Kebab Korner

Rest: Kebab Korner
Loc : The Intercontinental, Marine Drive
Meal : Dinner

Kebab corner is a place i have been planning on visiting but just never got around to. Part of it has to do with the deplorable Corleone next door which turned me off the Intercontinental for quite some time.
The food is mostly North Indian and kebabs which is apparent from the name. A whole bunch of restaurants under the 5 star chains do similar and comparable food.

KK is a relatively smaller in size when compared to Namak at Sahara Star or the monster that is Kebabs n Kurries at the ITC. However they make up for it with a brilliant, modern decor and a pretty classy ambiance.


we avoided starters and went in straight for the main course which was the Paneer Lababdar, Paneer in a tomato gravy, sweetish, sourish. Very good.

The Dal Makhani was exactly how it should be, the naan i was not impressed with.

The Biryani was average, dissapointing as it is their signature dish.

the dessert was Kulfi which was also okay.

Overall, the ambiance is brilliant and the food is decent but needs to climb another notch to be good enough to compare with the likes of Namak, Saffron, Kebabs n Kurries.

The service is friendly and attentive however i didnt like being railroaded into a bottle of water. I was never given an option to choose tap water, didnt argue as i get bottled water when i eat out in the monsoon.

Food : 7/10
Service : 8/10
Damage 2200 for two without drinks

Henry Tham

Rest : Henry Tham
Loc : Near the Gateway of India, Apollo Bunder.
Meal : Dinner

Sorry for the lack of updates but have been fairly busy with life and work and havent been any place new in a while, been mostly old favs. Until last night.

Henry Tham is a place i have wanted to go to more often but just never ended up visiting more than once. My last visit was in 2006 (read) It is more than just a restaurant, with its long bar and its ambiance it offers the feel of a lounge and is quite popular as a watering hole.

The menu is Asian and mostly Chinese heavy with some Thai thrown in.

With dinner they serve these amazing boiled peanuts and we must have eaten like 20 little bowls. brilliant !

drinks were mostly DC, JW & Corona

Appetizers were Onion pancakes and mushroom satay with peanut sauce. Both were pretty good.

The entrees were kung pao veggies which although very good were not very kung pao in flavour, the other entree was babycorn and mushrooms in a sauce i cant recall. Both dishes were actually similar in taste.

Hakka Noodles & Mushroom Fried Rice were fairly standard fare.

Overall, the ambiance of the place is upmarket, the decor is minimalist and its a swanky place to dine or drink at. At the same time the food is fairly competetive in its pricing and i for one felt it was value for money. The drinks are priced on the higher side.

The service is quick but cold (which is fine by me) when the cheque came in they made an error (charging for a large when we ordered a small, not reflecting their happy hour prices between 7.30-10.30) they were good enough to make the adjustment which was around 800 rupees. I am not sure if it was a genuine mistake or they were just trying to see if they could screw us !

Food : 8/10
Service : 7/10
Damage for 6 with 3 drinks 3500

Henry Tham's
Dhanraj Mahal
Apollo Bunder
Colaba, Mumbai
Phone 22023186, 22848214

The Sun

Rest : The Sun
Location : Napean Sea Road, near Urvashi.
Meal : Dinner

The Sun to me is one of the best restaurants serving Indian food and is a little South Bombay secret. They have a branch at Breach Candy but i have never been there. While its not expansive fine dine, its not a hole in the wall either. Limited seating and brilliant food.

The taste is good and fairly unique, just that different compared to any other place serving similar cuisine which is mostly North Indian.

The tomato soup wasnt that great ! light, sweetish.

The garlic naan was okay, not very impressive.

The Malai kofta is pretty much the best dish on the menu. I could probably stuff my face with a portion alone.

We also got a green peasy curry which was also fairly good. the Kashmiri Pulao is also one of their signature dishes.

Overall, the place continues to be briliant and value for money, for anyone in and around the area, give it a go. you wont be dissapointed.

Food : 8/10
Service : 8/10
Damage 1400 for 4.

