Art Cafe in Dhaka(!)

I have lived in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, for most of my life. Never in the past has anyone seen anything like the boom in the restaurant scene that is happening now.

Now, I know that I implied that new restaurants and cafes are popping up like mushrooms across the city, but finding a good one is still rare! So without expecting anything extraordinary, I went to this place called "Storm in a Cup", suggested by the friend I was meeting. I knew that the restaurant had just opened and was not alarmed by the lack (absence is perhaps a better word for this situation) of customers they were serving.

There was no other customer.

I don't know how many of you can relate, but when you walk into a place with no customer but five waiters, you do feel a bit under the spotlight! A feeling I do not enjoy.

This made me rush to find a spot to settle in. I found a couple of stools by a big window overlooking the crazy-busy Science lab signal. For some reason it's always nice to see a city from the top, so despite the chaos on the street I was quite pleased with the view.

It wasn't until several minutes later when my friend arrived and told me that the rest of the cafe had even better views. He also introduced me to the owner of the cafe, who was his friend. The owner asked me what I thought of the cafe and told me that the cafe was actually an art gallery and the arts on display are for sale! I had never seen or heard of anything like this in Dhaka, so I was thoroughly impressed. It wasn't until this point that I noticed the number of art pieces on the different walls. I had only observed that the cafe had a tasteful decor and great views of the busy city from certain angles. The place actually had an admirable number of arts and each section had a specific style of art. There was one room which was kept locked, but the owner showed me inside. The most expensive pieces were kept in this room and no food or drink was served here.

Oh! I did order a Mango Lemon Spritzer and it was really nice (could use a little more ice though) and my friend ordered some pasta and a coffee and looked content with it. As some of the first customers of the cafe, we also got some brownies on the house!! All in all, the experience (not just the brownie, but also the art!) was a pleasant surprise.

I have already told everyone I met about this cafe and decided that more people needed to know about it (thus me writing about it), after all good efforts deserve to be recognized.