My clogged city lungs are stunned into breathing as I pant my way up Tripura Castle Road, Shillong. I’m headed for a cafe that crowns the hill, and the vertiginous pony path is edged by purple pansies that nod their smiling faces in the nippy breeze. Blue dahlias and white star-gazers, tangle-headed wisps of sweet peas and baroque spires of gladioli cover the hillside that stretches between the log cafe with a low roof of green shingles and the red-tiled church across the valley. I stop to pause — it’s the loveliest commute to lunch I’ve ever made.
Cafe Shillong Heritage, which is perched by the castle that lends the road its name, serves Pan Asian, Continental and Northeastern specialities, but it’s their unusual desserts that are worth the climb. Wooden floorboards creak as I head to my seat by the open glass window that offers views of the town below, with patches of wild berries running riot over the hills. Frank Sinatra insists I’m ‘South of The Border’ and the lilies in the table vases give off a heady fragrance. The roast chicken has clearly been reared in the hills and definitely plucked the minute I called for it — it’s succulent and fresh and the mashed potato tastes like whipped cream.
The stir-fried bell peppers are vibrant, while the peas are the green of the grass outside, where a family of sparrows is picking at the fallen conifer cones. The meal’s filling and clearly I should pass up dessert, but Nafeesa, the staff, promises Berry Shots would be my most enduring memory of Shillong.
Made from sohiong, a purple rich berry that grows in clusters and resembles blackberries, the dessert arrives in a clear shot glass topped with the cut fruit. It’s chilled and the dessert spoon jabs at it to make a dive and scoop out a portion. I thaw it on my tongue before I swallow. It’s light as a gelato and has the comforting tang of homemade squash. The bottom is layered with a sweet concentrate that balances the tartness.
As I swallow, my taste buds explode — with the freshness of the fruit, the lightness of the mist that cloaks the berries every morning and the flavour of the hills that lend it its soul.