London Eats Part 2

Ping Pong
My good friend Leonardo Purcell and i were meeting after two years, we walked from Leicester Sq outwards looking for a place to eat. Somehow we managed to get on Great Marlborough street and figured Dim Sums are worth a go.

Ping Pong is a fairly interesting place, the ambiance is tremendously modern and the accent is on the hip. The menu is a la carte or one can opt for set meals. They have a veggie meal and plenty of other options too. Leo went for the sea food meal and i opted for the veggies.
The veggie set lunch was 12 quid and offered

Baked
2 veggie puffs

Steamed
2 spinach and mushroom
1 vegetable bun
2 spicy vegetable
1 vegetarian sticky rice

Fried
2 vegetable spring roll

Side dish
1 fresh pickled vegetables

Dessert
Sticky black rice pudding

portions were pretty small, but there was enough coming so it works out okay i guess. The food itself was average, some of it was good while some was not so good. The dipping sauces were pretty weak, nothing great there. The dessert was disgusting.

Overall, the place is very cool, you can probably just have a few drinks and then move on elsewhere. Leo did say that his stuff was good, so maybe the carnivores should give it a shot.

Meal for 2 with a couple of pints was about 30 Pounds.

Hummus Bros

Hummus bros in the west end is a place my friend Giacomo Hugo Alfredo Morelli recommended for our once in four years dinner out.

The place is fairly similar to the Falafal joint we have here except its a lot more hip and serves more as a sit down and dine place than a fast food motif.

The concept is simple, you pick a base (hummus of different type) you pick a topping (mushrooms for me) and order pita (brown or white)

and then you dig in. I wouldnt have gone in here because its not exactly something i dont get to eat in Bombay itself, however the ambiance was far superior as was the food itself. The mushrooms were big and chunky and the pita was fresh. On more than occasion i have found Falafal in Bombay makes my stomach upset but that wasnt the case with ANYTHING i had in London...

Meal for two would run 20 pounds.

London Eats Part 1

Hi,

im back after my little fortnight away, a brilliant time it was. Saw some old friends and ate out as much as i could.

I will update the eats as i go along, however i want to make sure people dont mind reading about stuff which is not Bombay based for the next few updates. I have been getting some grief about not being all over Bombay and being a vegetarian.

If this is not what folks want, i can skip the excercise and stick to Bombay.

Do let me know.

Cheers.


Wagamama
1 clink street
(opposite vinopolis)
london
SE1 9BU

Wagamama is a set of noodle bars across England, there are plenty of options for vegetarians and others, the food is pretty good and the place is quirky as in the food comes as it is ready so you could get your appetizers after the main course.

The place is very very busy and quite popular, we visited the one at South Bank for a late late lunch and the place was still packed to the hilt.

be careful with the soups they are HUGE ! in fact you eat the soup with a serving spoon. The food can be a little on the lighter side when it comes to taste so dont expect heavily spiced Indian Chinese.

The decor is minimalist and the ambiance is peppy, lovely place for lunch. meal for 2 without alcohol would run about £25-30



Wahaca



Wahaca was a brilliant night out more because we had good friends there with us after a long long time. The place is extraordinarily popular and does not do reservations, the wait can be anything between 30-90 minutes. We spent close to a 100 quid at the bar waiting for our table.

The food is more authentic mexican than the usual cheesy tex mex, the taste is drier and less intense then what most tex mex eaters are used to. The ambiance is youthful and the prices on the lower side for a place in covent garden.



The best dish, not pictured here was the butternut pipian. fantastic !



A brilliant little thing is the sangrita which is basically very very fine tequila served with a spicy bloody mary like concoction. Both are in equal proportion and the idea is you sip both one after the other. Very different to the cheaper chugging tequila !

Meal for two would run £ 25-30.

London eats so far !

more later

Gone !

Flags

Rest : Flags
Meal : Lunch
Loc : Colaba



Flag is a relatively new Colaba based eatery, the place is spacious but the ambiance is nothing special. There are flags everywhere (not near enough) on the split level layout.

The menu as the name suggests is world cuisine and covers Italian, Pan Asian, Tex Mex, Middle Eastern.

