Food

The menu at One Seven One is quite limited. Sure it seems like they serve a range of items like soups, salads, rice-centred specialties, burgers and mains, but it’s only chicken and seafood.
They serve a couple of mutton dishes, but no beef or pork. So your choices here are somewhat narrow.

We started off with a Chicken and Mushroom Soup (Rs.250). It was creamy and came with bits of chicken and mushroom which we thoroughly enjoyed. It was served with a side of garlic croutons, but the courtons tasted rather odd.

For our main course, we ordered a Seafood Fried Rice (Rs.450 for a small portion), a plate of Hot Butter Cuttlefish (Rs.550), and a Chicken in Bangkok (Rs.500).

The Fried Rice was alright. The rice was cooked well, and wasn’t too oily.
It’s basically Basmati rice tossed in carrot, spring onions and pieces of fish and prawns. But sadly, it tasted like it had been seasoned with a Maggi soup cube or some kind of flavour enhancer.

The HBC at One Seven One is one of the cheapest HBCs we’ve come across. It was crunchy, piping hot and adequately spiced.
At Rs. 550, this was a generous portion of cuttlefish as it wasn’t just filled with leeks or spring onions.

Now, the Chicken in Bangkok. We chose this from their mains, which means it should be able to fill one hungry belly, right?
Well, at least that’s what we thought. Once we saw this plate, we were really glad that we ordered the Fried Rice, because this is no main by any means.

There was a big piece of roast chicken, covered with a yellow sauce and presented with half a cup of sticky yellow rice.

The chicken was tender , tasted like curry and mixed with the slight sourness of the sauce gave it a really nice kick. But I repeat, this isn’t enough to cure your hunger.

Our dessert was a piece of Caramel Pudding (Rs.150), which was the highlight of our meal. The top was a perfect shade of brown, and its super-creamy consistency made it our instant favourite. It was worth every single rupee we spent on it.

Drinks

We wanted to try the juices, but unfortunately none of them were available. So we opted for a Chocolate Milkshake (Rs.250) and a Cappuccino (Rs.200).

The Chocolate Milkshake lacked the balance of milkiness, sweetness and chocolatiness. Seriously, how hard is it to blend some chocolate with vanilla ice cream?

First I thought there was a mix-up on my order, but then I found out this, infact is the Cappuccino they serve. I'm no coffee connoisseur, but this looks more like a layered latte than a cappuccino.
Tastewise it was like a normal kade kiri-kopi and wasn't too bad after adding two spoons of sugar into it.

But Rs.200 for a cappuccino that looks like a layered latte and tastes like a regular kiri-kopi? Nah, I'll pass. 

Ambience

One Seven One has three floors, including a rooftop dining area. Their bakery is located downstairs and the first and second floors are allocated for fine dining.

We liked the ambience here. It's quite comfy and has a pleasant vibe with plenty of space. The rooftop area gets booked all the time for bridal showers, birthday parties and surprise proposals.

Service

The food and drinks took around 15 – 20 minutes to arrive, but we didn't mind since they were freshly prepared.  
There were couple of downfalls in their customer service, though. 

We were the only customers at the first floor, but still we had to bug the waiter for couple of times to get some drinking water and chili paste. Our bill was all muddled up as well. Even though we ordered only one caramel pudding, they accidently charged us for two.
But instead of cancelling it, out we paid and enjoyed that creamy goodness for the second time. 

Overall

One Seven One doesn't serve the best food in town, but it's definitely one of the most affordable places around. Our bill came to a total of Rs.2100, and this includes service charge and taxes too.

So if you're around Maharagama and looking for a meal within a budget but in a fancy environment, this is just the place to be.