The Bombay Canteen at #9

The first time a friend breathlessly told me that Floyd Cardoz was setting up shop via The Bombay Canteen in Mumbai, my reaction was 'Floyd Who and The Bomb What?!'. Even at the risk of losing my 'food connoisseur' privilege card I'd confess that neither name meant much to me, but I was quick to pick up on the fever and joined in on the countdown to kickoff.

I'd add with some pride that I was the first paying customer walking in the door of TBC when they finally opened for lunch. That said, the first visit for drinks and dinner was with two of my closest med school buddies and what a fun night of food it was.

My friends kicked off with some interesting cocktails called Jhoom-jaam and Dark Monsoon that quickly got them in the mood for banter and ribbing.

After a lot of food has been had at TBC over multiple visits, one strangely magical, yet really simple dish stays with me because it makes no sense to me. Why does a half fried egg with green chutney, toast, and melted cheese go well together? No logic, whatsoever. That's the mystique of the Anda Kejriwal. Deceptively simply, but unfailingly tongue-tickling.

The double cooked tandoori pork ribs had me convinced that it would be a masaledaar desi flavored dish that would make my Mildly Spiced food-soul frown. So wrong. The ribs are long braised and then finished in the tandoor until they're like jelly on the bone and the sauce is mellow-sticky-sweet-savory...just as happiness should be. 

This has me terrified of getting my lipid panel done for what I'd see when the results come in, but until then, this is a sinful food that I see and eat in my dreams at least once every night.

There are quite a few other things on the menu that don't quite wow but deliver solid satisfaction. 

The seafood bhel is wholesome citrusy seafoody good fun dish to eat though a tad small in portion size. 

The arbi tuk is a playful take on sev puri. 

The methi arugula salad is a nice fusion salad that I've eaten and enjoyed a few times by now, and 

The fried lotus stem chintu is one of the best renditions of the dish in the city. The trick's in slicing the lotus stem almost carpaccio thin!

The baba jamun is a naughty bevda take on a gulab jamun. Make a gulab jamun like a donut, pipe some pista cream in it, soak with a bit of sugary solution and then douse it with...Old Monk. Buddha Sadhu has seldom tasted this good!

And if you're a product of the 80s, then a trip to TBC will be a trip down memory lane with a lot of nostalgia trigger. Go. Go. You'll see what I mean.

Top 10 meals of 2015; Salt Water Cafe at #10

Choosing the ten best meals out can be rather easy for most people. Especialy, people that don't eat out often. Or people that simply don't care enough about what they eat. It does get trickier for a more demanding food soul and a body that eats out rather too often for its own good, I need add.

So, here's an indulgent look at the 10 best Mumbai restaurant meals of 2015. 

#10 - 

A planned lunch with strangers at Salt Water Cafe in Bandra was the first coming together of the food equivalent of the X-Men. The food, generally, teetered between good and great, but never hit spectacular notes. What was interesting was the shared chemistry of a bunch of disparate food lovers. When a shared love is deep and genuine, there are few barriers of age, gender, or geography (well, that is a factor in Bumbai!). People come together and stick together. They even play along with the finicky kid that won't commute.

It's nice to know that there are others like me out there. People that can take a meal very seriously. People that revere good food. SWC gave me that.

But to stop at this would be grave injustice to the purpose of portraying great meals. Salt Water Cafe gave me two genuinely wonderful dishes. 

The poha crusted prawns at SWC are wonderful. They combine a marathi boy's genetically encoded love for pohe with the sublime Mildly Spiced western style of lightly batter frying prawns. The crunch of the crisp pohe, the succulent juiciness of the prawns, lick of the mellow herbs, and the acidic kick from the liberal addition of citrus courtesy moi...they were bloody delicious.

The salmon with citrus elements and fennel was a dish out of MasterChef Oz, especially towards the Top 4 end of the competition. Truth be told, the tragedy of the dish was that I had to share it with 4-5 other people. On a more self-indulgent day, I wouldn't let anyone else touch it. It's a dish that appears pretentious but is all pure substance for the Mildly Spiced soul. Salmon and citrus were a pair meant to be together from the day they were born. This love pair is a playfully naughty one like Michelle Pfiffer's and George Clooney's in One Fine Day. It dances, it twinkles, it's frothy and light, and yet, it's substantial.

On the more 'grub' side of the affair, SWC turns out mean smallish burgers, nice risottos, and good fish mains. Go, get em tiger.