The wife had a caiprioshka, which looked like a bit of a garden but tasted allright.

customary Diet Coke

The lemon iced tea was decent albeit small.

The nachos were grande style with beans, cheese, jalapenos, sour cream and guacamole. I must say they got the combination right, it was excellent, head and shoulders over the New Yorkers variety but not as good as say the Hard Rock.

The mushroom melange was a combination of a bunch of mushrooms (button, shitake, porcini etc) it sounded great as a concept but execution was not quite there. no treatment to it, dryish.

The enchiladas were def not authentic but they were allright, the sauce was a little on the hot side, coupled with the guacomole and sour cream it worked out nicely but it could have been better.

We also had a margeritha pizza which was pretty good.

Overall, the ambiance is on the generic side, the menu is far too expansive and the food itself is inconsistent and needs to be better to compete with some of the other places in that part of town. Although i do think the place is a tad overpriced.

The service is reasonably quick and friendly.

Food : 8/10
Service : 8/10
Damage : 1700

The Pizzeria

Rest : The Pizzeria
Loc : Marine Drive
Meal : Dinner

The Pizzeria is the sister restaurant of Not Just Jazz by the bay and part of the Mars restaurant group (Roti, 3 Flights Up, Dosa Diner, All Stir Fry, Gordon House amongst others) The thing about the Mars group is that they have a) always been ahead of their time when it came to chain dining. b) too eclectic in their product offering c) the food most places was either just not good or went downhill sooner or later)

The Pizzeria over the years has become a south bombay instituiton and fortunately nothing has changed over at the restaurant. They have resisted the urge to add air conditoning or redesign the place or the menu. The place continues to be insanely busy and consistently good.


The spiral pasta in pesto sauce with sund driend tomato and peppers was just too good. Creamier than i would like but the essence of the pesto came through, heavy but fairly satisfying little dish.

the beverage of choice was Diet Pepsi

One of the best pizzas in the world in my opinion. As much as i love goat cheese or feta on my pizza, this is the Bombay Masala, the king of all pizzas. Anyone who is coming to this city MUST go and try this evil dish. Just cant get enough.

Overall, the place continues to flourish, get their early in the evening or late in the afternoon if you want a quick seat or be prepared to wait upto an hour, especially Sunday lunch or dinner. Dont experiment too much, stick to the fundamentals.

Food : 9/10
Service : 8/10
Damage : 800

The Pizzeria
143, Soona Mahal
Marine Drive, Mumbai
Phone 22856115

Atrocious Cafe Moshe - Colaba

Rest : Cafe Moshe
Loc : Colaba, right next to Indigo Deli
Meal : Early Dinner

Moshe is one of my favorite restaurants, apart from the flagship there are numerous cafes spread across South Bombay. The one at Crosswords is one of the best (when it has all the items on the menu)


So when we heard that a new one had opened in Colaba, we decided to check it out, as it turns out, we shouldn't have bothered. The menu was supposed to be different from most of their cafes, they even have the fondues hitherto available only at the mothership.

The iced tea was allright, not a bad start.

the chocolate milkshake was average

we had the sun dried tomato and garlic fondue, not bad. Moshe has always done a good job with the fondue and it was evident with this one.

The pasta salad was disgusting, it was just some cream dressing with greens and cherry tomato's. It was just wrong to serve this as a dish, absolutely lacked taste, ingredients or imagination.

The pasta in tomato sauce was again, fairly horrible. No taste, no imagination, a generic tomato sauce thrown on some penne. I wish they had just retained the Moshes Penne which is a dish they perfected but this was just sick.

The sandwich was pickled aubergine and greens. Again, disgusting (homerun) no taste, no point, no imagination.

Overall, the ambiance is just average, the seating is limited and the service is okay. Indigo Deli next door will not be threatened by this outlet unless they take their game up a WHOLE notch.

The food is below par in almost every respect, which is shocking considering their pedigree and experience. I can chalk it down to its absolute newness but even in that case the service can be below par (which it wasn't) but the food should not be. Maybe Mr.Shek needs to slowdown his ever expanding chain and focus on the quality of the food.

Food : 3/10
Service : 6/10
Damage : approx 1100