The Tasting room - Retro chic feel

The Tasting room is one of the best restaurants in Mumbai in terms of ambience; it's retro European look. It was on my list for over a year now. 

I loved the place from the moment I entered the restaurant. We ordered a white wine sangria pitcher and a cheese platter. The platter had Brie, Gorgonzola, Gruyere, grana. The spaghetti I ordered was aglio olio pepperoni. This costed around 3500 bucks - almost 2k for the pitcher.

 Ambience is the high point, food is ok. If I rank for only food, it would be 3. The ambience is one of the most romantic I have seen in Mumbai :) 

The Spare Kitchen

Well this one had been on my wish list for quite sometime due to its fantastic reviews on zomato. Finally we ended up here this weekend. The ambience is nothing special just usual but they have lot of seating space and big screen to watch matches

We sat and ordered some soup - mushroom espresso for self and tomato basil one for hubby. The tomato basil was good but mushroom espresso turned out to be pretty awesome and something new- note it has certain cinnamon taste and you may not like the soup if u don't like cinnamon so order it without cinnamon if u don't like it. 

We ordered one mAlai paneer tikka with burnt garlic- it was simply beautiful taste wise as well as presentation wise, did not expect anything paneery to be this good. Followed by this we ordered our main course. A veg messy burger for me Which was a pita bread burger and Mexican spiked chicken for hubby. The veg messy burger was excessively cheesy so I had to remove like layers to reach the burger patty. My bad I did not think too much about the name 'messy' before ordering. 

My hubby's dish was good just the chicken was hard and rubbery else I would have given this place a 4.5 if not for the chicken. Ok followed by what was the best dessert I had in a long time - a small cup of chocolate creme brûlée we shared with some raspberry flavor on outside and a biscuit - simply elegant. Can definitely return for that! All in all a very good experience and exactly matched my expectation:) 

ROMANTIC EVENING @ CHEZ MOI

 I prioritized visit to this particular restaurant because of the rave reviews.

First impression - very poor as when we entered there were only two places available for sitting and both had leakage due to ac or due to rain so we moved out but came inside as this was the only restaurant in the vicinity where we wanted to go this evening.

Loved the decor,small but cozy place. The menu was very innovative and so was its style of presentation. Everything was slightly old but artistic.

We ordered one red wine and one white wine sangria to kick off the weekend.  Both were great and also good in quantity. We also ordered a chicken Caesar salad and a chilly capsicum pepper chicken pizza. Both dishes turned out to be extremely good - delicious, tasty and healthy as well :)

Worth a trip coz of the food and ambience but avoid the rain. We liked the music also - quite retro and romantic. 

 

 

Authentic French Experience @ Le Pain Quotidien

Le pain quotidien - due to my love and knowledge for anything French - I wanted to come here but expected it to be just a try at French cuisine. What I instead found was a chain which is authentically French. I loved the food - the cheese, the bread and it reminded me of France. Even the decor of the place is very, very French - cosy, wooden and extremely connected to earth. 

The service is good. Coming down to what matters most - the food. The food was the best French I ever had in India. The tarting was full of ricotta cheese and tomato. I ordered some
Cold coffee for the hot afternoon and my hubby ordered beer. We ordered two separate dishes for main course. He ordered basil chicken with mushroom risotto. Absolutely awesome - see pictures. I ordered veg stroganoff and absolutely adored it.

 The quantity of both dishes was just right. What's more there was room for some dessert helping too for my hubby who ordered belgian chocolate brownie which I also tasted. You can refer pictures for dessert section. Extremely fruitful restaurant trip after a long time !! 

                                                                      

WEEKEND BREAKFAST@JAMJAR DINER

Jamjar diner is a place I really wanted to visit after reading all reviews and seeing pictures. It seemed quite interesting so finally decided to land up here for Sunday brunch. The place has an interesting decor and I sat reading Archie's comics after a long time which was great start to a lazy Sunday morning.

We ordered a spinach parsley pineapple juice which was very good and followed it up with "the full Monty" with cheese omelette toast potatoes bacon sausages and baked beans. Everything was good just the sausages were a bit overlooked. I ordered the spinach and mushroom crepes which were super awesome. I loved my dish!

Even the sandwiches and chilli cheese toast on other peoples tables looked sumptuous but we were too full to try anything else. We ordered the choco chip waffle just to end the perfect meal :) really will wait to come here again for brunch, I think this is my ideal place for Sunday brunch - casual and chic. 

It being decently priced and having great service adds to the overall experience.

                                  

Weekend Coffee Place- The Bagel Shop @Carter Road

I had heard a lot about this place and seen many great reviews so I was tempted to try it out. First time, we called to check if valet parking is available- and we got to know that even parking is not available like similar such restaurants in Bandra. So, we decided to sacrifice our car for coming here wondering the place better be worth it. 

We ordered one mocha frappe and one hazelnut frappe each to cool it off. The drinks were good. And we also ordered a tomato basil mozzarella pizza bagel which turned out to be good too. We had two friends joining, who had some cappucino and some scrambled egg with bagel and baked beans which was quite usual , nothing special.

I also wondered about the desserts which looked quite fresh, so I took out two- banana walnut bread and carrot philly cake for home delivery. Both desserts were ok, nothing great again.
The best part of evening was look and feel of the place, we tried sitting outside and it was good- bit humid so we moved inside and even inside it was very homely feeling. Pricing is ok, no dents in your pocket. Service needs bit of polishing, we ordered one dish which we never got and nor did we get the information if we can get the dish or not. Once we checked with them ourselves to know if we are getting something or not- we realised they cant make the dish, we ordered the cheque which was 1500 bucks for all this. 

But still due to the overall look and feel of the place and some great moments shared along with good coffee and food, this place was worth the effort put in. In lovely weather, it can be on your mind to visit.

Yum Desserts @ Haagen Dazs Bandra

I had been to the Haagen Dazs In Powai before this and did not have a great experience with the waffle. This time the experience was completely different. 

                            
The four of us  (friends) ordered special desserts - 4 different ones. Cookie crunch, royal Monte Carlo, chocolate fudge cake with coffee ice cream and a brownie with two scoops of chocolate Icecream. I tasted all four, 3 of these were exceptionally good. I was most happy with my choice of fudge cake with coffee ice cream both of which were simply delicious.

That's why they say simple pleasures in world sometimes give great pleasure :) The service is good, pricing is i think one of the most expensive compared to other such dessert places. But Haagen Dazs know people will pay that much for their ice creams.