Sun Dance Cafe

Rest : Sundance Cafe
Cafe Meal : Lunch
Loc : Eros, Churchgate




Sundance Cafe, evokes nostalgia, having gone to school and college in the area.. it was one of the two spiffy eating joints in the immediate vicinity (Gaylord being the other) It was also a practically unaffordable place to dine at throughout school and junior college.


I lamented its loss a few years ago, however its time had truly passed. After some unfortunate changes in avatar first as the French bistro Chez Vous and another even shorter lived version which i cannot recall, the lease was taken up by the team behind 212 who were smart enough to retain the name and updated the menu to keep up with the times.

Lunch with VB, fellow foodie, writer, ex GQ online editor and budding entrepreneur was scheduled a week in advance and i for one was looking forward to it.

It continues to be a split level eatery and takes a page out of the LPQ book of wood & veneer styling. Its cheerful and fairly comfortable, although the tables are packed fairly tightly. The menu was huge, designed to look like a newspaper.. dishes range from eggs, pancakes and other breakfast goodies to salads, sandwiches, burgers, you name it and they have it. I am not a big fan of huge menus because invariably the larger the menu, the worse its execution.

Started off with the Falafal in little pita pockets, served with labneh and hummus. The falafal was excellent, dont just right, the labneh was pretty good too, the hummus could have been better.

The Baked Camembert was on the money too, served with some bread and massive potato wedges, burnt my mouth a little but boy was it worth it.

I forget what the salad was called but it was rocket leaves, red wine poached pear with yellow peppers and goat cheese i reckon. Very nicely done too, went down quick and easy as it rightly should.

Overall, the place is nice, the menu is too big, perhaps they can go through and remove what does not work eventually but for now you are pretty spoilt for choice. However the place offers something for pretty much everyone and i certainly see the need for more places like it, that do good things and do them well. It has the potential to be a strong alternative to Indigo Deli, Moshe, LPQ if they can be consistent.

The service unfortunately is slow and a little disorganized. The salads took 20 mins to show up and were served with the salads, this is one of the cardinal sins in my opinion of the restaurant biz.

They staff mean well but really need to be trained a little more when it comes to knowing their menu and being able to communicate information. A separate menu for smoothies was on our table and VB spent 5 mins figuring which one he liked only to find out smoothies were not available.

You guys can add a service charge but come on, earn it. I blame management for this.. wake up folks.

Food : 8/10
Service : 6/10
Damage : 2100 without drinks.

China Garden

Rest : China Garden
Meal : Dinner
Loc : Om Chambers, Kemps Corner

With the wives out of action, my kid brother and i got together for dinner and since we were too tired to go too far, we took the 5 min drive and dove straight into what is arguably the best ChIndian restaurant anywhere.

 

They have been around forever and are quite good at what they do. i have grown up around a few Chinese joints and China Garden was always the special one you went to for celebrations. 
Even on a Thursday night at 8.30 they were reasonably full which is good to see.

One of our standard starters are the onion pancakes, served with a dipping sauce, which we conveniently ignored.  Deadly crisp, these were just so good !

Fried wontons, again, very good but in hindsight we should have gone for a dim sum or a steamed wonton.. fried is just way too much like the onion pancake.

The Kung Pao Paneer was just brilliant, loved it. it does not get more Indo-Chinese than this.

Since it was just the two of us, they recommended a half portion of Noodles instead of a full which was a good idea, as we just about the right size.

Overall, the restaurant continues to kick ass, the food was sterling, no complaints what so ever. Perhaps i would like to try some new things next time, the service is warm and friendly, especially if you are a regular.

Food : 9/10
Service : 8/10
Damage : 1200 for two.

Starbucks

So Starbucks finally made it to India after threatening to do so for years. The hype has been immense, with people queuing up to get in a city where the very same people would not queue to vote.

I happened to visit Starbucks after a disastrous lunch at The Pantry and since the car was parked nearby we swung in and found a short queue. The place is massive and has been laid out with a distinctly Indian/Bombay vibe, well done to them on that. That is surely the Tata hand playing in.

Unfortunately they have chosen an insanely high traffic area like Horniman Circle where one would bricks of gold before they would find a parking spot. There is apparently another outlet at the Taj Palace as well as in some mall in Goregaon West.

I had a tomato mozzarella panini which was pretty good although i was not impressed with the choice of bread.

I had the middle sized Mocha Frappucino and it was outstanding. The latte was ordinary and the caramel frapuccino which was not bad but not as good as mine. Id go there again if it were easy to get coffee. Hopefully they will open a few more outlets closer to home.

Damage : 730 for 3 coffees, a sandwich and a muffin.