Ellipsis: Of Cognitive Dissonance

After months of waiting to gather the right crew for a pricey fine dine meal at an uber SoBo eatery, it happened. Assad suggested we meet to eat at Ellipsis, and the GobbleGangers did. Walked into this plush mansion across from IIS on Mme. Cama Rd. It's pretty but not too ostentatious. The large number of frames on the wall reminded me of Vietnamese or other Asian eateries States-side. Strange are the connections that the mind makes.

I thought people were messing with me when I was told that all the dishes that I really wanted to try would not be available for a weekend day's lunch. It doesn't compute (what restaurant does NOT have their bestsellers available for a weekend meal?) but that's how it was. And almost nothing on the seafood front. That bit of news crushed me. It's like a comet chaser waiting to see the Halley's comet during its transit after 76 years only to realize that it's a super cloudy day and the comet won't be visible.

We had to make do with a very curtailed menu. 

"Cognitive dissonance describes the feeling of psychological stress and discomfort that comes from holding two conflicting beliefs or having a mismatch between belief and behavior." 

Experienced an acute case of this phenomenon after the Ellipsis meal.

Some context...After a decade spent in the US and on a travel job for a few years, I've eaten terrific hearty tacos from food trucks and fine dines alike, lobster rolls in Boston, falafel pita pockets in Persian parts of LA, and burgers galore. I kinda 'get' American food...fusion or otherwise.

And there has always been this divide -- trucks, diners and dives give you massive portions of meat (or seafood) that ooze juice and are magnificent heart-stopping eats...like you see on Eat Street, and fine dines provide a sophisticated (and very tasty) take on those items. A spin that enthralls. Working with explosive mousse, foams, emulsions, smoke, or even secret uncommon ingredients that POP...

Ellipsis did neither for majority of the dishes that we trialled. My tongue-brain was telling me 'This is definitely not fantastic food...and for the money it's seriously over-hyped' and yet food columnists and bloggers believe it is the finest 'American food meets fine dine' in the city and I wanted to believe them and sip this kool-aid. Who's got their food wrong here?

Cognitive dissonance.

The net of the story is that after plying through a large variety of dishes, the only ones that rocked my world were the chicken wings and the lobster tacos. Pretty much all else flattered to deceive. I'd go so far as to say that even if someone else was paying for me and I was asked to judge the food fairly, standalone, I'd find it difficult to utter the words 'Incredible' or 'Sublime'. 

The truffle fries were great and smelled like a slice of heaven but a bit absurd at 950++ for an order. 

The dimsum, across the range of three items, was very ordinary. Stodgy, punchless eats like an aging workless actor demanding his 'at prime' rate. Indeed, the 'seafood' payload in the shrimp dimsum was almost like a seafood version of Spam (Google if you don't know what Spam is...)

The falafel was dry and ragged and could drive a vegetarian to consider becoming non-vegetarian for the day. And pita in small triangles? Sir, please! Falafel, generally, comes with semi-lunar pita pockets to stuff the falafel into with some hummus, tahini and harissa!

The pork belly baos were reasonably good but I've had so much good braised pork belly at a reasonable price in Grade A eateries recently, that this pork belly failed on the curve of diminishing returns for my money. 

The prawn tacos were reasonable but I've had far better prawn soft tacos for far less. I want more mouthy sour cream, guacamole, some pico de gallo, red cabbage, parsley. I'd gleefully accept a fine dine sophistication spin that would make my taste buds explode but even that wasn't on show. 

The lamb burger had everything a burger should have to give it heft and flavor-punch, and yet it did nothing for me. The taste buds remained off like city lights after a war plane attack siren. 

A similar situation with the lamb tacos. The phulka-like taco was falling apart and unable to hold together the lamb. 

The lobster tacos were, relatively, the relief on the day. They were juicy and thoroughly enjoyable. Still missing me some sour cream or avacado and parsley.

The chicken wings are pretty fab too. Some of the best in the city.

On the desserts front, the pancake was dry, obese and extremely ordinary but the French Toast wowed.

For a fine dine charging a bomb shell, the serviced consistently remained in the same zip code as 'Abysmal'.

After paying well upward of 2000 pretty beads for this meal, I felt cheated...more for the promise broken than for anything else...and for that deep unsatisfied feeling in my food-soul. And the cognitive dissonance.

