Goan

Description:

Food is really amazing. You will not miss goa where food is concerned if u go here. The place opens by 11:30am..make sure ur the first to get there or else ull not get somethings as they get over real fast. The best part is the price...really really cheap. The place is not that gr8 where ambiance is concerned but its best to order and take home. While u r waiting for ur order make sure u eat the caramel custard...its just out of this world.

Description:

So Casa Soul Fry is the newer sibling of the Soul Fry in Pali Naka (not reviewed as of 13/04/07)

The decor is really nice. Understated but warm.

The menu is very similar (if not identical) to the older establishment. The have live bands on wknd evenings (call and check) and unlimited lunch on sundays.

The service was good, atleast the guy who waited on us was patient, and came up with good suggestions (not the most expensive ones)

We had the prawn loncha (prawns tossed in a dry coconut/garlic/curryleaf filling) was excellent, ordered a repeat.

the bombil fry was subpar, flattened thin, and the rawa breading was too thick and maybe a little burnt. I for one prefer the non-flattened bombils anyway, but restaurants seem to be thinking otherwise.

We ordered two crab gravies, one was the richard(s). a deep red, spicy but sweet like a typical goan curry. very good. The other crab was a more traditional dried coconut/onion based gravy, but was ordinary. the crabs themselves were very good though.

ordered a teesrya gravy. good but not great. so was the fried bangda, the breading was too thick, altho the fish was nice. ordered rotis/nans/rice etc as well.

the beer was nice and chilled. 4 people ran up a bill of 2500. but we over-ate and drank well..

overall place is more formal than the pali market cousin, but definitely recommended.

Description: Located near Airoli Naka this bar and restaurant has spacious seating, nice ambiance, cheap booze and good inexpensive food. We had the following

Prawns Koliwada	Surmai Anjuna Fry

The Prawns Koliwada was not too great. Tasted more like prawns bhajiya. The Surmai Anjuna Fry was interesting. It had a taste of methya (methi dana). This was followed by

Mutton Hara Sukka	Goan Fish Gravy

The Mutton Hara Sukka was good and could have been excellent if it they hadn't served it dripping with oil. The Goan Fish Gravy tasted like a standard Surmai Gassi. Hard to mess up and tastes great with rice. The drinks are quite cheap at about 125 a quarter of Fuel Vodka. One of the few decent places currently if one wants to have inexpensive drinks with decent food and good ambiance in Airoli.

Description:

A Konkani restaurant in Kormangala which serves fresh seafood.

We had the following:

- Prawns Butter Pepper Garlic which were excellent. Large juicy prawns.

- Mussles Spicy Fry which was a bit overcooked or burnt.

- Surmai Fry - Just perfectly made

- Mangalorean Fish Curry - Good.

- Chicken Ghee Roast - Not bad but it felt more like a punjabi chicken kabab dish rather then what I tend to compare Chicken Ghee Roast to wiz the one served at Shetty Lunch Home in Kundapur where you order it an hour in advance and it comes spicy and dripping of ghee. The one at Kubay could have used a bit more methi, red chilli and ghee.

- Sannas - Rice Idlis which were nice.

While I was there I saw a lot of Bombay and Maharashtrian folks there which is not surprising cause you get great seafood in Kubay like Apurva, Mahesh, Bharat, Trishna etc in Bombay so this must be a place of nostalgia for a Bombayite which is exactly what I was feeling although I had only left Bombay a week ago.

Few cons.

- It doesn't have a bar. That would have really rocked :)
- It appears to be more of a afternoon place as most seafood was run out by 2PM.
- The service is decent but they could be friendlier. Somehow one got the feeling they were in some hurry to run out of the restaurant.

Conclusion: A must visit place if you are a seafood and konkani cuisine lover.

Description:

Khotachi Wadi is one of the few places tucked away in south Mumbai that takes you back in time. It is a pedestrian only lane, narrow, and has a small christian shrine in a cul-de-sac. The candle is always lit. Old fashioned houses, closely packed, snuggle into each other. If you are lucky, you will see an old gentleman strumming a guitar and humming a tune. And some kids calling out to each other from the balconies. You almost expect a bullock cart to pass by.

Anant Ashram is a place which reinforces the old world charm of Khotachi Wadi. Walk a few steps into this quaint little lane and you will see a old signboard on the top of a two-storey building. Anant Ashram was established more than 50 years ago, as a mess for young Maharastrian bachelors from rural/coastal Maharashtra and it is a veritable culinary heritage site.

