 minutes or so. Once cooked, take the whole thing and using a food processor, blitz it and it will become a nice thick soup. I used salted butter and my chicken stock was salty, so I did not need to add salt, but taste it and add salt if required to balance it.

I served it in the bread bowl with chopped almonds on top and corn tortillas, but of course, you can go crazy with the garnish. A dollop of thick curd will also go great with this soup. This soup is best taken with the sour dough bread, because the flavours complement each other extremely well.