Will I be back? Some part of me says 'yes' if only to try the prime seafood dishes I didn't get to try...but for that, I need to hear a person I trust to tell me that those plates are worth dipping into my Wasabi meal fund. 

Yes, yellow fin tuna. Yes, fish tacos. Yes, seafood pasta. Barramundi. Snapper. I missed you all and I'll try to be back.

The Fatty Bao: What A Great Meal Should Look Like

The Mildly Spiced loving soul is a tortured soul in a country full of people who generally love their food loud, heavy, and desi. Providers of Mildly Spiced mind-bending food are few and far-in-between, and if they do exist, and if they provide good food, and have scary words on their menu like 'salmon', 'Belgian', 'Chilean' be rest assured that you'd be selling your pretty silky minky hair at the neighborhood saloon, at a bare minimum, or a kidney to pay for that shameless meal at the said place. 

So, it comes as a pleasant surprise when a provider of such food sets up shop in a prime suburb and enables a grp of four to taste 10-11 very interesting things for around 1000 quid a head. Not cheap, but I will still have two kidneys. And if this has you intrigued, please dial the digits for The Fatty Bao and request the sweet lady to book a table for you.

It's new. It's hot. So they go booked a week in advance, but divine intervention and some undeniable charms and sweet talk got us a last minute table on a Sunday afternoon. Yups, that's what a miracle smells and looks like.

The four at the party (three fo sho) were food nerds. We knew the menu 'by heart' and had a long list and a short list of orders. We'd planned to only trial three things and walk away. We ended up with 10-11. Tells you something.

The fried eggplant baos. Now, this chap Karan Karayi is a picky and fussy eater. When I suggested we order this, he pulled a long face. I mean...who does NOT like eggplant? I lou it! That said, we did order it and it is a super dish to start with despite its severe shortcoming (primarily, that it is vegetarian), which is a back-handed way of saying...order it. I'd be lying if I told you that I could discern the flavor of miso (in the marinade) or of the sriracha. All I can tell you is, the combination of textures and flavors works beautifully well, especially when you're super hungry. 

MS Win.

Next up was the Brie Tempura. I'm a good-cheese guy. I love me a good brie. I love tempura fried stuff. This is the kind of marriage where the girl tells the guy 'If we're both still single at 35, let's hitch up and jump into the fryer'. They did, and did a darned good job of it too. Crispy on the outside, beautifully melty brie on the inside, it's like you accidentally walked in on a bit of unplanned passion...in the kitchen.

MS Win.

PB&J. The PG-13 adolescent in you thought...yay! Peanut butter and jam. The 'R' rated adult in you grinned and knew it meant pork belly with miso jam. This stuff leads to serious arousal...of the gustatory kind. Four generous slabs of pork belly marinated and cooked with pristine care lie next to each other topped with thick umami-laden miso sauce, microgreens, sesame, and scallion. If I had not had some extraordinary pork belly just a few weeks ago, I'd say this was epic. With that context, it came out second best, but in the story of the meal, it was still a worthy winner, and joins the pantheon of pork belly greats within this city's kitchens.

MS Big Win that stops an inch short of epicness.

The Wakame and Crabmeat Salad was an exact counterpoint to the PB&J. Where the PB&J was battling in the heavyweight flavors category, the salad is an exemplar of all things Mildly Spiced. The first fork-full had me thinking 'Japanese flavors!'. It's that kind of dish. Wakame is a gentle green, a delicate seaweed with a pleasant enough texture and goes well with the citrusy-nutty ponzu and sesame dressing. That said, the crabmeat seemed to be present in spirit, but not in flesh. A healthy topping of fried straws contributed the necessary crunch.

MS Big Win.

The salmon carpaccio comes in plated a bit more amateurishly as compared to a Continental variant at the Salt Water Cafe (Bandra) but is still a smorgasbord of flavors across the spectrum. A carpaccio, in essence, is not 'ang ko lagne wala khaana'. Indeed, it is meant as bit of sensory foreplay as various elements trigger off the different kind of taste receptors like a conductor conducting a Beethoven or Mozart symphony. To know that the various elements in play were ginger and garlic juice, yuzu (Japanese citrus relative of sour mandarin), soy, should tell you that all the receptors were lit up like it were Diwali.

MS Big Win

The Teriyaki chicken baos were a bit like the introverted kid at a school re-union. Was he here? Did he attend? It's only when you look at the pictures that you notice its presence. These baos just lacked flavor punch. A reason why I no longer order chicken in restaurants unless it's a well-known kabab joint. 

