Restaurant Review: Dewberry's

I had never heard of Dewberry's before this event. I liked the name and I was looking forward to the review. It is tucked away in a quiet street off Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai (Cathedral Road). The restaurant has outside and indoor seating, and while the outdoor seating seemed the popular choice, I was glad to be inside where the lighting was a lot better for photographs! Sans camera, I would want to sit outside for sure!

To kick things off, I ordered a blueberry smoothie, but it kinda let me down. Not a good way to start the meal huh? I couldn't taste even a hint of blueberry despite the purple color. It just tasted milky (and you KNOW how I feel about milk!), and slightly vanilla. I decided I would abandon it and move on. And then I sampled another friend's drink. It blew me away! I just HAD to have it. So I got my own salt-rimmed glass of it!

Yes that is a fresh green chilly! This drink was a twist on the regular lime juice - lime, water, sugar syrup - and the most perfectly balanced hit of fresh green chillies! So amazing... and as the dinner progressed, the drink got spicier and spicier as the chilli soaked through. It was really awesome! A must have when you visit Dewberry's!

We were joined for the evening by one of the partners at Dewberry's and we let her do all the ordering for us. Several starters, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian, started appearing in quick succession. First up was a sweet bruschetta - Caramel Fruity, it was called. The idea itself sounds great to me because I love the whole sweet-salty thing (remember my bacon brownies?), but this didn't deliver for me.

I did not like the texture of the bread or the taste of the cheese. But I was glad to see some of the others enjoying it.

I loved this dish named Chippy Fungi (interesting names ;)!) - it was deep fried tortilla strips tossed with some fresh veggies and lots of button mushrooms and coated in this creamy sauce. I really enjoyed it and I would order it again!

The Prawn Gamberoni was a unanimous favorite among the meat-eaters. The prawns were cooked to perfection. Perfectly juicy, plump, not at all chewy prawns, with peppers and a tomato based sauce. Honestly, I was not a great fan of the sauce. It tasted a little ketchup-y to me, but I could not stop eating it because those prawns tasted incredible.

The other starter - Chicken Tortellini was interesting - a little chewy but I didn't mind that. Again with this dish, I didn't much care for the sauce.

Moving on, the main courses began to arrive, starting with a few sizzler plates.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, again I felt that while the paneer (pictured above) and the chicken sizzlers were well-cooked, I didn't like the sauces. I did like the accompaniments on the plates though - a garlicky rice and perfectly cooked and seasoned veggies that I couldn't stop picking at.

Two pasta dishes were served - a vegetarian option, Magic Mushroom Pasta (no not THAT magic mushroom) and a Chicken Bolognaise. I felt the bolognaise was quite flavorful but found the pasta sauce kinda runny. Tasted decent though. The mushroom pasta was just okay.

We also sampled the Grilled Fish Fillet - Vietnamese Basa grilled with an Asian tasting marinade. This was a well seasoned tasty dish, and the fish was cooked very well. The sides were the same as the ones on the sizzler plates and were good.

The only main that I totally did not get was the dish called 'Fruitlette'. It was a tortilla stuffed with peppers and paneer and grilled like a quesadilla. While the tortilla and the filling tasted fine, I did not and still don't understand the whole lot of fruits served on the side. Don't get me wrong. I like fruit. I like quesadillas. I just didn't like this concept. I felt there was no connection between the quesadilla and the fruits in terms of flavor. And I didn't like that a whole lot of fruit was wasted.

There were a lot of options for dessert and overall I wasn't too thrilled with what we tasted. I asked for something called Simply chocolate. It was okay. It tasted nice but didn't blow me away.

I was very excited about trying the fried chocolate bar and envisioned something totally decadent and oozing, but it was chewy instead of melty and not great in flavor. I wish they had used better chocolate.

Two crepe dishes were ordered - the Simple Simean (pictured above) tasted nice - thin buttery crepes with banana and chocolate and some slightly caramel-y sauce poured over the top. The sauce wasn't great (sorry!), but the crepes had a lovely texture. It came with a fruit entourage like the one on the quesadilla plate, and once again, most of the fruit was wasted.

The other crepe dish was a small pancakes filled with apples and raisins and drowned in chocolate sauce. It also usually comes with the fruit on the side, we heard, but in order to avoid more waste, we got it without the fruit. This dish was a total miss. The crepes were rubbery and almost inedible in my opinion, and the filling didn't help. Worst of all (at least for me personally), I hated tasting elaichi (cardamom) in the chocolate sauce. Didn't work for me at all!

Another strawberry shortcake inspired dish didn't do anything for me. Especially when I noticed the supermarket style cake slices on the plate. It was edible because it had stawberries and a lot of whipped cream but I wish they would use better cake!

After glancing through the menu, I was surprised how easy on the pocket Dewberry's is. Another thing that caught my eye in the menu was a quote on the first page. I loved it! (typo aside) :p

Overall, I actually enjoyed the meal despite the few big misses. The average sauces were totally overshadowed by the perfectly cooked meat and seafood, and the great sides totally compensated for the rest of the flaws.

If you are on Cathedral road and wondering where to grab a tasty bite, without blowing a hole in your pocket, this is a place worth checking out.