Navi Mumbai

Description:

Yo!China has opened in Sect-17, Vashi, Navi mumbai, Where you can enjoy food at affordable price. They also they have Chowmein (Veg Hakka Nodles)in a Yellow trandy box with Wooden Chowpsticks @20 rupees as a takeaway.

Description:

Flavours of Kolkata is one of the few Bengali restaurants in Mumbai offering authentic Bengali food and fresh water fish brought in from Calcutta.

The Kosha Mangsho (Well done Mutton) you get here is the best in a restaurant in Bombay. Goes great with Luchi (A Batura like Puri).

For starters try the Fish Kobiraji. It comes with a crusty covering which is better off discarded to enjoy the delicious fish inside.

The chops (maccher, chingri, mochar) considered the "running items" in Bengali food are nice and spicy. If you don't like spicy food you may want to tell them to not make these spicy.

You can also try the quintessential Begun Bhaja.

For the main course one can have the Kosha Mangsho or Kosha Murgi or a selection of Seafood in various preparations like Jhol (thin gravy), Kalia (rich gravy) or Sorshe (mustard gravy).

For desserts or rather sweets since we're eating Bengali food, there are three items. Mishti Doi, Kheer and Raaj Bhog. The only problem is sometimes they tend to make these too sweet. My favourite is the Mishti Doi (sweet dahi with jaggery).

Flavors of Kolkata is one of my favorite restaurants in the New Bombay area and with only 4 Bengali restaurants in the whole of Bombay consider yourself lucky and try it out if you are in New Bombay.

Description: Located on the rooftop of the Center Point Hotel which is off the Thane Vashi Highway at Turbhe this restaurant serves good Punjabi food and cheap booze. It also has hookahs for those who are into that sort of stuff. It is frequented by the call center crowd so it may get noisy at times. Also during the early part of the evening it pretends to be a pub and plays jarringly loud pop/tech/himess music through tin can speakers. Thankfully later in the night they played quiet Hindi Music. A quarter of Old Monk is about 120 while a standard dish is between 80 to 200 bucks. No idea about the Hookah cost. For dinner we had Mutton Seekh Kababs which were nice and spicy.

Pompfret Tandoori which was a bit bland.

Paneer Tikka Jalandhari which was soft and had good masala but the Paneer pieces were too large. Thus the outer coating was too less for the whole piece of Paneer.

This place is apparently open very late into the night. We were there till 2:30AM and they showed no signs of closing.

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:

Shweta Palace is a decent bar, with good food, well airconditioned and mostly catering to an office crowd.

They make particularly good Lamb Chilly Fry on a consistent basis.

The quality of the rest of the preparations varies too greatly to comment on it.

Description:

Good fish joint in Airoli. The catch is definitly fresh. The prawns are large and succulent.

They have a nice way of making rava fry dishes where the core is much crunchier then any other place I've been to. So if you have a Surmai Rava Fry or a Prawns Rava Fry it feels like you are eating a crunchy biscuit.

If you know the management you can also get your own booze and have it there.

For some strange reason ALL dishes costed Rs.60/-

Description:

[UPDATE: This place has now shut down]

This place used to be reasonably priced once and had decent chinese food. Now the food is Rs.150/- a dish which is highway robbery in a place like Vashi and with crumblimg interiors. I guess they're hoping to survive on the rich folks in the Raheja Colony nearby.

Dragon's Fire used to be good but not anymore.

Yes that just about covers it.

Description:

Chenaab as the name suggests is a Punjabi food restaurant located in Sector 8, Vashi. It's probably one of the best restaurants in Navi Mumbai. Though a bit on the expensive side it still manages to give you a nice 'Dhaba'ish feel on it's Roof-Top Restaurant.

The Ambiance

It has two seating sections.

First Floor - Normal A/C Restaurant. Clean interiors. White look.

Roof Top - Open air, the place is next to the sea. The seating is rope beds (khatiya?) with wooden tables. For glasses they have large metal glasses in which one could pour a whole beer and it wouldn't spill. And those cylindrical cushions. Once one lies on one of those khatiyas one doesn't want to leave!

The Food.

Standard Punjabi Fare plus a few specialities. I particularly loved the Chicken Peshawari which they had specially made in a 'spicy' version once.

They have a huge choice in Rotis, more then ten types ranging from uncommon ones like Khasta to Mishti to standard ones like Rumali and Tandoori. As in all authentic Punjabi restaurants the Tandoori Rotis are made with Atta and not Maida.

Priya Shah who lives nearby tells me that the Mutton Biryani is good.

In the bottom open section, on some days, they bring a grill near your table and cook the day's speciality right in front of you. Doesn't quite differ from food from the kitchen but just a nice experience.

Drinks

Slightly on the costlier side but all standard drinks are available.

The Bad Part

I'm told that one ends up getting bitten by mosquitos in the roof-top restaurant although I have never experienced it myself.

Conclusion

The Roof-Top restaurant is a nice place to hang around with a bunch of friends. Go here only if you're going to the roof top. Otherwise half your Chenaab experience is lost right there. It's always full so either reserve in advance or be prepared to wait for a while.