Traveling back in time @ Ketli Café.

Once in a while, you walk out of a restaurant with a warm fuzzy feeling brought about by a mixture of nostalgia and accomplishment. A sense of attainment over the discovery of a gem in the back alleys of Karama and nostalgia that takes you back to the wonder years. A time when your heart was bigger than your wallet, your friends were an integral part of your love story and you swore by mom’s cooking every day.

I had that experience at Ketli Café recently. Ketli is a quaint little eatery that serves finger food, pasta, chicken steaks and burgers with an Asian twist. It is run by a dynamic mother daughter duo who manage the business in an extremely hands on manner. Their personalities are reflected in the menu and in the place itself.  We met the daughter Renad, who had come to Dubai as a student from Saudi Arabia and ended up making her whole family move here. Mom has an eye for detail  and her personality shines through in everything, from the decor to the menu.

The menu consists of a good selection of nibbles and main courses along with of a wide variety of shakes, coolers and hot beverages. Some of the items are as quirky as the pop art on the walls.  I was fascinated by the Oman chips paratha, Desi style loaded nachos and masaledar cheddar slider. We ended up ordering he last two on the list and quite enjoyed the Subcontinental twist to these two dishes.

We also ordered the pasta with pink sauce and the stuffed chicken with creamy pasta. These two dishes were what teleported us to the distant time I spoke of earlier. I know now, that all I have to do, to relive my youth and be reminded of mom’s comfort food is to head down to Ketli Café in Karama and order one of these two dishes. The pink colour in the pasta could have been the result of the creamy cheese and the tomato sauce. Whatever it was, I was too busy savouring every bite and thinking of my childhood to worry about ingredients. I do know that together with the chicken mince and pasta, this sauce was a gift from heaven.

The best dish of the evening was saved for last. If you are ever down in Karama please do go and try the stuffed chicken with creamy fettuccini. If you are not in Karama, driving down to Ketli Café just to taste this dish will be worth your time. The succulent chicken breast was stuffed with spinach, garlic and cheese. Now pause for a moment to process that information. How good do you think this was? It was just as good as you could imagine it would be. This was accompanied by a generous helping of creamy, pesto fettuchini. I remember closing my eyes as I gradually worked through every creamy bite. At 45 AED this dish seemed to be quite a bargain. The whole menu infact, was very reasonably priced. The Pina Colada and the Mint Mojito were both priced at 18 AED and tasted much better than some of the 50 AED drinks you get at fancier joints.

So the next time you are playing tourist in your own city or are headed down towards Karama, please do check out this cute little café. We need to encourage small businesses. We need to appreciate the quality of service and food we can get when the owners are directly involved in managing the business. We need to stand behind those who embrace innovation in their menus and  actively seek to change service standards. We need to foster the entreprenurial spirit. After all, that is what made this city so great and attracted people like Renad and her family here in the first place.