Wharf 2.0.

When Wharf set up shop, more than a decade ago, it had a menu that was near perfect. A perfect beach side restaurant which wasn't ahead of its time or futuristic, but quite down to the sea. The food was a beautiful blend of rustic and ambiance. It lost its way! Now its been revamped. For a restaurant I loved the way it was (before it went downhill) , it was hard not to compare the food to its glory days. 

The 2.0 factor is visible straight away with the ambiance and the menu. The menu looks fun, is designed to be fun and is big. We started off with pasta for kids, a crab cake and grilled tiger prawns. The waiter recommended the house marinade and I went with it. Big mistake. More on that later.

The pasta was excellent. It was a reasonable portion, chunky meat and broccoli with a well made white sauce. The crab cakes came plated beautifully. I wasn't expecting plated dishes in a beach shack and it was a surprise to see it. Chettinad spiced crab cake with basil walnut sauce. Somehow the two didn't marry well. The sauce was great, the crab cakes were great, the two just didn't go well together. But we did enjoy the dish, though in parts.

Then the mistake. Ordering the house marinade. I love the grills with lemon butter kind of marinade but in rustic places like the sea side shacks down the road in Mahabs, the house masalas are excellent. I should have stuck to my gut as the house marinade wasn't great. I guess those spicy masalas are best done by the rustic guys and our 5 star chef here wasn't able to make it great, forget replicating. It tasted like the masalas weren't mixed well in the marinade.

The dessert also came highly recommended by the wait staff. The menu said it had cinnamon flavoured butter crumble among other things. A chef came along with a tray and tried to do some theatre. It was unnecessary and forced theatre with him dabbing some sauce and dropping a chocolate ball on the plate. There was a melange of flavours in the broken ball, none of them making an impact. Like the non existent forced theatrics, the dessert itself fell flat on the face, I mean plate.

We spent about 5000 rupees without having an excellent meal, but one that was good in parts. Service was pretty good,