Cafe By The Beach

Rest : Cafe By The Beach

Loc : Right before Chowpatty Beach
Meal : Early evening snack

Salt Water Grill (here and here)was perhaps my favorite spot to hang out in (not the best restaurant by a long shot) until political pressure and ulterior motives forced them to shut down. I do miss being able to go there and sit by the ocean while having a bite, so i was quite excited when i heard that the space was re-opening.

The Cafe by the Beach as its now known is under new management and focused on a rather healthy cafe menu with salads, sandwiches wraps etc. The menu is reasonably varied, they even do cheese platters as well as a deli meats platter. I have been told they will soon have daily specials in play as well. There is no liquor or wine available and though id miss it, i am sure its really not worth the hassle and the payoffs.
 

 The place is just brilliant, as good as i remember it, having your feet in the sand while looking out at Bombay is quite something and its a pity that ridiculous zoning regulations deprive the people of vistas like the one below. 

Thankfully the new management has been smart enough not to really mess with a good thing, there have been minimal changes to the original decor, some of the canopied tables are gone, there is a strong Buddha-Zen motif running, the lounge chairs are still there which is great.

Spied these at a table nearby and snapped em, looked pretty good, they have a decent selection for breakfast but i have never been a fan of the viennoiserie.

i did however, split (literally) a blueberry muffin with the wife, tasty, very tasty.

The open faced balsamic tomato with mozzarella was freshy fresh tasting. It came with a side of dialed down mustard (god i hate mustard) and some upma which was cut in a neat little square, a very nice touch. Also a nice touch were the thinly sliced potatoes.

The iced-tea was not too sweet, which is just as well, however not pictured here is the fantastic orange peel cooler which though sweet was pretty stellar, a must order.

This was the view we saw by the time we got going to the other items in the menu.

The watermelon salad with feta was effing good. About the only way watermelon should be eaten in my opinion.. is with a dollop of feta cheese. I had another version of this at Indigo Deli recently as well. The only problem was that it was not the salad i had ordered and watermelon being a watery fruit, tends to leave a lot behind in the plate when you slice and dice.

The Napolitano wrap was pretty pretty good, recommended by the chef over the others, the wraps come in little bite sized portions which is a nice touch, easy to eat, especially for an animal like me.

The salad i had originally ordered, grape with goat cheese, they got it for me in the end anyway, not bad, but nothing stellar, not a patch on the Watermelon.

Overall, its great to have a proper place on the beach open again, that alone is worth the price of admission (just an expression) its a downright dirty shame that stupid regulations by stupid people prevent good things from happening (or maybe that's how they get their bribes going)

While i was there there were two pretty Asian ladies giving foot massages, which can never be a bad thing. The place is being positioned as an all day cafe dining space, which means the atmosphere is casual and the pricing not too bad. Once the specials are available it should round out the menu nicely.

However, its still a safe menu, not too much experimentation and there is plenty of that around (Indigo Deli's, Moshe Cafe's, Smoke House Deli etc) they all tread the same ground. The location and ambiance is certainly what sets this far apart from the competitors.

Service was friendly and eager to please all around though a tad scatter brained but you can chalk that down to early days. The front of house is not as snobbish as the Salt Water Grill used to be (unjustifiably so)thankfully.

Food : 8/10
Service : 7/10
Damage : 2100 for 2