Mirador, mirador, roz roz mirador

The Mirador

Burrp page: http://mumbai.burrp.com/listing/the-mirador_andheri-e_mumbai_lounges-cafes/169491940

Place: Close to Andheri (E) highway, on the road connecting Andheri Kurla Road (from J.B. Nagar) to Highway

Food:   - 7/10

Buffet variety:   - 5/10

Service:  - 5/10

Ambience:   - 8/10

VFM:   - 9/10

Food
Mirador is the kind of place you wouldn't expect to find in Andheri (E). It was discovered by my friend Kashif, when he went there with his office gang for a celebration once. Although most of the people you'll find there are business travelers, I find it more appropriate for a cozy dinner with friends.

You can choose to either eat ala carte or the buffet, but at Rs. 275 + taxes, the Wednesday to Saturday midnight buffet makes for a tempting offer! There were a lot of items on display and we couldn't really fit them all in. So I picked up the items that looked most appealing. With a glass of whiskey, we downed some beautiful Fish Fingers, Chicken Sichuan Fritters, East African Fried Chicken and Irani Mutton Seekh. Also tried some good Paneer Kalonji Tikka and Corn Cake that wasn't bad either. The non-veg items were very soft and juicy, not even one item was too hard or too chewy. The paneer was extremely soft as well and I had absolutely no complaints.

Comparatively, I didn't like the main course as much, though I went mad about the Subj Kalimirch. It was like no vegetarian dish I have tasted before. Every vegetable had it's color intact and it made for this wonderful play of colors on the dish. And it had only a sprinkling of spices, with a strong, strong flavor of pepper...freshly ground! Sigh! I wish more people understood the beauty of freshly ground coarse pepper when they cooked!

For the desserts, call me a little orthodox, but I'd like having one item that's simply sinful dar chocolate based. The chocolate pastries I tried were lightly layered with raspberry crush and although it was interesting, I like my chocolate pastries with nothing else at all!

Buffet variety
The buffet has an average variety. The staff was nice enough to write me down the buffet menu when I asked for it. Here is it.

Vegetarian:

Soup
Cream of Veg Almadine

Starters
Corn cake
Paneer Kalonji Tikka
Veg Dumpling Flat Rice

Main Course
Sultana Pulao
Dal Kothmiri
Mix Pasta Arabiata
Chillie Pellenos
Paneer Asifa
Subj Kalimirch

Non-vegetarian:

Soup
Chicken Combination Soup

Starters
Fish Fingers
Chicken Sichuan Fritters
Irani Mutton Seekh

Main Course
Shredded Lamb Oyster Sauce
Murgh Nizami
Fish Berly / Oerly (can't read what this guy has written!)
East African Fry Chicken

Desserts:
Lichi Mousse
Chocolate Raspberry Pastries
Fruit Savrin
Warm Pears Pudding
Malpua and Rabri

Service
I give them a 5 because I didn't particularly enjoy the service, nor was I disappointed at any time. The staff was extremely nice in providing me with the buffet menu (handwritten, so effort taken...and appreciated), but I also noticed a slight bias towards serving foreigners before us. So overall, just average.

Ambience
With a live band playing soft music, this place is really nice to spend time with a small group of friends, or even with your significant other. It's not really a romantic place, but you will enjoy a nice quiet dinner for two. In fact the entire hotel has a nice comforting look to it (though the couches and chairs in the hotel lobby are not as comfortable as they look) and tends to have quite a calming effect on me.

VFM
Thumbs up all the way! Rs. 275 + taxes per head for a great buffet variety and good food quality...couldn't ask for more!

Location
Since it's very close to the Andheri highway, it's very conveniently located, whether you're heading there after a late night at work at Andheri or just driving around at night. I suggest night time due to the mid-night buffet being served from Wednesdays to Saturdays.

And in conclusion...
Go there at least once for their mid-night buffet! It's totally worth it!

Yellow Chilli - Chillies should either be red or green

Yellow Chilli

Burrp page: http://mumbai.burrp.com/listing/the-yellow-chilli_powai_mumbai_restaurants/1482460861

Place: Hiranandani Garden, Powai

Food:   - 4/10

Buffet variety:   - 3/10

Service:  - 2/10

Ambience:   - 5/10

Value for Money:   - 5/10

Food
I'd been to Yellow Chilli once before, for their weekday lunch buffet that mainly caters to office goers. I had not particularly enjoyed the fare and I suspected it was because the target audience was:

1. on office lunch break and just needed something light to eat,
2. also comprising of foreigners who stay / work at Hiranandani and would not like spicy food.

So for my birthday treat to my family, I decided to try Yellow Chilli's Sunday lunch buffet, which i assumed would cater to a more hungry weekend crowd. Plainly put, i was wrong.The buffet only consists of one veg soup, but since we were a group of 12, we managed to coerce them to get us a chicken shorba (they wouldn't call it soup, coz it's an Indian restaurant and Indian cuisine does not have soups. I'm just quoting!) The shorba was awful - just some diluted chicken stock with a few pieces of chicken inside.
For starters, there were only 2 dishes - Chicken tikka and hara bhara kabab. The chicken was dry, though the veg kabab was very good. Soft and flavorful inside, with a nice crispy brown cover outside.
The salads were just about okay too. There was no experimenting, just the same old - chana, lettuce, chicken leek, beetroot. I was really looking forward to the chicken leek, but it had no special flavor or dressing.
After so many uninteresting dishes, I didn't try all the items in the main course. I dug my hands in the dal makhani, chicken chutney, murg do pyaza, mutton biryani and pulao. Surprisingly, they were extremely tasty and if not for them, this restaurant would have got a 0 rating.

Buffet variety

One veg soup, one veg starter and one non veg starter does no justice to a buffet. I think the appetizers and salads could be beefed up a little.

Service

Horrible!! Let’s start with this - it was my birthday treat, right? So somebody got cake and asked the waiter to keep it in the fridge. Now either they have a very bad fridge or they simply did not put it in one! The chocolate was oozing when they got it at the table after lunch was finished.

Apart from that, our soup came after people gave up and started with main course. Maybe they just weren’t equipped for a group of 12.

Ambience

The ambience of this place is alright. Not bad, but not great either. It’s a good place for an office lunch. Not a very family or couple friendly restaurant.

VFM

For the bad food and service, we had to shell out Rs. 460 (inclusive of all taxes) per head. Totally not worth it.

Location

If you work at Andheri East, or live in Powai, this restaurant is at a convenient location for you. One word of caution – Powai is a traffic nightmare, so avoid coming here on a weekday.

And in conclusion...

I was very open in telling the supervisor that we had a bad time. He insisted that we should try the dinner buffet, which is “much better with a bigger spread”. I might give it a go. But with so many restaurants planned, the chances are low.