Busaba

Rest : Busaba
Meal : Lunch
Loc : Colaba, Next to Indigo & Cotton World

Lulu covered this in her blog first.

Busaba has been around forever but i have never really taken up the place other than for the odd drink. It was never big enough or lounge enough to become a regular bar and because of that i (regrettably) never dined there.

Busaba offers a quirky mix of near and far Eastern delicacies without being partial to anyone particular region as city restaurants are want to do (usually Chinese as its probably the most popular cuisine in its Indian or more authentic version) id like to see them tackle Malaysian too.

The A La Carte menu is on the expensive side, a meal for two without drinks would probably run about 1700-2000. However they offer a very value for money Crunch Lunch which is 350 and offers 2 salads, 3 appetizers, 3 entrees, noodles and rice, 2 desserts. All of it on the authentic rather than Indianized side (which is why the prices might be relatively higher)

The place is a smallish 40 seater on the first floor while the ground floor is a bar/lounge which could be better used for dining. The decor is showing its age but works.

Started off with a decent iced tea.

There was a glass noodle salad with peppers which was pretty good, the sushi was excellent, the sesame potato on toast was mind bogglingly melt in your mouth good. The gado gado is some stir fried veggies with tofu in a little bowl and it too was excellent. The cold Vietnamese spring roll was average.

The Masaman pak was fantastic, mushrooms and stir fried veggies cooked in wine were okay. there was another entree which i cant recall by name but i do recall that it was way too spicy. The rice was okay and the noodles were fairly average (they should really come up with better noodles)

Fairly average chocolate thingy.

Blueberry mousse, would have worked if it was colder.. it just tasted wrong at room temperature.

Overall : They served some fantastic appetizers, the mains again were inconsistent but they have some serious potential. However they need to work on their PR and table service. We were 2 of 6 people there at 2pm which is sad as they really do deserve a shot.

The service was quite lame, it took them forever to pick up used dishes and silver ware, the major domo kept shouting on the phone to replenish the buffet which could be done quietly out of earshot of patrons. A big no no that at ANY restaurant let alone one which charges such prices.. or maybe they figured it was the cheap lunchers, they deserved the drab effort.

A good idea would be to make it a sit down 3-5 course meal, cut out the buffet and maybe raise prices by say 100-150 bucks which would turn the thing around (but would suck for me coz i like it this way)

Either way, the lunch is tremendous value for money as well as almost brilliant... Must Have! i know i will again.

Food : 8/10
Service : 6/10
Damage : 800

Busaba
4 Mandlik Road
Colaba, Mumbai
Phone 22043769, 22043779, 22043772