This is a review of regular menu at Bombay canteen. To read an earlier review on Christmas menu, pls click here: Bombay canteen.

In a nutshell:
A gem of a kitchen inn a quirky restaurant that churns out YUMM , not so mainstream food that we loved – also a cool party place.

Address & other details:  The Bombay canteen

Meal for 2: 50 onwards

Cuisine type :  vegetarian & nonvegetarian

Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has paid for the full Bill & tips also. http://www.yummraj.com does not have even one featured / sponsored reviews. YUMMRAJ believes in going to a restaurant in anonymity, as a normal guest, experience everything & give a honest account of the same to you.

I rate all the food items & then give a final overall rating which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster.

Short description – in case u r in a hurry:

We went here for the first time on Christmas weekend & just loved it. We went back to try the regular menu.

On reaching we got to know that the kitchen closes at 3.30 pm & we awere 1 minute late. The girl at the reception asked us to wait, with a straight face. She came back with a leaflet & said ‘ this is what u can get’!!!! It was a smaller 1 page menu.

We were in no mood to return as we had travelled 12 km to eat out here & Zomato told us they were open full day. Nowhere was it mentioned that there is a mini restricted menu.

The girl remained as cold & gave the expression of a still stone idol.

That is when our yellow knight (boy in yellow tee) appeared from nowhere.He was from the restaurant’s side – spoke to us for a while & figured that we were wanting to taste their menu. So he showed us in, and gave some great recommendations. He was amazingly warm & he surely made our lunch special.

The guy serving us was also very warm and nice. He came to have a food chat with us on few occasions.

While we were having lunch, we saw the restaurant staff having lunch (in batches) in the adjacent tables. I loved this concept & hv great respect for the guy who thought of this.

Food was as great as expected. Beverages were a let down.

Detailed description – in case u hv the time to njoy reading:

Masala coke – we were unable to quickly decide on the non alcoholic drink menu. So we went for our servers recommendation. The drink was good but was surely nowhere near the level of ‘exceptionally good / greAt’. It had a good balance of sweet, sour and salt. Rate it 3/5

TZ’s elixir was a watermelon based drink that had starfruit , pomegrenade & mint. It was good but failed to achieve greatness that I have started expecting from Bombay canteen. It was pale, had flavors of watermelon & a good cooler. Rate it 3/5

Chettinaad prawns was outstanding. We just licked off everything from the plate. The chettinad spice flavours were full bodied. One cud see the daanedaar spice at the base of the plate in the light gravy. In very few places have I got the flavor of chettinad spices so well expressed.

The prawns were super YUMM and full of flavours as well. They were fresh , juicy and had the perfect texture. Rate the dish 4.95/5.

B**f fry written in the menu card cud b beef fry or buff fry but was beef fry. It was an Indian spiced version of the western steak, medium done.

The spices once again expressed the flavours very well and let the meat retain its flavours. The meat was slightly chewy, soft and juicy. Super loved this as well. Rate it 4.95/5

Malabar parota was very good. It was soft within, had layers and layers and was crisp outside. Rate it 4.25/5

Pork vindaloo taco was a dish that we were discussing while ordering and we dropped it since it was a big portion. We were pleasantly surprised to see a small portion served to us. When the bill came I found this missing and on pointing out they mentioned that it was a complimentary taster from the chef.

The ‘taco’ was more lika a Gujarati thepla and very very good. It was soft, full flavoured with spices and YUMM on its own. The pork vindaloo was YUMM too. The meat was soft and very good. As expected, it was hot and spicy. Rate it 4.25/5

Barley & jowar salad was a revelation. The barley was perfect texture and soft yet firm that enabled it retained shape. The dish also had crispies in it that were a nice compliment to the soft barley. Hung curd on top made it very interesting. Super loved this super simple dish. Rate it 4.5/5

We also tried ‘my uncle’s coconut mutton curry’. It had a layer of crisp fried onions on top & pickled slice of cucumber. The mutton curry was YUMM to taste. The meat was soft & melt in the mouth. Rate it 4.25/5

Coffee rasgullas with peanut butter cream and peanut chikkis was a very innovative dish and brave I wud say too. I wud not recommend this to anyone who is non experimental with food.

The rasgullas without being dipped in ‘Ras’ were dipped in espresso coffee. Just the coffee dipped rasgullas were as bitter as espresso shot without sugar wud b.

The peanut butter cream was super YUMM but on the sweeter side.

The chikkis ( peanut and jaggery biscuits) were one of the best I have had in months. They were crisp and had flavor of peanut and jaggery both.

Our server specifically asked us to have one part of each of these 3 things in every bite. That actually worked very well – soft and bitter rasgulla, sweet, soft and creamy peanut butter and crisp and sweet chikky. Awesome. Rate it 4.75/5

Mango cutting trifle was a lovely dish. It was served in a chai glass. It had tapioca pudding, fresh alphonso & coconut macaron. Individually each of these were excellent. Overall it came out to be quite an unexpected lovely dish with 3 kinds of textures and flavors of mango topping the charts. Rate it 4.5/5

Overall rating of food at The Bombay canteen averages out to 4.2/5

Will revisit to try more…