Great food, bad service @ Sai Palace

Image @ Sai Palace

Burrp page: http://mumbai.burrp.com/listing/sai-palace-restaurant-bar_andheri-e_mumbai_take-away-shops-restaurants/17051039

Place: Near Chakala Church, Andheri (E)

Food:  - 9/10

Menu variety:  - 8/10

Service:  - 3/10

Ambiance:  - 5/10

VFM:  - 7/10

It was my mom's birthday on 3rd July and family and friends were treated at a restaurant called Image in the newly opened Sai Palace. My parents had been there for lunch 4 days prior to the birthday to find out if the food was good. They liked it a lot and booked a table for 12.

Food
The food was brilliant. The highlights of the evening were:

• The Tandoori Subjiyon ki Numaayish which consisted of veggies like broccoli, zucchini, bell peppers, baby corn, potatoes and mushrooms marinated in cream and char-grilled to perfection. Not too raw, not too soggy. Yummm.
• The Awadhi Murg Kebab, which is a white chicken kebab, but don't let that fool you! It is peppery hot and even though the waiter will tell you that the dish is non-spicy, it is! The waiter does not realize that pepper can be hot too (will come to the service later).
• The Paneer Methi Seekh Kebab, if you like the slightly bitter tinge of fenugreek. It is a patty made out of minced cottage cheese and fenugreek which was very soft and maintained the flavor of the ingredients.
• The Bhurvan Bhendi which is okra (ladyfingers) sauteed in oil, onions and garlic. I don't usually like okra and never order them in a restaurant. But this was great.
• The Gosht Lucknowi Korma, which was a sweet gravy of mutton. Very nizami, very tasty.

The other items - Hara Bhara Kebab, Aloo Gobi Banarasi, Dal Maharani (yellow dal), Subzi Sitara, Murg Dhaba - were good, but not as exceptional as the ones mentioned above.

Menu variety
The menu is choc-a-bloc with items. An approximate count I did came up to 15 veg and 15 non-veg starters, 25 veg main course items and around the same number of non-veg (including chicken, mutton and sea food) and a decent choice in desserts. And this was only the Indian section. This was followed by a Chinese and a Continental section of the menu. Food for everybody here!
The bar menu is the usual - hard alcohol, beer, wine and cocktails. Nothing extraordinary.

Service
Unfortunately, this place is not all roses. Where do I start? Ok let me put this is bullet points coz that helps me with clarity!

• Sai Palace does not take any reservations for a table after 8 pm on weekends. So we HAD to book a table at 8 pm or earlier. What bull! This is Sai Palace, not some swanky place! And you just reopened. You need some time to earn your reputation and then behave like this!
• Remember I mentioned that we had booked a table for 12? So we reached and there was a cramped table of 16 that was set up (2 joined tables) for us. We told them that we were gonna be 12 people only so they could remove 4 chairs. The message being relayed by waiters to each other was that all 16 did not turn up so the chairs had to be removed. They also started contemplating whether one table could be replaced with a smaller table. Now the joined tables were perfect for 12 people and replacing one with a smaller table would mean they would cramp us up. We said no the tables were fine, but they politely tried telling us that since the number of people had reduced, a smaller table might be in order. While having this discussion, we saw a piece of paper next to the "Reserved" sign on the table. And it had clear instructions that a table of 12 had to be set for us. When we showed this to them, they kinda went on the backfoot and the conversation finally ended.
• At 8:30 pm, my dad got a call from the front desk asking him when he will arrive!
• It was hard to catch the waiters' attention. Not that they were busy, but they seemed to be enjoying chatting with each other. However, once we told them to look around once in a while coz we wanted their service, they came around.
• I wanted to have my pint of beer in the bottle. Little did I know that when I would bring the bottle to my mouth, I would smell things I do not want to smell! I don't know what meat the bottle was kept next to, but I had to eventually ask for a glass (because they were not serving in mugs.).
• With drinks, they served cheese-lings. My uncle wanted peanuts so I asked. The waiter told me that they were not serving peanuts coz they get soggy! Now, (1) that's the lamest excuse for a restaurant to have; and (2) even if that is the case, I don't think you tell your customer that you can't serve them due to your incompetence as a restaurant! Oh and by the way, they got us some peanuts to try if we would be okay with it...and they weren't soggy at all. He could have saved Image a bullet point in this section!

Phew! All in all, not cool service.

Ambiance
I don't know how others like it, but I like my restaurant to either smell of food or of nothing at all. We were one of the first guests to arrive and the whole place smelled of some sweet fragrance. It reminded me of some bamboo aroma diffusers I had smelled before. Some flowery fragrance I'm sure, but I don't know which flower.
Oh great, some googling tells me that "The smell should be completely neutral, at the least. In a best case scenario, the smell of the restaurant should create a mouth watering sensation that makes you crave one of everything in the kitchen." (courtesy http://www.ehow.com/how_4689624_dining-experience-before-order-entree.html)

There is a big cooling shaft on the ceiling running through the middle of the restaurant. It would have looked great if the restaurant had a more funky decor, or had a garage theme like my cousin Siddhesh pointed out. but with the otherwise family oriented look of the place, thumbs down to the totally visible air shaft.

Some good artwork in the place, though.

Value for money
So for 12 people, the food bill was a mere Rs. 5255. Excellent, considering that the food was brilliant and discounting the bad service to a little extent. The drinks here are not on the same pricing par as the food, with one small Antiquity Blue charged at Rs. 150 and cocktails at Rs. 225 each. However, it's still not very expensive, especially with Kingfisher pints at Rs. 100! Good VFM!


Location
People at Andheri east, rejoice! If you're either working or living here, give this place a try for the food.

And in conclusion...
Thumbs up! I will definitely go here again to see how the service fares with lesser people (12 is, after all, a large group to handle). And the food deserves people to eat it! And I shall do the honors!