Make sure you are on time (Lunch 12 noon to 2 pm, Dinner 7 to 9 pm, Sunday holiday). Otherwise the grizzled old waiter will ask you to get lost, in no uncertain terms. In Marathi.

During lunch hour on most days, you will have to spend some good minutes waiting in the queue.

Having made it in, you will have to fit yourself between a wooden chair and a marble-topped table, both from the last century. The waiter will come and look at you. Tell him what you want (Hindi would do, English also works a bit). I would recommend fish fry and fish curry (Rs 40 each). Along with the "specials" you will get three chapatis, a katori of tangy solkadi (spicy kokum + coconut milk), green mint chutney, some onion, a pinch of salt and one "unit" of rice. This is charged, but well below Rs 10 each. If you still have space inside you, order Prawns curry with one more unit of rice. (I order one more fish curry when I am really hungry - I just love it).

The food here is cooked the old-fashioned way, on slow wooden fires. Curries have a coconut base, typical of the Konkan-Goan-Malabar belt. There is not much variety, but the type of fish depends on the day of the week. From my visits I gather that Fridays and Tuesdays, it generally is Surmai, on Mondays it is pomfret. Besides Fish, you get mussels, crab and prawns, Goan style. Mutton, Mutton Liver and Chicken (all Goan style curry preparation) is available if you aren't a sea food freak (I've never tried these dishes).

This place is well-known in culinary circles, but shuns publicity and has never been photographed. Apparently, they shoo-ed away Rashmi Uday Singh when she tried to interview the owner.

You won't get a finger bowl. No napkins either and no table-cloths and all that first-world finery. Just plain good food served by sour old waiters in pajamas and banians.

Try it. I'll bet my bottom dollar that you'll enjoy the experience.

Description:

The menu is extremely exotic with stuff like "Squid Chilly", "Mussels Sukkah", "Pork Bafat" etc. along with regular items like "Fush Curry", "bangda Fry", "Chicken Vindaloo" and so on. (I have never been to a Mangalorean restaurant before, so this may all be normal...)

Ordered a "Solkadhi" (of course) to start off. It was spicy, but quite enjoyable. (Rs. 10 only). For food, I ordered "Chicken Kori Roti", which is apparently Aishwarya Rai's favourite dish (according to the menu). When it arrived, I was a bit taken aback. A lot of chicken curry and a lot of dry broken dosa like wafers. Well, I dived in, take the wafery stuff by the fistful, pour some curry, mix, mix, mix and gulp. The entire thing is a meal in itself.

Description:

Every evening at 7 pm this Goan dude comes out with 3-4 casseroles of home-made cutlets and chops. He sets up shop outside A1 bakery on Hill road. All cutlets cost 7/- and he had Beef/Chicken/Fish cutlets the day we ate. If you ask him for bread, he points to A1 bakery and says, "Get pav from there" :). His stock gets over in about half an hour I guess. People know he is going to come and take parcels.

Description:

This place is run by ex-armed-forces people, and serves up a great lunchtime buffet all days of the week at roughly Rs.100+taxes per head.

Sort of Goan atmosphere, good seafood available a la carte, but serves Mughlai, Chinese, Indian and Continental as well.

During daytime, great place to go to with lots of people, kind of like a picnic. Evenings, the place tends to be quite full because of people dropping in to avail of the affordable booze - they have some really weird concotions there (kamikaze or brain haemmorage, anyone?)

Great favourite of students in the area.

Try the crab dishes, as well as the kabab platter. Food tends to have a coastal approach to preparation.

Beware of softdrinks - for some reason a Coke is about 27 bucks there - for a little more, you can have some hard booze instead.

Description:

New Martin is an eating house in Colaba - turn at the petrol pump on Colaba Causeway and take the first right turn (after Gables). The small eating joint is just around the corner.

Martin serves very cheap and very good Goan food. Great deal if you are on a budget. Try and go there as early in the evening as posible. We reached at 8:15pm and some of the items were already over. We had Pork Vindaloo (excellent flavour), Beef Chilly fry (awesome), and Goan sausages (one of the few places in Bombay to serve this yummy dish). We had all this with lots of bread and the total bill was 116. Total Value for Money. Don't miss any of the dishes there, most are very good and super cheap.

The place is very small, so if you go at dinner time at about 8pm you might have to wait for a table. It is open officially till 10:15pm, and is also open for lunch from 11:30am to 3pm.