Pizza Hut, Inorbit Mall, Vashi

Never had I imagined I would write a blog post criticizing one the most famous pizzerias of all time, pizza hut. I visited an outlet at Inorbit mall, Vashi this Sunday and following is my horrible experience.

This place is always jam packed on weekends and you often have to wait for around 15 mins to get a table. Since me and my friend went around 4 in the evening we got a table easily though the pace was relatively full. Unfortunately this was the only good thing happened to us and what followed was a completely frustrating and mood spoiling experience one could ever have.

We ordered the following things which are considered as some of the best dishes, pizza hut serves.

• Cream of chicken soup
• Masala lemonade
• Caesar salad
• Chicken Mexicana big pizza

I will get to the reviews of all the things one by one.

Let me say that whenever you pay a visit at a pizza hut outlet, do make sure to try the cream of chicken soup and masala lemonade. I am a huge fan of the masala lemonade, and I was not disappointed at all. The soup was consistent and had chunks of chicken in generous proportions, which made the soup wholesome and delicious. If you are a spice buff, don’t go for it as you’ll be disappointed by it, but it is for sure a signature chicken soup.

Now let’s get down to business. If you order a Caesar salad in a restaurant of Pizza Hut standard, what would you expect? A salad having lettuce, steamed/baked chicken chunks, mayonnaise, and croutons to say the least! Well, our so called salad had no croutons at all. Those are a part of a signature recipe and still they were missing. The sad part is they couldn’t match up to the description given in their own menu card. That’s kind of a blunder you would say. I immediately called out for a replacement, which took its time but was done.

Coming to the main course and a pizza hut speciality, yes you guessed it right, A PIZZA!!
I have never been a fan of pizzas here and I prefer ordering from Dominos whenever I feel like having a pizza. But I had never imagined that pizza hut could do such injustice with their signature cuisine. To start with, the pizza was cold, as if it was prepared around 30 minutes prior to serving. This is not acceptable at all. They charge much more than that of dominos but the quality of base and toppings of their pizza is too poor. The so called BIG pizza was a medium sized pizza which was adequate to serve two people. The base was thin, hard, difficult to chew and almost impossible to cut through. I almost tore the pizza apart to slice it into pieces. The topping was disappointing too. I could not find more than one miniscule piece of chicken per slice. It felt like a veg pizza which had chicken accidently sprinkled upon.

I would like to mention some points about the service. Although the place was 70% packed, the service was way too slow. We had to wait 15 minutes just to place our order. It took a lifetime to call a waiter for complaining about the salad. Staff there just avoids an eye contact with the customers as if they hate being called upon.

To sum it up, if you ever have a craving for a pizza, save yourself some money and time by ordering at the likes of Dominos or Smokin Joe’s for that matter. I feel, this place has lost its touch and needs to revamp their strategy to remain in business.

Thanks for reading the review. Stay tuned for more. Happy dining!

The Food Studio, Mulund

Location:

Opposite Runwal Green project, Mulund Goregaon Link Road, Mulund West, Mumbai

Cuisines:

Italian, North Indian

At office, whenever we plan to have a team outing, we end up being in an anomaly. There is always a difficulty in deciding which place to go. We had to go for a lunch on a Thursday afternoon and as usual we were stuck to the likes of BBQ Nation or Mainland China. A friend suggested visit The Food Studio in Mulund as had heard a lot of good reviews about the place. Thus we decided to try it out! What follows is my experience with the place. Check it out.

Ambiance:
Let’s stick to the basics first. If you are driving to a restaurant, you would certainly encourage ample parking space. I’m afraid you won’t get that here thanks to the narrow roads in the locality. But rest assured your car will be parked safely thanks to the valet parking facility provided by the restaurant. A very thoughtful thing indeed keeping in mind that parking space is less.

The place is easy to spot as it is just opposite Runwal Green project on Goregaon Mulund Link road. It is in close proximity of the Fortis Hospital as well. That makes it easily locatable. At first, the place looked small to me while standing outside but when I set foot inside it looked quiet spacious.

The interiors are quiet flamboyant with loads of wood and metal used. Thus the place doesn’t give you a boring fine dining restaurant look and feel. It is more like a restro-lounge. This place offers both indoor and outdoor seating which is a plus, especially in this weather. The place is tastefully designed including tables and chairs, menu cards, the bar etc. I feel such things are necessary which make a restaurant stand apart from the others in the same league. It’s an age of competition after all and presentation does matter a lot these days. The music was perfect, as they were playing famous numbers of Yves Larock, Rihanna, Far East Movement, LMFAO etc.

