Punjab Grill by Jiggs Kalra

Palladium within Phoenix mills compound is another happening place where you find a lot of outlets like Zara, Aldo, Fifa, Rohit Behl etc for shopping branded stuff. Not only outfits but yes you find quite a number of eating joints here a Noodle Bar, Cream Center, Indigo Deli, Mc Donalds, Copper Chimney to name a few. Amidst these places, you find a place you can relish authentic Punjabi food @ Punjab Grill.

On a Sunday, after watching Blood Money at PVR, we decided to try out this place. When we entered we were told that we would have to wait for 45 minutes. Definitely expected being a Sunday. But the question is what do you for 45 minutes, so we decided to check out this place next door “ Food mall’. Food mall is typically like a Food Bazaar or Reliance Fresh selling veggies, fruits, bakery items, expansive collection of wines, sweets, soft drinks, pulses etc. Also, I must mention that they offer packaged ready meals which are not the usual boxes that you get in malls, but the ones that they prepare daily. So you can simply pick up a Roll, Rice with gravy, Shanghai potato etc go home, heat it in the oven and eat it. They also offer Veg Sushi (unfortunately out of stock that day ) which Shalin was very keen to try.

So, after picking some fresh breads, a bar of Vanilla cake and tortilla chips ( for my dad) we thought of going back to check if our table was ready.

We enter Punjab Grill @ 9.30 pm, finally get our table by say 9.45 or so. For Beverage I order Thandai and for Shalin some cocktail. Thandai was OK sorts, I believe it was made with Vanilla ice cream instead of milk. For starters it was Broccoli with 3 cheese sauce and some olives. Very mild starter, good in a way, but could have done something more interesting with this one.

For the main course we order Paneer Makhani, Aloo Kulcha and Butter Naan. Paneer Makhani was nice very creamy and again had a very mild like flavor. The proportions are very huge, so I had to take a big bag with almost everything parceled.

Meal for 2 with drinks - 2200/-

Service - Good

Food - Average

Would I come here again - May be

Circuit Sandwich house in Borivali & Chocolate Paan

Circuit is a small time Sandwich eatery in Borivali. This place is definitely competition to Cheelizaa & Sandwicha outlets that you find in various parts of Mumbai City. I have been to this place quite a few times with my buddies Bhavik and Vinesh. Usually this place is too crowded on a Sunday & it takes a lot of time for your sandwiches to get ready.
We usually order Mayolicious Grill Sandwich which is a nice 3 layered sandwich with loads of cheese, veggies and a good serving of mayonnaise. As accompaniment you potato wafers with green and red chutney. Simply awesome!!! I have also tried their cheese garlic bread which is an OK sorts!!!
They also have a wide range of other options like Penne sandwich, natkhat etc etc which I have not tried before. You only get beverages ( Half liter bottle and Diet Coke Can) that too not that cold.
The place is promising & I would definitely recommend them to increase their staff to attract more customers. For now they definitely have a good number of people coming back to them for their Sandwiches.

Delivery - yes
Meal for 2 - 200 bucks
Service - very slow
Ambience - Very ok Types

Choclate Paan
I have never been fond of Paan, this is because my mom always told me and my brother that eating Paan is not a good habit. After following this for 25 years, courtesy my friend Bhavik, I did try Chocolate Paan.
Outside Heritage hotel, there is this fab Paanwala who sells these chocolate Paans. 20 bucks for 1 Paan, definitely worth a try :)

Ghatkopar times :)

As the name says, my this blog is dedicated to the wonderful food experiments I did when I was in Ghatkopar last week. I was staying at my in laws place (my mom and dad were out of town :D). I have always had more affinity towards Suburbs and South Bombay and despite a lot of push from my aunt to also explore the Central side of Mumbai (former Bombay), never agreed. But, like it is rightly said you never know what’s coming next in your kitty.
So here is me sharing across some of my experiences dinning out in Ghatkopar

Starting with Little Italy

As the name suggest, it is the Mecca of Italian food. My fiancé simply loves Italian food so I really don’t remember that how many times we frequent this place. We repeatedly order similar stuff but still don’t tend to get bored with it. So here goes the order, to begin with Sautéed vegetables, nice crunchy vegetables tossed Italian style with a good serving of olive oil. Simply Divine!!! For the drinks, I sticked to my patent Diet Coke while Shalin ordered a Chantilly Wine (hopefully I spelled the name right, coz I m not at all fond of alcohol. Btw Shalin says Wine doesn’t qualify under the alcohol category :P). Our main course order was Ravioli, which is my favorite dish. It comes with a delicious red and white sauce. For Shalin it was thin crust super spicy pizza without cheese. I simply can’t imagine my pizza without cheese!!! After hell lot of deliberation on cheese or no cheese. He won and we called for thin crust pizza with his favorite toppings (olives, capsicum and onion). The base was nice crispy but I would any day prefer a cheesy version :P. Completely full we decided that we would skip the desserts. But I would definitely recommend having Chocolate Bomb :)
The service is Ok . Ambience was good it was candle lit. Bill for 2 with Wine was close to 1700. They also offer a 15% discount (which they don’t upfront mention) to ICICI Card holders

