Cafe 64 is Galadari's official bakery/pastry shop that serves up some good bakes and cakes, in their scenic outdoor dining area. It’s a buzzing spot in Fort for three reasons – they don’t require you to come in dressed all fancy, their selection is huge, and eating here doesn’t leave a dent in your wallet.
Food
Aside from the normal short-eats like fish buns and pastries, you can also get freshly made chinese/spring rolls, sandwiches, waffles, and hot dogs from their live action station. Almost everything here costs around Rs. 200 – 300 range, so we went ahead and ordered a bunch of stuff.
The Chicken Hot Dog (Rs. 200) came with a well cooked jumbo chicken sausage, tucked in between a soft bun. It was stuffed with fresh onion, tomatoes and lettuce and comes with a mildly spicy sauce with onion bits drizzled over it. This dish was very filling, and well worth every cent we spent on it.
Generously packed with bits of crab and veggies, the Crab Spring Roll (Rs. 130) was nice, crispy and not dripping with oil.
I was super excited for the Smoked Chicken Pastry (Rs. 140), until I realized that it's just a pastry stuffed with chicken ham (A.K.A an abomination) and half a boiled egg. Anyway, the pastry itself was puffy and light, the ham was cooked just right, while the rest of the filling contained a mix of potato and onions with strong notes of spice.
On the sweet side of things, we got a Peach Danish (Rs. 200), Caramel Pudding (Rs. 210) and a slice of French pastry cake (Rs. 220).
The Peach Danish was really good and came with a scoop of quality custard garnished with some peach slices. The pastry was flaky, not overly sweet and had layers of buttery goodness, which actually made for a good combo with the tanginess that comes from the peach.
Ah the caramel pudding! What heaven that was! It was super creamy, milky with a perfect shade of brown on top and comes soaked in caramel. The pudding itself wasn't very sweet, so all the sweetness that it has comes from the caramel itself. So good!
This is probably the best caramel pudding I've come across in Colombo, and let me tell you – I've had quite a lot.
Despite of the not-so-compelling presentation, the French pastry cake tasted pretty good. It came with gooey layers of chocolate icing, and the cake was rich, moist and spongy. Topped off with apricot, strawberry and a blob of pink colored (why?) buttercream frosting, it was garnished with abundant amounts of sugar strands as well. Try this out if you're looking for a sugar high.
Drinks
As for drinks, we got a Cappuccino (Rs. 450) and a Hot Chocolate (Rs. 230).
*Pictured above: Cappuccino (left), Hot Chocolate (right)
Cafe 64 really needs to put some more effort into their hot drinks, because both of them tasted pretty mediocre. The hot chocolate wasn't chocolatey enough – it was mostly milk and the consistency was off.
The cappuccino was a frothy scalded mess, and didn't have the proper texture of thickened milk so it was impossible to get any flavour across our palates.
Service & Ambience
Even if it's a part of Colombo's most popular hotels, Cafe 64 has been able to keep everything so simple, which we appreciate. All you have to do is select what you want from the counters, go to the cashier and make the payment. Afterwards they'll deliver it to your table. Simple as that!
The guys manning the counter seemed friendly, helpful and efficient.
The cafe has both indoor and outdoor dining, but on the day we went it was freezing inside, while the A/C was making a huge noise. We needed space to enjoy our meal at peace, which is why we preferred the outdoor seating. Plus, the view from here is good too, so why not?
Conclusion
Cafe 64 is a good spot to grab some snacks on the go, or maybe even to sit down and enjoy a few of them while having a chat (or sharing a smoke). They also do rice and curry packets for lunch, which are quite popular among the working crowd – causing them to run out by 1pm. So go there early if you want to snag a parcel for yourself.