Food and Beverages:
Coming to the most important part of this review, the Food!

I had done some research prior to visiting this place and I had heard a lot of people saying that the portion size is small and the food is overpriced. But I decided to try it myself and avoided jumping into any conclusions.
Here was our order:

Appetizers: Nawabi Murg, Jamli Kebab, Cajun Fried Chicken, Teriyaki Chicken

The Food Studio Signature Poulet Pasta

Grilled Chicken Sizzler

Butter Chicken with Breads

I’ll start with the things I liked the most. If you ever visit this place, I strongly recommend Nawabi Murg. Imagine perfectly cooked (in a tandoor) chicken chunks stuffed with molten cheese. The moment I dig my fork into a piece, cheese came oozing out and my eyes were filled with joy. What more does a person want after all. The dish was so delicious that we ordered it for the second time. Cajun fried chicken may remind you the classic fish n chips recipe of Great Britain. It was served with a handful of French fries and tartar sauce. Teriyaki chicken and Jamli kebab were good too but nothing special about them. All the appetizers were good in quantity with around 8 pieces of chicken in each dish, which is acceptable.

The pasta was completely bland with no distinct flavour at all. It disappointed me as it was arguably the best pasta dish in the house. This place offers sizzlers with good variety of sides varying from corn, fries, mushrooms, tortilla chips, veggies etc. we opted for sautéed mushrooms and tortilla chips. The sizzler was good and it served 2 people which is decent. Grilled chicken breast was not up to the mark though and it lacked taste. I am not a huge sizzler fan thus my review for sizzlers can be biased.

For me, a meal is never over till I have had butter chicken and tandoori roti. No offence given, but I have never had a decent quality butter chicken in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. My search for the same went in vain here too. I enjoyed the taste but I was not overwhelmed. Portion size was less in case of butter chicken I must say. So order wisely!

This place has happy hours and gives one plus one offer on IMFL’s. We ordered beer towers and got one on one. It is worth mentioning that liquor prices here are steep so one should be prudent while ordering a few extra rounds.

Service:
Management here is very friendly and warm. The manager came up to me frequently and inquired if we were comfortable and everything was fine. These things are very important in hospitality industry as they leave a mark on the customer. The service was prompt which is always a plus point.

Cost:
After enjoying our meals, it was time for the cheque. Liquor bill was around 2000 bucks which was more than one would expect from a decent place. We could get much more at half the price in places like Pop Tate’s. Food bill ended up costing us around 400 bucks per head. Given the quantity of some of the items, it may pinch you.

The Bottom Line:
This place is worth giving a try and thus I give it 3 and a half stars out of five. The only scope of improvement would be food quantity.

I hope the review was helpful. Happy dining!

Pop Tate's, Vashi

I had been longing to go to Pop Tate’s, since it was opened in Vashi. I finally got a chance this Saturday to try it out. Here goes my review for this place:

Location:

Pop Tate’s is located on the top floor of Vashi’s Centre One Mall. Well, that pretty much sums up the location point as there’s nothing much to say about it.

Ambiance:

A common thing that I have observed in various pubs/lounges/restaurants in a mall is that they don’t have enough room. Pop Tate’s doesn’t fall under that category. It has ample space and is quite vast in size. The interiors are tasteful and well lit. Each table has a dedicated wrought iron lamp above it.  I liked the seating but tables will feel a bit small if you are sitting in a group of six or more. One of the prime reasons behind that may be the presence of an unnecessary cutlery holder (which also holds the table number) which eats up a lot of space.

The place may sound a bit noisy and one might not enjoy the music. Also there’s a big screen with a projector, so you can enjoy your daily dose of sports while having your meals and drinks. That’s a common thing in most of the pubs and bars these days.

Happy Hours:

Happy hours here are called smiley hours. There was a large print out listing rules of the game i.e. the conditions of happy hours. Well put!!

Happy hours start from 2:47 in the afternoon and go up till 7:27 in the evening. Weird timing eh!

Like most of the places, Pop Tate’s offers one plus one on IMFLs and Draught Beer pitchers.
If you are a not regular, you may have to go through the rules while ordering, they are pretty stringent. We ordered a pitcher of beer and one of my friend ordered a Smirnoff with cranberry juice. Smiley hours sure will make you smile at the end.

