In a nutshell
A restaurant planned ( including concept, menu etc) by a brilliant marketer, in the hands of brilliant salesmen (waiting staff) who can sell a dog leash to a parakeet owner but kitchen managed by an average team that churned out forgettable ( but not bad) food.

Address & other details: Saptapadi

Meal for 2: 800 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:

I got to know about this place thru a friend who was quite excited after seeing the super interesting fusion Bengali menu. I was intrigued too and hence we decided to pay a visit

The menu card had two sections – traditional and fusion. The fusion menu was very interesting – who ever thought of the items or the way it has been described in the menu, is a marketing genius. After reading the menu a foodie is sure to b very very curious and wud end up ordering quite a few dishes.

The salesman ( serving staff) are also of the finest quality. The conviction, body language,authentic smile and voice modulation with which he forcefully recommended stuffed chicken lollypop ( inspite of our telling him that we dislike poultry chicken) , made us believe that the dish wud b close to outstanding and hence we placed the order.

A youngish serving staff came two times and asked us how we liked the food. Before we completed he walked away on both occasions – it seemed we were in a robot lab where they were doing Demos of robots with human looks.

The kitchen did a fairly average job with a few exceptions.

The restaurant is named after the famous Uttam kumar Suchitra sen movie saptapadi. The theme inside the restaurant is also the movie. There were framed pictures from scenes of the movie. There was a very interesting ‘2D marries 3D’ rendition of the famous motorbike ride ‘ei poth jodi na sesh hoy…..’

The menu had two separate sections – fusion and traditional

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

We started with Moori fish stick from fusion section. This was interesting. Moori ( puffed rice) was used as the outer layer to this fish roll.

Unique concept. Moori gave a great crisp texture while the fish was soft. Flavours of fish were good and so was the taste. Rate it 4/5

Murgi chingri lollypop was a highly recommended dish by our server. It turned out to be a disaster. Tasteless broiler chicken meat on the outside and ‘chingri’ ( prawn) stuffing in the center did not work. The prawns did not make their presence felt.

The chicken was anyway ordinary. We did not like the sauce at all as it killed the Chances of prawns being able to make their presence felt. The dish was not perfect on salt either. While eating this the expression ‘selling dog leash to a parakeet owner’ came to my mind. Rate it 2/5.

We ordered Bipasha tel koi from traditional section with a lot of hope. The koi fish was good itself though it was not same day catch. The preparation was again good but lacked greatness. It was like a normal gravy and was different from all good tel koi s I have ever had. Rate it 3/5

Mourala chorchori was very nice. It was mourola fish (small fishes that one pops into the mouth and eats all including head and bones) curry with aloo and veggies. The fish and veggies had been cooked together and they tasted good on their own as well as overall. Rate it 4.25/5

We ordered Mishti pulao with a lot of hope too. It turned out to be ok. No aromatic gobindobhog rice, sweet but not balanced with salt, no flavours of ghee. Fell short of basic expectations of a good mishti pulao. Rate it 2.5/5

Kancha lonka mangsho was outstanding. The mutton pieces were very nice. Flavours of kanchalonkA (green chillies) made their presence felt. The gravy had perfect seasoning. Rate it 4.5/5

Ice cream patishapta was again a heavily recommended dessert. We made the mistake again of going for the recommendation- it turned out to be the last nail on the coffin of our ‘suboptimal culinary evening’.

Patishapta is like a rice pancake usually with a grated coconut / jaggery / khoya filling. Here they had ice cream in the center. The ice cream was as ordinary as it cud get. The patishapta layer was pre made, re heated and given to us and hence lacked softness and uniform warmth. It was leathery and difficult to cut. Very disappointing. Rate it 1/5.

Overall rating of food at saptapadi averages out to 3/5

Needless to say I wud keep away from revisiting here.

NOTE: This post was written within a week of eating out here but had not been published by mistake. Stayed bk in draft for so long.