Office Cafe is a spot manged by Wonder hotel which mainly caters to the office crowd around, who are looking for buth packets and short eats.
Food
They have short eats, fried rice, rice & curry available on weekdays while the yellow rice is only available only on Mondays. Aside from that, they do a couple of cold/ hot drinks.
Our Chicken Fried Rice (Rs. 300) came with two chunks of chicken and a serving of chilli paste. There wasn’t much to its seasoning, and quite frankly, it had a dry, oily texture.
The rice had pieces of carrots, leeks and egg mixed in. The chicken pieces didn’t feel all that fresh and came soaking in a thick, sauce that helped with the moisture but we weren't the biggest fan of it since it drowned out all the other flavours. This is more or less similar to your generic fried rice and has nothing to rave about.
There were three veg curries, papadum as well as two pieces of fish included in a portion of red rice in our Fresh Rice & Curry (Rs. 180). The fish was cooked well, and marinated with a good amount of spices without being overly hot. They had cut gotukola to bigger pieces than we expected, and it ended up as if we are just eating bitter leaves, no onions or lime to help the taste but at least it seemed fresh.
Mung beans curry helped with the curry flavours in the meal alongside the rabu (white radish) curry. While I am not the biggest fan of rabu, it was cooked adequately and helped with the lack of moisture in the rice. The soya curry didn't have enough flavours to save grace, but having mixed up with the gravy of fish curry, we were able to get some taste out of it. The papadum was crunchy and not soggy and overall, we feel that this buth packet has room to improve.
They had a few short eats on display and we grabbed an Egg Burger (Rs. 80) and a Doughnut (Rs. 80) from them.
The egg burger was basically an omelette stuffed inside a bun along with a layer of lettuce underneath it. There was a slathering of butter in there too, and the bun was soft and fluffy.
The doughnut pastry was a baked one and had a soft texture, but felt a bit dry. Thankfully, the chocolate layer on top wasn't too hard, but they could have been a bit generous with the cream inside.
Both of these can serve as okay snacks, but the burger was a better one of the two.
Drinks
*left – Iced Coffe, right – Apple Juice
The Apple Juice (Rs. 100) tasted quite off, more like a watered-down peach flavoured drink with a bit of tangy and sharp initial taste. We weren't quite impressed by it. However, the Iced Coffee (Rs. 100) was better than we expected while landing on the sweeter side. It had a smooth texture with a rich milky flavour as well as a decent amount of coffee notes coming through.
Ambience & Service
There’s not much in the way of ambience here, but you do have two small stools to sit while you wait for your food to come. The lady at the counter was polite and we didn’t see any issues in terms of service.
Conclusion
Office Cafe feels like a small version of Perera & Sons. It is packed with the office people around, getting their daily meals and such. Their prices aren’t bad but they can improve on the quality and flavours of it. Our experience wasn't a total disappointment, but we expected it to be a bit better than this. If you are in the area wanting just grab a meal this serves as an option.
