Di Bella Coffee is a quiet and intimate place, perfect to discuss life and the future with the comfort of good food. Located above popular showrooms of cars and bikes - Nissan and Harley Davidson - Di Bella Coffee is pretty empty in the evenings. We went to the branch on Jubilee Hills Road no 36 above the Nissan showroom. You enter into a large room with comfortable seating, a pool table and foosball table and the room leads you to a nice outdoor seating space at the back which is peaceful and away from the traffic on the main road.
Di Bella Coffee goes hi-tech with the coffee menu available on a Samsung tablet. The tablet menu also contains select food and tea items but its not the full-fledged menu - they provide a separate menu book for that. One can order from the tablet as well but that purpose is defeated with the waiter hovering around you to take the order.
This is the hot chocolate from a previous visit. The marshmallows were fluffy and sticky just they should be. The hot chocolate was a bit too sweet considering the marshmallows also adds in the sweetness to the drink. They could have reduced the sugar in the hot chocolate. This is a perfect drink for a cold morning/night or a rainy evening.
I started with some honeydew green tea to calm myself down (it had been a stressful day). If you don't like plain green tea because of its bitter taste, you must have the honeydew green tea. It will be worth hunting for a store selling this tea. The bitterness of the green tea is masked beautifully by the sweet apricot flavour in combination with the heady smell of honeydew. I didn't need to add sugar or honey.
Our standard order of bruschetta did not disappoint. The bread was crisp and moistened with the right amount of olive oil. The topping was a mixture of tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, capsicums and cheese all finely chopped and seasoned with dried oregano and basil. The vegetables were well-cooked, the cheese was soft and the jalapeños gave a nice kick to the bruschetta. We asked for extra olive oil which wasn't the best - it tasted more like a vegetable oil than an extra virgin olive oil.
Di Bella does a creative spin on regular sandwiches with its offering of waffle sandwiches. They use savoury waffles instead of bread and they actually work really well. We tried the chunky chicken sandwich which according to the menu was chunky grilled chicken with barbecue sauce, onions and lettuce. Though there was no barbecue sauce in the sandwich, it came with a delightful chilli mayo sauce. The chicken was succulent and chunky as promised and the vegetables were fresh. The only thing that bothered me was the slight strong smell of eggs in the waffles but they made for fresh and fluffy bread for the sandwiches.
Besides Chocolate Room, this is the only other place where I've had fluffy pancakes. We were served one huge, fluffy pancake with maple syrup and some whipped cream. Again, this too had a strong smell of eggs.The maple syrup wasn't quite sufficient, we needed an extra helping of maple syrup to fully douse the pancake in the maple-y goodness. All the syrup and cream does make this a meal in itself, so be sure to order it wisely.
All in all, Di Bella Coffee has a good choice of coffee and food. On the downside, they take a long time to serve the food. We spent almost 1.5 hours here not just because we had a lot to talk about but also because the service was slow. But if you are in the mood for some introspection and conversation, the slow service will work in your favour. To kill all that time waiting for the food, they have some board games and the aforementioned pool table and foosball table on offer, for which they charge by the hour. So, head over to Di Bella this weekend if you are looking for a mellow evening with some good coffee and food.
Location: Jubilee Hills or Banjara Hills
Timings: 9AM - 11PM
Cost for 2: Rs. 1000
Taste: 7/10 - mainly due to the slight smell of egg
Service: 7/10 - slow service
Ambience: 8/10
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