On the hunt for a decent place to eat in Khilgaon, my girlfriend and I stumbled upon Cafe Appeliano, once we found out about this place; she was really hyped because their pasta was apparently really famous! Having never been a very big fan of Pasta, I wasn’t very sure of the place cause Pasta just doesn’t do the THING for me you know. We went there on a date and immediately found ourselves in a very tightly packed place with a whole lot of people inside, almost all the tables were booked and we found a corner where we could sit in. One of the first things I noticed when I went in there was that almost everyone had the same dish on their table, they were all eating pasta! I started to realize the size of the hype. The waiter was really busy so I had to walk up to the counter to order the pasta (Marks deducted for service), I ordered Pasta Basta and my girl ordered Pasta Europa, I paid 245 bucks for each dish and settled in my seat, waiting for the dish to arrive.
We were served after about 15 minutes and the dish looked exactly like the photos that we had seen before (full marks for that) and as soon as I dug in, with the first bite of the food, I knew that a trip from Dhanmondi to Khilgaon (Only the residents of Dhaka can comprehend the severity of the journey) to have the pasta has been totally worth it! With each bite, it was like heaven in my mouth, each bite of the cheese-mushroom-chicken-pasta combo just blew my mind (Salivating as I write); this was undoubtedly the best and I mean the VERY BEST pasta dish that I have ever tried in Dhaka and dude, I have tried a lot of pasta at a lot of different places (My girlfriend orders pasta usually everywhere we go). Pasta Europa and Pasta Basta had similar ingredients, but the Europa had green chilli and beef in it, so it was more spicy, mine did not have the chilli and had chicken instead of beef. The dish is sort of like a pie you know, with baked cheese forming a crust on top and gravy of mushroom, chicken and pasta underneath, YUM! The food was great, such was the awesomeness of the food that I went back there twice to have the same dish! The third time, the place was closed due to renovation and I returned with a heartache!
The Pizza in Café Appeliano is pretty good too and I have heard some pretty decent things about it from friends, but this is a joint each and every pasta lover needs to try and all pasta-haters should taste (this dish will totally change your opinion about pasta). The place looks a bit better now after all the renovation and they are now serving a chilli sauce along with the pasta to spice up the pasta for all the spice lovers out there.
Word of Advice to the owners: Your food is awesome! You should think about expanding the restaurant a bit so that people don’t have to wait in lines to get seats.
