Newest café in town offers oodles of tasty snacks with a healthy twist

Being a foodie, I’m always looking for a way to sneak food into everything that I do in a day. So imagine my joy when I found the perfect spot to sit and chill with a bunch of friends or just spend a couple of hours on my laptop, while munching on some tasty but healthy snacks. Tag With Us, the newest café in town, located at Kamaraj Salai in Race Course, promises mouth-watering quick bites that are all served with a healthy twist.

Oodles of doodles

The café sports a youthful vibe with its turquoise walls and picnic tables, with wooden benches and even has a dedicated corner for selfies. The quirky doodles on one wall, a bunch of framed black and white photographs on another along with the wooden service counter at one corner of the room gives it a very contemporary yet rustic appearance to this 40-seater restaurant.

Sweet memories

As soon as we take our tables, we are given a bowl of traditional toffees like kamarkatt and chikkis, bringing back memories of childhood. We kick off our evening by trying their paprika French fries which is served with a generous helping of mayo. The fries are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and has a hit of spice from the paprika seasoning. Moving on to the grilled vegetable salad containing broccoli, mushrooms and paneer cooked in olive oil, we realise that salads don’t have to be boring if seasoned right and grilled to perfection.

Party in your mouth

Do not miss out their party platter which has seven kinds of deep-fried snacks like potato fritters, mozzarella sticks, corn and cheese balls and herbed paneer sticks and is served with five different dips. The biggest hit of the evening, however, is their pizza which comes in two different flavours — sun-dried tomatoes and veggie mayo. The sun-dried tomatoes are well-seasoned and the sauce is made from scratch using fresh farm grown tomatoes. The veggie mayo pizza is served with oodles of melting cheese and a generous helping of green olives and crunchy capsicum cubes. “All our pizzas have a focaccia base which is made primarily from wheat. And as a rule, we use only cold-pressed oils for all our cooking and jaggery to sweeten our pastries,” said Chef Pravin Kumar.

Millet mania

For the health conscious, the café also sells freshly made breads out of millets, ragi and wheat. “Our aim is to serve food that is healthy and tasty at the same time. We source our grains from a farm in Bargur and all the cooking oils are cold-pressed in our own farm,” says Abirami Om Prakash, who owns the café.

Java punch

While we are still reeling from the yummy pizza, we sample the cheese cherry pineapple sandwich and find it too sweet for our taste. Another signature dish at Tag Café is the sambal spaghetti which has a strong hit of spice from fresh sambal paste. “Sambal, a Javanese speciality generally has shrimp and anchovies in it. Since we are a veg café, we make our sambal with chillies, ginger, lemongrass and spices to give it an authentic taste,” shares the chef.

Exploring the dessert section, we fell in love with their thick shakes which had real fruit pulp from avocado, strawberry and kiwi. Also, don’t miss the creamy pannacotta that is made out of coconut milk and flavoured with fresh mango pulp.

Average meal for two  Rs 400