Food:

Two things must be kept in mind while ordering food here. One is portion size, and the other is cost. Food here is too less in terms of quantity given the price you have to pay for it. We ordered Garlic Bread with cheese and a large BBQ Chicken Pizza first. One great thing about this place is that you can upgrade your from medium to large by shelling out just 20-30 bucks more. However the pizza didn’t impress me a lot. The topping was too simple, with just cheese and small amount of BBQ chicken. Garlic Bread on the other hand tasted great and was fresh and soft. The quantity was moderate as only 4 pieces were served.

The next thing we ordered was Pepper Tossed Chicken which tasted more or less like chilly chicken you get at an average Chinese restaurant. The portion size was way too less.

Every chicken starter here has an average of 5 pieces of chicken in it. So keep that in mind while ordering.

We also ordered chicken tikkis, which were very tasty and paired well with beer. The usual French fries taste good everywhere, nothing can be done wrong with them.

The service was prompt and courteous. Although the place was jam-packed, all our orders arrived well in time.

Cost:

During happy hours, don’t bother keeping cost in mind as liquor pricing here is fairly moderate. A pitcher of beer cost us around Rs 530 and we got one free with it. We had 6 pitchers of beer and paid just Rs 1590 for them. That’s pretty awesome, isn’t it?

However food here is quite expensive and will make a hole in your pocket. To add up, taxes will be a major concern too. So be prepared.
Thus all in all it was a wonderful experience going to Pop Tate’s and I will visit again surely. But that will be after a while as I am badly hung over.

I give 3.5 stars out of 5 to Pop Tate’s. Visit this place mostly for drinking, and preferably during smiley hours. You’ll not regret anything.

Smokin Joe's Pizza, Airoli, Navi Mumbai

Recently Dominos dicontinued its popular One on One Wednesdays scheme. Since then I feel its sales must have taken a hit, especially from the corporate side, as its a traditoon in our office to order pizza on wednesdays. However, this time we decided to try out Smokin Joe's pizza for a change. Following is my experience:

I called up Smokin Joe's pizza to place my order. A person picked up the phone and started yelling at his colleague. He was complaining about his printer which was out of order. Both of them got into an arguement while I was still online. He didn't even put the phone on mute as if he wanted me to hear all that nonsense. I disconnected the phone and called up again. The same person answered but this time he took my order rather than fighting. I must say he was patient enough as the order was huge and I made him repeat it twice. He politely took the order and told me that I will receive the order within 45 minutes.

I had ordered:
Smokin Joe's special pizza
BBQ Chicken pizza
Mexicana Chicken pizza
Fiery Paneer pizza
Chicken Sausage pizza
Garlic bread

I waited for almost an hour and there was no sign of delivery, a thing which is not common with pizza places. Dominos guarantee its delivery within 30 minutes. I called up again and I was told that the delivery boy was on his way. My order reached after an hour and 15 minutes after placing it. When I went down to get it, I was shocked to see that Garlic Bread was not included in the order however it was being added in the bill. We haf ordered 5 portions of garlic bread which cost around 500 bucks and they were missing!! I asked the delivery boy to inquire about the same and he did so. I was told that I had not ordered garlic bread. This annoyed me to the core. Why was garlic bread added into the bill if I had not ordered it??? I felt like abusing the man on the phone who was endlessly arguing with me. At the end he asked me to pay the remainjng bill and not to oay for garlic breads. He said the cook must have forgot to prepare the garlic bread. I refused to pay the bill and asked him to complete my order and said I would pay the total amount once he gets the complete order. He told I'll have garlic bread by 15 minutes.

Meanwhile we started eating our pizzas as we were dieing of hunger. I must say pizza yopoings of Smokin Joe's pizzas are much better than those if Dominos and Pizza Hut. The toppings were generous and delicious. Pizzas had loads of capsicum, mushrooms, jalapenos, and ofcourse chicken. One thing that dissapointed us was the quality of cheese burst pizzas. We couldn't make out the difference between hand tosses and cheese burst pizza. But apart from this, everything was exceptional in taste and quality. Meanwhile, the garlic bread arrived. Surprisingly, it tasted very good and was extremely soft and fresh. It was much different than the one we get at Dominos and was much tastier. Thus we concluded our lunch on a happy note.

