You know how certain scents and flavours can bring back memories? Well, the menu at the Central Bar District (CBD) in HAL centres around the familiar and comforting, soul food that can take you back in time to summer holidays and stolen moments of fun and frolic.

Crafted by Ajit GS, chef Gaurav Raghuvanshi and Aman Dua, both the food and drink at CBD is bound to have you loitering down memory lane.

Take for example, Maggi, India’s first ever instant noodle brand. Today, dozens of options line supermarket shelves, to say nothing of the abundance of pan-Asian restaurants that give us regional delicacies from the Orient. Yet, there is something about Maggi that remains a guilty pleasure and chef Gaurav has given it a different avatar with the Maggi fish finger — fish crumbed with noodles, fried and served with a sauce created from the Maggi masala sachet.

The team has done a great job in crafting some forever favourites as finger foods; after that first expectant bite brings familiar comfort, there is a tendency to over-indulge. The Dilli butter chicken puffs, smoked ghee roast tacos and Bombay sev puri tart are not just miniature novelties — they are interesting, innovative and above all, delicious.

The gunpowder potatoes here are excellent, but the four cheese soya malai chaap, though highly recommended was a bit of a let down. Though its cheesy sauce was rather tasty, the texture inside was floury.

The drinks here, were unlike others we’ve encountered elsewhere. There is the revised rasam — a vodka-based concoction which looks nothing like rasam, but tastes everything like it, with an added kick. The kantara with betel leaf, basil, camphor and rum is CBD’s ode to the forest. Cucumber juice and fresh basil with red wine and gin make up morning mist, a refreshing afternoon tipple.

For those who want to enjoy a meal minus the pub experience, CBD does not disappoint. Staples and favourites from around the country have made it to the menu such as the mudda pappu avakaya, Nellore kodi kura, mutton rogan josh and more.

We try the dal bukhara, Amritsari chole kulcha and vegetarian donne biryani, and much like everything here, they hit the spot. The dal was smoky and velvety, the chole were soft and tangy and the biryani bursting with flavour.

For dessert, we had the ladoo cheesecake. I’m not sure what cheesecake lovers would make of it, but it was unusually crafted. Velvety smooth cream cheese sits atop a crust comprising crumbled motichoor ladoos bound by ghee (which one would never guess), and is topped with motichoor pearls.

With three levels, each with its own vibe, visitors to CBD are sure to find the spot of their choice, whether it is the sedate ground floor, al fresco-style setting of the first floor or the top floor which is a nod to the ‘thotti mane’ of old.