Sitting at Fat Man’s Café, you feel like you’re in the house of that friend, the one who’s the budding Martha Stewart in the group. The small, mainly white space, has touches of colour, in framed prints on the wall and upholstery on the chairs, but it doesn’t come together well, and ends up with a cutesy asylum feel to it.

The food too, reflects the overachieving home cook feel, with pesto, pepper or butter liberally used to add flavour to almost everything we tried. The watermelon and feta salad comes with olives and arugula and is generously flavoured with lime and pepper. Sadly, the round watermelon balls lacked any natural sweetness and provided only texture. The pesto chicken skewers, however, were moist and evenly flavoured with the green basil sauce.

Our drinks were hit and miss. The Nutella coffee shake had the nuttiness of hazelnut and a lingering hint of chocolate, though we missed the robust coffee. The green apple lemonade though was luridly sweet and definitely a miss, with too many pumps of what we can only imagine is Monin flavouring syrup.

As we were there for dinner, we couldn’t sample the eggs (available only till 4pm) and had to choose from a menu of sliders, sandwiches, burgers, pastas and mains. We went with Portobello mushroom sliders and grilled rawas in lemon caper sauce. The former was a massive disappointment. Each of the three sliders came with a piece of lettuce and two regular mushroom caps sandwiched between two pieces of dry bread. Even the thin layer of pesto couldn’t add any zest to this basic recipe. While not exceptional, the rawas was a better order, with a lemon caper sauce that was rich and acidic.

Desserts is where the café shines, with both our dark chocolate mousse and apple crumble hitting the mark. The large portions of both are conducive to sharing. The crumble came topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream that perfectly complicated its sweet, tart taste. The boozy chocolate mousse on the other hand marries the intense flavour of chocolate and rum well, though definitely relied on the alcohol more than we’d hoped.

As an eatery, we weren’t bowled over by the café, but for a coffee and dessert we might stop by. The indoor-outdoor space was packed during our visit, with the staff doing a commendable job of keeping the restaurant running. Overall though, the effort while appreciated, stops just short of being up to snuff. An amateur effort that’s unable to hit all the right spots – kind of like that friend who’s house you always end up at.   

THE BILL

Fat Man’s Café Shop No 9, ONGC Colony, Building 3, Bandra (W)(). Daily 11am-midnight. No alcohol. All major cards. Meal for two R1,500-3,000.