Only bad thing in this experience was the lack of professionalism shown by the staff which always ruins the mood of a customer, no matter how good tbe food is.

Well, this was my review of Smokin Joe's pizza. One can try it out to break the monotony of having pizzas delivered from Dominos, and try out other options in terms of pizzas. Although, beware of such customer service !!
Happy Munching!

Kimling, Aundh, Pune

Kimling restaurant is located at DP road (also known as Nagras Road), Aundh. A friend recommended this place to me so I decided to visit here on a Saturday evening.

The place is easily accessible as Aundh houses many restaurants and showrooms of various brands. A very special thing about this place is its seating arrangement. Although its area is not large, it doesn’t feel cramped. One can choose from outdoor seating and three versions of indoor seating. I preferred seating outside. I had to wait around 15 minutes to get a vacant table but rest assured the wait was worth it. Lighting was perfect which complimented the cool breeze of Pune city. I would recommend seating outdoors if you visit Kimling.

Now let’s get down to business. I had heard a lot about the authenticity of Chinese food you get at Kimling, thus I was eagerly waiting to dig into it. I decided to grab some beer first and try some starters. I ordered Tangerine Chicken and all-time favourite, Drums of Heaven along with the drinks.  A pint of beer costs around Rs. 150 here so that’s pretty reasonable. My friend ordered a Margarita which was one of the many options of cocktails you get at Kimling. You can also get pitchers of Beer and cocktails if you want.

Our order came in few minutes. Both the dishes were well garnished and looked mouth-watering.  Tangerine Chicken was a bit less in quantity but nothing could match its taste. It was delicious. To be honest I haven’t had Tangerine Chicken before so I am not the right person to judge it by its taste. As a neutral individual, it tasted good to me. Drums of Heaven had two options, one fried and other was tossed. I opted for the tossed version and I was not disappointed at all. It was regular chicken lollypop stirred in a mix of capsicum, onions and loads of garlic. It was a true pleasure for my taste buds. Quantity was also good as there were eight pieces of chicken in the dish.

All in all I was impressed with the starters and was looking forward for the main course. In the main course I ordered Chicken Chilly Garlic Noodles and Mantolin Chicken. Noodles were thin and quantity was good. Fried chicken chunks in them were a delight. Mantolin Chicken was spicy and tasted awesome when paired with the noodles. The portion size was impressive. This was all I had for main course as I was full after all the drinks and starters.

Food here is not that expensive. I paid Rs 800 for two (without alcohol) and my total cheque including alcohol and taxes came up to 1600 bucks. Every penny spent here is worth it, trust me.

Service at Kimling is very prompt and you’ll not have to wait to place your order or to get your order served. The staff is very courteous which is always lifts your mood.
I give Kimling 4 stars out of 5. This place is worth visiting and I’ll make sure I visit here more often.

Thanks for reading the review friends. Stay tuned for more bites!

Oriental Spice, Thane

Often you may visit certain restaurants which offer exceptional quality of food, but you come out of them thinking why you went inside in the first place. Oriental Spice in Thane is such an example.

I will share my views in a different way this time and will focus more on my experience with the place rather than putting up everything into points. Here’s how it went:
I knew this place is often jam-packed on weekends, so I called them up to reserve a table. A very rude sounding man picked up the phone and said, “We don’t take reservations, you have to come to the restaurant. All we can do is write down your name in the list.” What was the purpose of that list??

I still decided to go (my bad luck) and I was not surprised to see people waiting outside. I went inside to get my name on “the list”. I had to wait around 15 minutes to get a place, which was acceptable enough.  The real part starts now:

We were handed the menu cards and the waiter said, “Sir please hurry up and order, as there is a waiting outside!”. This really pissed me off. Are you seriously concerned about the waiting more than the customer sitting inside your restaurant and eating his meal? How unprofessional. I ordered soup and starters and decided not to create a scene for such behaviour. The order was served in time and tasted good. I will not mention anything about food in this post because rest assured this place serves one of the best and authentic Chinese cuisines in Thane area.

I have read a lot of reviews about this place and each review has one particular point about its restrooms. This is 100% true. An average sized man can’t fit into the restrooms at Oriental Spice. I had to bow down as I couldn’t stand straight. I didn’t pay heed to this as I was already disappointed at the management there.

