Hornby's Pavilion - The best city coffee shop after hours

Restaurant : Hornbys Pavilion
Meal : 4am binge

Location : ITC Grand Central
Company - Ze Wife, Mr&Mrs Singhania, Mr.Patel

You getting a pang of hunger at midnight? or post midnight? where do you go?
In Bombay only hotels are allowed to have restaurants that stay open for business beyond midnight.

Therefore your choices are limited especially Palms shut down and Shamiana refuses to improve. Trattoria isnt exactly a coffee shop, The Bayview is just boring and Flavours is just plain bad.

Having finished a night out around 1.30. we hoped to get to Ra for the 4am deadline. However when we got in and the cops were already there peeing on the parade. Not wanting to end early and considering the above choices we avoided the drive back downtown and head to the ITC Grand Central.

Mr & Mrs Singhania at The Hornbys Pavilion

Their coffee shop is the Hornbys Pavilion is on the first floor, an average looking coffee shop (average for a 5 star anyway) but it rocks where it counts. The food was superlative (as usual) offering an expansive menu overall,which is only slightly shorter for the midnight version. They also offer a midnight buffet (550+taxes)and an all day light breakfast dining menu which is also lighter on the wallet.

Ze wife looks on at the hungry lunatics

Drinks - Cold Coffee (150), Cappuccino (125) (good)

Eats - We ordered Beans on toast (220) The Hornbys Omlette (210) Pancakes (195). The beans on toast seemed canned to me, the taste was just too uniform and seemed but they were pretty good nonetheless.

Mr.Patel is extremely pleased with his omlette

The pancakes were fantastic, i finally found a place for decent pancakes in this city. The best pancakes money can buy this part of town (better than the Indigo Deli pancakes)

The Hornbys omlette was amazing, soft, delicious with veggies and mushrooms served with a side of toast and a grilled tomato.

Me defending my pancakes at all costs

There are plenty of other usual options like dessert, ice cream and heavier courses western and Indian depending on how hungry you are. The service was good but can be inconsistent. The crowd there was plain weird.

Service : 8/10 Food 9/10

Damage : 1700

Hornby's Pavilion
ITC Grand Central Sheraton & Towers,
Dr. Ambedkar Road, Parel, Mumbai
24101010

Best Thali - Friends Union Joshi Club

What is a Thali?
A thali (platter) is a system of eating very popular in parts of the country. It is a complete meal served in a large steel plate and consists of an 1-2 appetizers, 4 veggies, daal and curry, 2-3 types of bread and two kinds of rice along with dessert and other accompaniments (pickles, onion, salad, buttermilk).

There are many kinds of thalis - gujarati, south indian, north indian, maharashtian etc (gujarati being the most popular) They can be unlimited/bottomless (all dishes except dessert are all you can eat) or set meal.

How it works
The serving process is the same as any other thali restaurant. Each server is dedicated to serving the dish or dishes and comes by at every interval to make sure you can have more of what you like. Within a few minutes everything on the menu is served to you and you begin, when the server returns, you either take what he has or ask him to move along.

Thalis for me
My dad loves a good gujju thali. Its is his single fav thing when we dine out. He passed on his passion for the thali to me. So along the years he has had a few favorites such as Thackers (Birla at Chowpatty) Rajdhani at Kalbadevi, Panchvati near Bombay Hospital.

He recently took me to a nondescript place in Kalbadevi called the Friends Union Joshi Club. It isnt an easy place to find, being on the first floor of some million year old building. While walking there i was wondering if my dad had finally hired someone to bump me off because if he had there is no way they would have found my carcass.

When you walk into the place the first thing that hits you is how the place probably hasn't changed for the 50 odd years it has been in existence. A very basic eatery this one, simple chair and tables in a U formation. This one is all about the food.

The Dishes
They serve a typical thali 4 vegetables, farsan, rotis and small bhakri, sweet dal, chaas, rice or khichadi, chopped salad, chutney and pickle. Dessert can be gulab jamun, rasgullas, or whatever is seasonal (aam ras nowadays). however dessert isnt included in the price of the thali and is extra. The chaas(buttermilk) was great.

FUJC more so than other thali places work on the principle of home cooked food. i.e. if you go to a gujarati household you will have more or less a similar meal (not just in the name of the dishes but the cooking will be a lot closer)

The verdict
Ultimately the meal was great. It was clean, light, all the dishes were nicely done, with less oil, the buttermilk was great. All this done in a simple surrounding. Sometimes simplicity works better. instead of focusing on the ambiance the FUJC has focused on the food and the people who come here (typically local shop keepers, single men or those who live away from their families

Other Thalis
There are a million thali restaurants in Bombay, some that charge close to 220 a thali (FUJC was around 90) and serve you on luxurious surroundings in chilled rooms with attentive service. However the food turns out to be weaker than anything dished out at FUJC.

Thackers (Chowpatty)
Rajdhani (Kalbadevi, Opera House)
Golden Star (Charni Road)
Chetna (Kala Ghoda)
Status (Nariman Point)
Samrat (Churchgate)
Panchvati (near Bombay Hospital)
Shagun (Bombay Central)

Out of these Samrat is ok, Shagun does a regular set meal thali which is actually pretty good. Chetna is dreadful. The others are just a lot of style over substance.

Friends Union Joshi Club
381-A Narottamwadi, Kalbadevi Road, Mumbai
Phone 22058089

Tzatziki - A garlic, cucumber dip from the Mediterranean

While i was in Athens i got to try and a wonderful little dish called Tzatziki. The last time i had this was at a Turkish restaurant in New York with cracked bread (the turks call it Cacike)

Anyway, this is a sublime dish, enough to rock your socks and tingle your taste buds. It can be head for breakfast and as an appetizer for lunch or dinner and if you are particularly fond of it (like i am) as a whole meal.

This restaurant round the corner from our hotel in Athens served it with Bread soaked in olive oil and herbs. By the time we would get done with it there was really no more hunger left (well throw in a bottle of house wine at 3Eur , what else is going to happen)

One of my best friends mum makes a dip very similar to this, except she leaves the cucumber out and lets the yoghurt in thicker.