MS Fail for me.

We ordered the duck meat buns almost as an afterthought and what a good call it was. If you think of baos as a type of dimsum, the bao should soon be becoming very popular because the skin lends itself to a beautiful release of its payload. It also holds up when a dainty eater decides to make a 5-6 bite meal of a bao. The duck meat was fragrant and delicious! 

MS Big Win!

Next up were the sweet-nothings (aka desserts)...

The Fatty Hill. You know how they say light colors and pastels make you look fat? That's Fatty Hill for you. The rice crisps add heft to an otherwise small core of elements including the mint creme brulee, chocolat cream and the dessert was gone in about 60 seconds or less. The chocolat sorbet on the side is pretty darned good too!

MS Comme ci comme ca.

Thankfully, Nika had ordered the Green Tea Chiffon Cake and it's not a dessert I'd EVER order, and yet dessert-obsessed people will try the weirdest things. A dry-looking green cake is not how I like to end a wonderful meal, but happy endings can come in the strangest forms and don't never judge a dessert by its looks. Now, they make this thin green tea chiffon cake, plaster it with yuzu parfait, roll it up, top it up with a quenelle of yuzu sorbet and add in some lemon sable (French for sand) to provide some texture and orange honey for tang. This is citrus dessert fantasyland and the yuzu sorbet is just so incredibly...FRESH! 

Yes. I did lick the plate...in a full restaurant. That's a compliment. It's like PDA of the maddest kind. Some think it disgusting...others simply wish they had the cajones to do it in public.

MS Epicness. 

Ze Service: With food like this, I wouldn't have cared if they'd treated me like an especially grubby street urchin, but they showed us that food wasn't all they are good at. The service (a few short weeks after launch) was smooth. Patient order-taking, watchfully making sure we'd finished one plate before bringing another in, willing to switch orders, helpful suggestions, and the winner was...helping us get a no-show empty table without acting pricey. Aniruddha was especially helpful through my entire stay there, and he'd peek in at our table almost asking 'Hope all is OK with your experience' rather than 'When are you planning to walk out?'

The ambience is a tad dark in terms of lighting but whimsical and super on the decor.

VFM: With all this food, sans drinks, you'd walk out paying 1100 colored shells each. Not a steal but still excellent value for my shell collection.

Will I be back? Bet your second kidney, I will! 

Olive Bistro, Pune: A Meal That Soared

Context

As the two regular readers of this blog would remember, I had described various meal trajectories and ended with the mythical 'The Meal That Soars'. The ideal meal where everything is perfect and ne'er a flaw in sight.

Well, I had just such a meal very recently for my parents wedding anniversary lunch. We were running low on fine dine options with a recent failed dinner at SWG, so I decided to 'give this place a chance and hope it, too, wasn't overhyped like other places'.

Olive Bistro of AD and Sabina Singh fame.

Where is it?

Located inside the much-sought after Pune Club, I confirmed that I didn't need to be a member of the Club to eat there. No, you're welcome here. Perfect. Reservation? Available. Perfect.

Pune Club, itself, is in a really nice hood with wide roads and at the doorstep of the cantonment area. Model Colony is green but this area, Bund Garden, just looks different.

The Space

We walked through the main gate of the Club and were directed to the Bistro, adjacent to the main gate. The entrance to OB transported me to a different land, of a distinctly Mediterranean heritage, but of a mixed parentage, namely Italian and Greek.
In other words, OB is the love child of Italian and Greek food love.

Walked into the OB compound and we thought we were walking into an abridged version of a pretty stone villa, all Santorini white and blue with shades of Tuscany, and daubs of France. Europe sparkled in ways, big and small.

The indoor space is divided into 3 sections - a sunken bar to the right, and two main eating areas divided by a stone wall. There are 3-4 tables for parties of eight or more. All bare stone, comfortable seating, high ceilings, candelabras, thoughtfully mounted posters, the indoor space has been done up by a person with good taste, and someone who has traveled around a bit. An aesthete.

Walk outdoors, and more space, on the patio and in the now-covered outdoor space. Wooden tables, cane furniture, old home stools converted into bar stools, raw marble slab walkways, marble stones crunching underfoot, the blue and white theme was continued on the outside as well.

Finally, we settled at a particular table because Ma and I took an immediate fancy to the table.

