Saucy Sunday Review : Spices & Flavors (Walkeshwar)

At the confluence of the Babulnath, Walkeshwar and chow patty roads is a petrol pump-Spices and Flavors is right next to that. Most people don’t know it exists which is why when hunger strikes you never think of really going there. As someone who lives in Napeansea Road I always whine about there being nothing but Santosh Sagar to rely on -but now Vegetarians and Jains rejoice.

They are a branch ( a tinier one) of the same restaurant in Fort. However this focuses more on its international fare than it’s big brother which concentrates on its Punjabi and Gujarati food.

The place isn’t as tiny as it looks on the outside. Whilst lunchtime is relatively empty,it gets backed on the weekend.

i decided to only sample their Italian (and Mexican) fare this time since I didn’t want to mix Punjabi and Italian and Chinese food all together.

We started with some interesting mocktails ;

1) Coconut Smoothie which was like a Pina Colada sans the pineapple flavour. For some it might be too sweet but luckily i wasn’t part of that demographic. It was quite refreshing.

2)  Watermelon Freezer Fizzy-watermelony (is there such a word?) and spiced with Kalakhatta this drink takes u by surprise and makes you take a second sip just to figure the flavors out.

We then tried for appetisers :-

3)Nachos In South Mumbai has only one benchmark-New Yorkers. Even the snobbiest and most well travelled people compare their nachos to this establishment than the actual Mexican Nachos. This one is pretty similar with a flaming orange hue its thick and plentiful cheese drapes the crunchy chips

4)Hummus and Pita Bread; The only dish that disappointed me. It was more chickpea and less tahini with no taste of garlic or lemon.

5)Italian Herb Bread 6) Flavoured Cheese Bread. They both are cheesy crostinis but they differ in flavour. The Italian Herb one (i don’t know why is named so) has pineapple and jalepenis whereas the Flavoured cheese bread has a veggie and paprika taste, Both were enjoyable tho the former has a beautiful contrast to the palate of sweet pineapple-spicy sour jalepeno and creamy cheese

7)Jalepeno Nuggets and 8)Cheese CornBalls. These two had the same bready cheesey texture with the exception of its star ingredient -jalepeno and corn. So pick one and have -I would go with the Jalapeno Nugget.

For our Main Course we had.

9)Sizzling Pasta Platter which in my books is the triple Sezuan of the Italian Indian food world. It is spicy arrabbiata penne with buttered rice and A thickened tomato spicy masala all laid out politely next to each other on a sizzler plate. The arrabbiata is perfumed with herbs and garlic. The best dish on the menu

10)Pesto Pasta is too creamy and dry at the same time. Cheese lovers will love it.

11)Paprika Rice has a weird Rice to Sauce proportion and it it had been more sauce would have been yummier than it was.

I always have to say I am not very fond of desserts and even less fond of Chocolate but 2 thumbs up for their

12)Sizzling Brownie  where the waiter in a mock serious theatrical performance pours hershey syrup onto a brownie and scoop of vanilla incecream on a sizzler plate. The sauce then becomes fudge as you eat it and you can hear sweet angels sing as you eat this cold icexream with gory chocolate sauce and nutty brownie cake. Yummmmmmmm