The Cafe that takes you to Northeast India
The Ant’s Café and Store, Whitefield.
The Action Northeastern Trust alias ‘the ant’ is a registered public charitable trust working on the development of Northeastern India. They work directly in and around 220 villages across 6 wok clusters in the Northeast India focusing their activities in the development of,
- Empowerment of Women and Girls
- Promoting Community Health
- Child and Youth Development
- Remote Areas Development Programme
- Peace and Justice Promotion
- Building Sustainable Livelihoods
Ants, though small, do a lot of hard work for the development — having this as a motto, the trust is running a lot of awareness across India. Food industry is one such place, where the awareness as well as knowledge of such activities can be brought to crowd very closely.
They started, The Ant’s Café and Store, in hope of spreading the awareness of need for development in the northeastern India. They have their chain at Indira Nagar and Whitefield in Bangalore. I recently visited the Whitefield café and I was stunned.
The café is located a little inside from the main Whitefield road. Though roughly 200mts inside the place turns into a very calm and serene spot, completely away from the noise and pollution of the city. The place is little less maintained or looks a bit ‘still-building-to-look-beautiful’. It gives you the feel of a good estate, the moment you enter. A big duplex house with the look of an old British construction. It has a vast and spacious outdoor seating, but accommodates a medium set of crowd. It has around 10 4-seating table outside and only 1 4-seating inside. They dedicated the entire house for showcasing the best handcrafted product collections from northeast.
Made under the development schemes and activities of the trust, they also encourage the long-last-art of the northeast. The house is beautifully molded into a ‘craft store’ holding hundreds of products. From Fashion to Home decor, they have products in everything. The ‘Bell-Metal’ products are my favorite of the lot. In fashion, available for both men and women, they have northeastern style shirts, tops, one piece, fashion accessories, dresses, kurthas, amazing stoles and scarfs. In home decor, they have beautiful hangings, show pieces, cushions, bamboo weaved products, bed lamps, coffee and tea cups and many more. They also have herbal products and organic packed foods. This place has great collection of state-of-the art products.
Coming to the Food sector,
Food — 3.5/5; Ambiance — 4.5/5; Service — 4/5; VFM — 3.5/5; Experience — 4/5;
| Ambiance:
With the outdoor seating, the place is just amazing. It has be little well maintained, especially with the running cable wires here and there. A place like this is a perfect get-away for a lazy and calm Sunday brunch.
| Food:
Food was good. We ordered an English breakfast, an Alfredo Pasta, a Cranberry Juice and a Café Mocha.
English breakfast had, Eggs either Sunny Side Up / Scrambled / boiled, Chicken Sausages, Sun-dried Tomato, Sauce baked Potato and Beans. They serve this with a complimentary slices of bread and butter and choice of coffee / tea / juice. Except the beans, everything was just perfect. The beans alone just takes away the entire dish. They don’t have fresh juice so they serve only canned juice.
Alfredo was great as usual. Cheesy, creamy and mouth watery. The amount was good and the chicken was well cooked.
Café Mocha was average. The blend wasn’t just rite.
| Service:
The guys were great. They receive well, they informed us about the dishes and juice well. Not much waiting was there as the crowd was hardly there.
| VFM:
The bill was 950/- and change which I think is a little more to the taste. But for the cause they support, the place is worth the visit.
The place is just amazing and looking for some improvement in ambiance to improve it’s beauty even more. An amazing visit and worth the time and money.
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