The Food

Appetizers...

They let us settle in for a bit before Laltu, our F&B server showed up to take our orders. Famished, we asked for his recommendations, and finally settled on Chermoula Spice marinated Cottage Cheese Skewers and The Bistro's Herbed Chicken Skewers for the appetizers and a drink (pineapple juice, blue curacao, cream) for me mother.

We were served up an amuse bouche -- a beautifully done cream of mushroom soup. Smooth, warm and hearty, it spoke of sophistication.

Both the dishes came plated on an inch-thick log section, by now a familiar serving plate, adding on to the rustic theme.

The chicken skewers came with a herby creamy mayonnaise. The chicken was cooked so perfectly right that Matt Preston would have to take a magnifying glass to see if it was done a mm shade too much over or under. I'd say it was done so wonderfully well that it did the dead bird (and us, the hungry folks) justice. Seasoned just right, textured right, and going really well with the dip, the chicken skewers were a giant hit and a Mildly Spiced Win!

Charmoula Spiced Cottage Cheese Skewers

As meat-lovers, we threw a sideways glance at the cottage cheese skewers and took a portion each out of a keen sense of responsibility. So what if a bird hadn't died to find its place on this skewer? A buffalo had given her milk to make this possible. It was no less a sacrifice.

The sauce for the skewer looked a bit runny but things are not always the way they look and a bite into the sauce soaked cottage cheese, and I knew it was love at first bite. The cottage cheese, again brilliantly marinated, grilled, and seasoned by an experienced and expert hand, outgunned the chicken.

This goes into the league of MS Epic Wins! Truly, one of the best things I've eaten in the last few weeks, and joins the pantheon of Paneer Greats like the Copper Chimney Paneer Shaslik.

...And The Drink

Ma and me...we quite love pineapple juice based drinks and this was a mildly flavored hit. The cream took the bite out of the pineapple juice and the blue curacao imparted both a wonderful citrus peel flavor and a beautiful summer sky blue color.
Garcon! Two more of these for me, please!

I Had My Main Planned Out But They Brought Bread

I've always had bread brought to our table as soon as we had settled, so, getting a bread basket after the appetizers were done and mains almost ordered was strange, but, oh well!

The bread looked beautiful...the stuff out of food magazines, but they were somewhat tough, but I won't hold this one against them for too long.

Margerita Snapper

I told Laltu that I wanted their Margerita Snapper but I wanted the cous cous replaced with some risotto. I think a risotto pairs so much better with fish, and the carb and fat of a risotto strikes off beautifully with good fish. Laltu came back with a pretty plate of nicely done snapper on a bed of specially made saffron risotto (they don't have this on the menu!) and with a chili garlic and butter sauce.

The fish was nicely done and went well with the risotto, and the sauce splashes were nice enough that Ma used the bread to soak them up for flavored carby bites. If she could have her way, she'd take home a bottle each of sauce from the fish, chicken, and cottage cheese dishes.

...but they have Panna Cotta, Ma!!

It's no secret that I'm a panna cotta fan...and if there is a reasonable sounding panna cotta on the menu, by Jove, I'm going to try it. I'd also heard positive press about the boozy gelato trio, so off Laltu went to place our dessert orders.

Saffron and Vanilla Panna Cotta

The Saffron and Vanilla Panna Cotta with blood orange and pink peppercorn sauce and gastrique was a dazzling sight to behold and wonderfully smooth in its texture. Many mouthfuls of joy. It would have made a Master Chef finalize proud to conceptualize and execute!

A perfect mound with gentle curves lay quivering in the center or a large sunken serving plate, covered with a burnished dark sauce of blood orange and pink peppercorns and surrounded by a ring of a gastrique of the same ingredients.
The saffron was strong but hit off beautifully with the citrus of the blood orange. Big big win.

Directly, it moves to the top two of my India panna cottas, competing with the Indigo panna cotta on its very good day.

Boozy Gelato Trio

Of the gelato trio, the pina colada was passable, the rose (with vodka) gave interesting hits every other bite, but the star was the chocolate with cointreau. Chocolate gelato, by itself, can be special but the cointreau punch made me giggle like a baby being tickled pink.

The Service

Our F&B server was well-informed, helped us make ordering decisions with confidence, and knew how to pass on our request convincingly enough for changes to be made thoughtfully. The best example was the customized change from the cous cous to saffron risotto as the carb relief on the fish dish.

