M (american grill at the Hyatt, Kalina)

The M is an "american grill restaurant" and has an accompanying martini bar.

The entry to to restaurant is narrow and has and open martini bar right at the entrance. the restaurant itself is one level lower. Very nice open decor, big and spread out.

We asked them to recommend some starters, and the came up with a smoked salmon on rice cake, shrimp cocktail and crab cakes. The salmon was the best of the lot, but still pretty regular. Thin slice of smoked salmon were served on a non savoury/non sweet rice uttapam, and the combination wasnt offensive, but didnt appeal either.

The shrimp cocktail was terrible. The shrimp weren't fresh, the flesh was a little frayed, and chewey. there was absolutely no garnish/salt/sauce, and was as bland as bland can get. ebi tastes so much better.

Was expecting something on the line of maryland crab cakes, but that was a let down too. the crab meat was soft, but no flavours, and the breading on top was indian.. didnt have any of the tabassco/mustard/dijon tastes that you'd expect.

main course we ordered some lamb chops and chicken. The lamb chops were excellent. A bit fatty, but nicely done (medium), juicy. the accompanying sauce was nice too. The chicken had an odd orange sauce to, neither american nor indian. very ordinary. The mashed potatoes were ok, loads of butter, but not creamy and fluffy, more grainy and starchy something which i personally don't like.

For dessert we ordered some lemon cheesecake. It was good because it was made from authenic cream cheese (unlike most place which pass off mousse or whipped cream as cheesecake) but it was cold and compacted solid, so not as much fun as it should have been.

The wine list was impressive. But outrageously pricey. a lot of wines were listed but not available. We were ordered a Tarapaca Pinot, and it almost had an off taste in the bouquet. was light bodied, but was a plain jane wine that refused to get better even after an hour of breathing and swirling in a glass. The most annoying part was this attempt to classify and sell wines on the basis of their being "old world" or "new world".. i didn't get the point at all, and wonder why a 5star restaurant would resort to such irrelevant gimmicks.

overall, i'd recommend the place only for its ambience for a quite dinner or meeting. the bill for 4 came upto 10K, and don't think the dinner was worth that much at all.