Indigo Deli Opens in Bandra

Was fortunate enough to get a preview of the new Indigo Deli in Bandra which is set to open its doors officially from tomorrow. The eatery has taken over Da Vinci as well as Gostana and is going to bring some snazz to the Bandra dining scene. Sorry no pictures this time. Images are courtesy of Indigo Deli. 

Indigo Deli is an immensely popular brand with two locations (three if you count the Cafe) their absence in Bandra has been felt for a while, although there are a myriad options, most of them are hit and miss and the closest Bandra has come to ID is Cafe Basilico.

So i think the Bandra folks should rejoice and revel.

The space is largish and fairly well laid out with a massive open kitchen. There are smaller tables for twosomes which an be put together for larger ones, the booths are quirky and saucer like and there is some outdoors seating as well.

Looks like it will make a brilliant Sunday place. I spent two hours noshing up with some wonderful company and wonderful food.

For Indigo Deli loyalists, the menu will seem familiar but it has enough dishes to give it, its own identity. They serve an all day breakfast and the Eggs on the Beach (610) a take on the traditional Eggs Benedict come highly recommended.

The Asparagus Artichoke & Arugula salad (365)came with a ranch/cranberry dressing, was pretty good i thought until i had a taste of the Poached Pear in Wine with caramelized Gorgonzola (365). It was just something else,  I spent more time picking at this while continued to grudgingly share my salad, just brilliant and i highly recommend this at any of the IDelis.

The baked mac & cheese (485) was good as always, also had a taste of the famed Indigo Deli pizzas but this margerita (445) was somehow very different. Thin as always but bursting with favour, couldn't eat just one, no siree bob.

A Chillee Cheese Toast is also on the menu, however i didn't get a chance to taste it, i did taste the charred asparagus & feta in a roomali. Brilliant, quite a huge roomali it was but pretty good.

The Dessert was okay, the crème brulee (285) was so so, the Tiramisu (285) was good and the Blueberry Cheesecake (345) was outstanding. The Dulce De Leche was much missed...

Overall, it was a great evening, Rahul Akerkar is not only a knowledgeable man with a great sense of humour, he is also a generous and attentive host & a cigar smoker which is a thumbs up in my book.

One of the first restaurants i went to with my friends as a kid was Under the Over at Kemps Corner where Rahul was the chef. Twenty odd years later, here we are. I hope to be at some more of these openings in the times to come.

Indigo Deli & Bandra are going to be great friends.

Indigo Deli.
Ground Floor, Fatima Villa. Just up the street from Golds Gym.

Amaedus

Rest : Amadeus Meal :
Meal  : Lunch
Loc : NCPA, Nariman Point

Having finished a much delayed meeting at Nariman Point, we were thinking about a spot of lunch, parking woes meant Status was out of the question and i did not want to lunch at my club (MCA-Garware) because i end up there often enough with my dad.

The wife loves Amadeus and since the rest of our schedule had been thrown out the door we decided to head on there to check it out once again. I have written about Amadeus before so i wont go into the decor which is high end.

Amadeus has a new lunch gig going, they call it the flying buffet which basically means they bring out the appetizers, mains and desserts to your table. You choose from a shot of soup, three starters and three mini mains and two desserts. If you think that is a lot, you would be right.

While the bread itself is not too bad, the herbed butter is awesome, especially the spicy tomato butter. The whole thing disappears in about three minutes.

That looks like a little heart of balsamic vinegar with olive oil.. its my fav dip for bread, mixing the two. 

a giant delicious glass of iced tea, reminds me of those giant glasses one gets at Blue Food restaurants.. pity Blue Foods cant do a meal to save their lives though.

Started off with fried corn, which tasted creamy, not bad but the portion was huge. The Catalan potato, was spectacular, brilliant heavy handed flavour, tongue numbingly good. Proceeded to wolf the whole thing down.

Jalapeno and goat cheese pizza, brilliant, there were some pieces of sweetish onions thrown in there for good measure. Very well done.

The Gazpacho was terrific, a tad spicy but terrific. They need to serve larger portions of it, was at a party eons ago (perhaps at Indigo Deli) where they served gazpacho shots, thought the same thing then too..Good Gazpacho deserves larger portions.

The crepes three ways were spinach, avocado and Sicilian.In all honesty, i would have preferred all three of the Crepes to be Sicilian as it was brilliant, a little spicy but nonetheless brilliant. While the spinach was not bad, the avocado was bland. 

The paella was decent, tasted pretty good, however i am not a paella fan, would have been happier had they served one of their tagines. The wife loved it enough to want to make paella at home..

Grilled veggies (not pictured here)in Romesco sauce was basically like a Spanish Pesto sauce, not bad, i loved that the veggies were crispy. 

Chocolate ice cream with almonds and something orangey.. not bad though i had to strain to find the hints of orange.

The kahlua tiramisu was deranged, spectacular, if you ant to know how good it was, the wife said it was almost as good as the tiramisu she had in Milan (against which all tiramisu is judged)

Overall, the ambiance is nice, the service quick and friendly, the lunch seems to be popular too as i counted about 50-60 covers while we were there.

The food is good, the appetizers were fantastic and could have been a meal in themselves.

The entrées were not bad but definitely the weaker part of the meal. A little more finesse here and the meal would go from good to great. The dessert too was top notch.

Amadeus is a strong choice for a business lunch/working lunch, you do not have to get up to get food and there is enough choice to keep you interested. Price wise the lunch is way cheaper and more value for money than an Indigo or a meal at the Oberoi next door but its not cheap.

Be advised that the portions are HUGE, you would be lucky if you made it to dessert.

Food : 8/10
Service : 8/10
Damage: 2250 (850pp) 

Interview @ Blog Adda

Interviewed by the good folks at Blog Adda, you can read the whole thing here. 

Review of Cafe Zoe coming up at some point this weekend. Cheerio.