The man also passed the 'water glass fill' with flying colors. Clearing out used plates and silverware, getting us fresh lime with a minute of the request being made, and being available when needed are things one expects in a fine dine but seldom sees.

All in all, a wonderful meal in all its varied aspects and a heartfelt reco to go eat here. Beware, however, that it's extremely popular and you may not always be lucky enough to get the best table in the house.

Stone Water Grill: The drama that wasn't

Context

I've waited to visit Stone Water Grill for a really long time, well, almost a year or two by now.
Why? They're not open for lunch, which is a big damper, then there was a longish phase when they were open only for weekend dinners. Add in the fact that I have been an infrequent camper in Pune in the last year or two. All of it added up to the fact that SWG stayed firmly on the 'must eat there' list.

I'm a huge fan of Riyaaz Amlani restaurants (and a frequent flier at Tasting Room, SHD) so read the review in context.


Finally, the Mommy B'day came up, and she really wanted to try the place so the relevant reservations were made for Sunday dinner, the night prior to the big day. Some last minute developments had me changing the plan (and reservations) from Sunday to Tuesday (they're closed on Monday; Pune thing). Evidently, it is necessary to have reservations in place. It's jam packed, or so we were told.

Where is it?

For the folks that know their Pune food places...it's right behind the Koregaon Park Hard Rock Cafe. That simple. For folks that don't, well you drive down N Main St all the way to the end, above and beyond the bridge, beyond Euriska, and just when you think the Earth ends in 100m, you turn left into a dark lane. At the end are HRC and Stone Water Grill.

The Space

It's an impressively large space by Pune standards. By Mumbai standard, you could fit a full mall in there.
We walked through the parking lot, then alongside a manicured grassy lot, past the glassy Hard Rock Cafe, and finally through the SWG gate, down steps and into a beautifully styled outdoor 'night club'. It's an expansive space, and a Pune party birdie tells me that the entire space is packed and heaving come weekend night.

It's swanky. No more, no less. Given it was a weekday, and a Tuesday (most likely a no-booze, no-non-veg day) in God-fearing Pune the space was very sparsely populated. A few outdoor spots were taken, mostly IT MNC types treating guests to good wine.

We were directed to the indoor dining space. Impressive thus far. As we walked in, what struck me was just how empty the restaurant was. There was just one group of eight and all else was barren. As much as I hate crowded, noisy places, I'm equally uncomfortable with a completely empty fine dine.

We got a table at the vertex of the 'L' shaped restaurant.

A card holder declared that the table was reserved for my party of three. Uncommon, but nice touch.

It was the first (and well-neigh last) of very few nice touches.

Raison D'Etre (The Food)

Appetizers

I'd looked up the menu online and it looked very appealing so I had my heart set on a few things. Even as I was pacing through the menu, the good folks brought us a quick amuse bouche -- a light crumb-fried cheese ball on a wee bed of puree with a shotglass of a soup that I am unable to describe. It was nice but that's all I'd be able to say there. A bit...inert.

Next up were bread sticks with beurre (I think it was miso, though I could be wrong) and bread with olive oil. Here, I'd have to say that the beurre had a nice hit and the warm focaccia was one of the better breads I've had in town.
One hit, one miss, one comme ci comme ca. See?

Next, some stuff we wanted wasn't available so we went with...

Bacon Wrapped Quail (with fruit chutney, onion roesti, and rosemary oil)

Of the 3-4 nicely frenched quail portions on the bone that showed up, just one-two had the bacon blanket while the other two were a bit...naked, and lacked the amazing fatty flavor that bacon brings to any dish. The onion roesti had good flavor from the caramelization but the meat itself, the central showpiece, lacked the mouthful feel that I love about meat.
Sounded wonderful, the dish on the menu, but a Mildly Spiced Fail for me.

Crumb fried basa with green chutney

This was recommended to us from the bar menu. Now, SWG is a fine dine and basa is an ordinary fish not really worthy of finding so many fish spots on the menu.

The crumb coating and the green 'sandwich chutney' so overpowered the fish, that I couldn't tell if the innards were, in reality, another inert substance, like say, cardboard.

I'd decided not to order basa, did so against my better instinct, and decided not to repeat my mistake. This order is just fine after you've had many drinks and the brain (and tongue) are numbed to thoughtful degustation, but in our situation, it was a MS Fail.