After having my meal, I decided to order dessert. Waiter made the same point this time too. I hadn’t even looked at the menu and he asked me too hurry up. I had actually lost my cool this time around and spoke to his manager about it. To my surprise he was too busy to come to the table and hear me out.
Now comes the showstopper. In my entire life, I have never had such an experience, which I’m going to write about now.

I was handed the cheque and I decided to pay by my debit card. When I gave my card to them, the manager came to me and said, “Sir, we don’t accept debit cards as they require a pin to be entered.” I assured him that my card won’t ask for a pin as it was a VISA international debit card (which doesn’t require a pin at the time of transaction.). He still continued arguing with me about the same issue, and asked me to pay by cash. I literally shouted at him and said I won’t pay by cash and it’s up to him either to swipe my card for payment or find an alternate solution to it. After around 15 minutes of discussion he swiped my card and as expected, it didn’t ask for pin. They should write in bold letters, on the restaurant walls that we don’t accept debit cards.

After going to this place I realised that only good food and good ambiance for that matter doesn’t make a good restaurant. It’s the hospitality, the management and ethics that matters. Although the food I ate was delicious, the first thing that will come to my mind when I think of this place will be my bad experience with the staff. I hope this improves with the course of time else the restaurant will lose its glory within months.

Friends, the events which I have shared with you are those which I experienced. You can choose to go to this place for its food but beware of the service you get. You may end up spoiling your evening.

Cheers!
 

Jaffer Bhai's Delhi Durbaar, Vashi

Notes: 

Home Delivery, Dine-In, No Bar, Non Veg, Mughlai, Chinese, North Indian Cuisine.
Costs around Rs. 700 for two. VAT and Service Charges extra.

I don’t know why, but the moment I set foot in this place, I felt a certain Bade Miyan vibe. I am a huge non veg fan and I had a preconceived notion that I’ll get some good quality non veg here.

Following is my experience at Jaffer Bhai’s Delhi Durbar:

Location:

This place is on the famous MAFCO road in Sector 18, Vashi. It is actually closer to Sanpada station. Easily accessible!!

Ambiance:

As it is often said, good things come in small packages. This holds true for Delhi Durbar too. Damn, this place is congested!! It was jam-packed when I entered and I had to wait for 10-15 minutes to get a table. I must say that the tables here are at all impressive. They are like small booths created for maximum 2-4 people. We went in a group of 8 and we had to actually sit on 2 separate tables as they apparently were “non movable”.

Second point which was a put off was the noise in there. Trust me you can’t have a peaceful evening there. I literally had a headache till I walked out of the place. But I think the management can’t do much about it as the place is always a house full and it’s too cramped up.

Food:

Fortunately, ambiance is the only thing that disappoints you here. Food at Delhi Durbaar is mind blowing!

For starters, we ordered, Black Pepper Chicken, Chicken Lazeez Boti and Paneer Chilly Dry. Talking about the veggie dish first, the paneer was pretty mediocre. It was hard and oily, but I expected it to be so as this place specializes in non veg. Coming to chicken, it was perfect. Black pepper chicken was a bit low on quantity but it tasted really good. It was spicy to an appreciable extent. Chicken lazeez boti was out of the world. Chicken was so tender that it melted in my mouth. It was smoky hot and left us craving for more. All in all the starters were good, especially the non veg ones.

For main course we ordered Murg Mussallam (my all-time favourite) and Salli Boti. Murg Mussallam was exquisite. It came in a large platter and was beautifully garnished. It looked absolutely mouth-watering. Chicken was roasted to perfection and the gravy was really tasty. Its portion size was really impressive. I really recommend having this dish at Delhi Durbar. It’s worth every penny you pay.

Salli Boti was a bit tasteless. I had held high expectations for it but I was disappointed. It could have been better. I enjoyed pairing up the chicken with Garlic Naan and Tandoori roti.

I would like to add a point regarding the service at this place. To be fair, the place was too crowded to be managed well but that’s no excuse for bad service. I feel there was lack of man power to do the job well. This should be improved in a place which entertains such huge number of people.

This place is pretty cost effective too. After eating so much we had to shell out less than 2000 bucks for the meal, taking into consideration that we were 8 people and we ate like beasts. That’s pretty economical!

Ratings:

Food – 4, Service – 3, Ambiance – 2, Overall – 3.5 out of 5.

If you are a die-hard non veg fan like me, you should visit Jaffer Bhai’s Delhi Durbar for some authentic non vegetarian cuisine. I hope you will enjoy your outing.
Stay tuned for more.