My next place to dine, was IVY. We all had gone there to celebrate Nani's 74th B'day. I was told that Ivy is the best fine dine restaurant in Ghatkopar, very very classy & it is put up within a famous Residential compound. The decor of this place is simply superb and one has to definitely ensure that you pre book a table to avoid a long wait. We were 15 odd people so we were placed on the side bang opposite to the entrance which was quite comfortable.
There were a series of orders to begin with Manchow soup - OK sorts, not too great. Then came the Hara bhara kebab, the best one I have had till date followed by paneer tikka and few other starters . For the main course we decided to go ahead with Thai cuisine so Thai Red Curry and Steam rice while some chose to go with Chinese. My mom in law ordered Dal Makhani with jeera rice, which was yummy. The kids in the family skipped the main course, to make some place for the elaborate dessert that IVY has to offer. IVY has this unique concept where they get a dish full of desserts for the Day, you can pick and choose your favorites. Considering the no of calories I decided to skip the desserts. My sister in law is a complete foodie and she said that the blue berry cheese cake at IVY is a must try. May be for my next visit for sure!!!

Next comes Saturday lunch at Cafe Madras
I missed it on last Sunday :( But made sure we come back here on Saturday afternoon. Our orders Idli in piping hot sambar, Tupa dosa with Malgapudi (some powder), soft and very tasty. For Shalin it was Dahi misal (hmmm curd, nothing to comment from my side), Set dosa (yummy) and sada dosa with white butter.
Food 10/10
Service Quite prompt but not very promising!!
A bit of wait time on a Saturday afternoon too
Meal for two 230/- with Diet coke. Definitely worth it J

Dinner at Blossom
I never imagined a place serving Sizzlers on road. Yes that’s correct, Sizzling sizzlers, different variants of the Mumbaiya Pav Bhaji, Italian nachos, khawsuey, pasta, pune sandwich etc etc and lip smacking juices. Blossom is a right stop for people who love street side food, these guys do not sacrifice on the quality.
We ordered Hariyali pav bhaji, which they serve with thesa (something made of chilies) to add more taste to the dish. Next was red round balls, which is cheese corn balls in a tangy tomato based sauce, yummy. Shalin ordered Club Sizzler which was loads of veggies, cutlet with a dope of cheese sauce - Average.
The staff is very courteous they make suggestions on the juices suiting your taste buds, so for me it was some juice with Red grapes, loved it. Cocktail for Shalin and lychee coconut milk combo for my mom in law.
Overall a good place.
Meal for 3 of us was close to 750, so one can definitely not expect road side pricing :P

Sunday Lunch at Only Parathas (Matunga Circle)

After a long hectic working week, it was time to just relax and spend some quality lone time with Shalin. Since, I was in Ghatkopar we decided that we head to Cafe Madras to gorge on some South Indian food. Close to about 2.30 pm when we reached Cafe Madras, to my sheer surprise the place was completely packed. There were about close to 50 people already there awaiting their turn to get in. When we checked on the wait time the person standing said 1 hour. My jaw dropped & then finally I made my mind that Cafe Madras has to wait until I come here next time.

Just then i recalled that bang opposite is an Only Paratha. We could easily manage to get a place and placed our respective orders. Mr. Doshi (my fav lingo for Shalin) called for his Muli Paratha wid loads of green chillies. The waiter cautioned him that his paratha would be super duper spicy. (+1 point, normally you don't expect waiters making suggestions on your order). I ordered a 3 stuffing paratha (Mushroom + Cheese + Onion). While ordering we specifically mentioned that I do not want any curd item wid my paratha. The Parathas arrived, nice hot, yummy wid generous serving of dal makhani and double serving of Chole in my plate (since i did not want raita). The dal makhni was average, chole was nice. Service was quite prompt and the staff very courteous.

Overall the food was good, I would definitely recommend it to others to try it out. Usually I haven't seen Paratha houses serving any other cuisine, but they also had Pav Bhaji, Chinese and some rice wid gravy (Indian) combos.
The price is average. Meal for 2 was close to 480.