Seared Lemongrass and Paprika Prawns

The shift from ordinary to the sublime was a matter of one dish.
The dish showed up as five prawns served individually on ceramic serving spoons. Each prawn was seared just right, with nary a sign of overcooking, and covered with a beautifully punchy and flavorsome sauce.
My Dad's not an old hand with seafood, and yet he jumped for a second go at the prawns. That's how good it was. I could have downed just that full set of prawns and walked out a much happier man.
A MS Big Win.

Soy Roast Duck and Water Chestnut (with medicinal herbs)

Me Dad asked me what I'd ordered next, and froze and frowned when I said 'duck salad'. For him, acceptable 'nonveg food' includes chicken and the rare mutton dish. Not for him the uncommon birds on his plate.
The salad is served up beautifully in a heavy stone bowl and it is genuinely a sight to behold, but the eating experience is a bit of fall from grace.

The duck itself was nicely done but there was such a huge portion of clumpy, mature dill through the entire dish that every forkful felt like I were chomping on the forest floor of a pine tree forest. The textural experience is not the least bit gratifying and the strong flavors of the dill kill the mellower flavors of the duck and other elements alike.

Miss the dill, and the salad is fine, but with the huge clumps of dill, it's a MS Fail.

The Mains

Carbonara Inspired Smoked Bacon Risotto

We bypassed the pizzas and burgers to get the risotto, and figured that we couldn't go wrong with a dish that had bacon in it, and right we were.

The carbonara inspired risotto had everything a carbonara dish should -- egg (thankfully, without any eggy smell), cheese, bacon and black pepper, and done really well. I'm not a big fan of an authentic toothy al-dente risotto. I like my risotto a bit more well done, and this baby was just right for me. The bacon goodness made it a very satisfying dish to devour. If you're going to pile in so much fat and carb into your body, it might as well be epic.
A MS Epic Win.

We veered and careened between multiple options for the final entree but were advised to stick with pig and we landed on the Whiskey Maple BBQ Pork Belly with Dauphinoise Potatoes.

The potatoes were exquisite and you could have convinced me that the potatoes were indeed pork fat. Carbs have seldom tasted so good. Good flavor on the pork belly as well, but I found the meat rather chewy. Needing to muscle on the knife to cut a piece confirmed my doubt. Give me braised pork belly any day. The chewiness of the meat pulled down a win dish.
A MS Disappointment.

The Dessert

'Malai Coconut' Panna Cotta

I quite love coconut in its myriad forms - dessicated, malai, in soups, in curries, and hence I assumed (rather wrongly) that a coconut panna cotta would work wonders for me.

I love my Western desserts smooth and I found the bite of the coconut and the strong flavor a distraction. Also, the kaffir lime gastrique was a bit too weak (compared to the punchier gastriques, compotes, and reductions in peer restaurants in the Big City 160 km away) forcing the base panna cotta to speak for itself, which it did not do forcefully enough.
A MS Fail for me.

A tad disappointed and desperate to get one more win, I ordered The Dessert Taster and save the reasonable hazelnut dacoise, the other elements, pista crusted passion roll, mango mousse, and orange gateau did not stand up to be counted. They might as well have been dessert elements in a less refined buffet spread restaurant.
A MS Epic Fail.

The Experience (Ambience & Service)

I believe that when the ambience is reasonable and the food stellar, the service can sneak by without being noticed. But when the restaurant is empty, the conversation lean, and the food fluctuating wildly...that's when the dings and dents in the service begin to show up.

Whether it was needing to look around for water glass refill on multiple occasions (big no-no) or inability to connect with the wait staff and express the kind of food I was looking for or a seeming failure to get confident recommendations that worked, and even a bit of language/accent barrier (uncommon)...service was not up to scratch.

During the first reservation and the subsequent change, I'd mentioned that I was coming in for my Ma's B'day. I don't need free cake but most high quality restaurants know how to add just the right touch (a greeting from the staff/maitre d', a flower, a small message piped on our paid-for dessert plate) to make the occasion special.

Here, there was not even the slightest hint that my event mention had even registered, and for me that's a fail on the service front.

What could be a wonderful spot for a romantic dinner or even a fun family dinner, in this empty cavernous space, took a downward plunge in terms of overall experience.


Will I be back?

Not immediately, but I think I'll return at some point.

Feedback for the restaurant:

The menu reads stellar on paper, but on many occasions, it's not translating into a great tasting meal. A bit of 'Lost in Translation'.