Rivers to oceans (palladium mall, Lower Parel, mumbai)

In a nutshell:

A nice ,large, new restaurant that serves some excellent sea food in close to authentic way – a good place for a catch up with foodie friends

Address & other details: rivers to oceans

Meal for 2: ₹1500 onwards

Cuisine type : vegetarian & non vegetarian

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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 got to know about this restaurant from the good amount of buzz it created on social media and also after seeing the menu card on Zomato. This restaurant serves Chinese and other Oriental food and also Indian coastal food.

As many of u know, I have extensively traveled to China and neighbouring countries in the last decade and have always been fascinated by their simple food that is high on flavours, often subtle and rarely hot. The cuisine of this region celebrates the intrinsic flavours of the ingredients, often retains their texture and is quite opposite to Indian food, which due to addition of spices and chillies, usually comes up with a new flavour which is an amalgamation of the ingredients (vegetable/ meat / seafood) and the spices.

Most Indian eateries serving Chinese food in india do indianize it by adding corn flour to thicken the gravy / soup, by adding excess sauces to overpower the seafood/ fish/ meat flavours, add chilly / pepper to hot up the dish and deep fry ingredients contrary to original recipes. I am scared to hell to go tosuch eateries coz that just puts my mood off.

I love my spices and chillies when I am having Indian food though.

Also, most Indian eateries serving Oriental food restrict themselves to chicken, at most lamb and prawns , at most calamari. Pork, beef, a wide array of seafood which is the staple in fat east, is not served in most restaurants in india

Was so happy to find a wide variety of seafood and meats on offer at this restaurant – rivers to ocean.

Great news is that they did a super job in cooking all this.

The menu card was detailed and nice to read.

The service was very good. The guy serving us had a point of view and he explained why he was suggesting something.

The manager Peterasp, was on his round and I must say he is someone u can not forget if u hv been to this restaurant- he is deeply involved in the floor always, speaking to guests, recommending dishes with confidence after a chat on food preferences of the guest and a lot more – a perfect balance of human warmth and professional behaviour.

Super Loved the food. Went back in 2-3 weeks. Kudos to the kitchen team for consistent great execution of the menu created by a genius chef.

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

Day 1

Sea bass otak otak came wrapped in a leaf. Super loved the flavours of the sauce, the fish , the smokiness and the taste of the fish was nice. The fish was flaky and juicy too. Rate it 4.5/5

Lobster and caviar was outstanding. It came covered with a lobster shell with a foot long whisker!!!

The lobster was outstanding to taste just as it is and so was the caviar. Together they complimented each other to a different level. Loved the bursting of caviar in the mouth and the strong flavours that went well with the creamy lobster meat. Rate the dish 4.5/5

We wanted to order Chilean sea bass but that was not available. So we ordered New Zealand lamb chops, which came with potato truffle mash, roasted almond flakes. The lamb chops were one of the best we had in the last few months. Super juicy, perfect texture, meaty flavours that overwhelmed the senses and then there was a standing ovation by the senses. Rate the dish 4.95/5.

Potato was the average bad sweetish potato that is usually available in mumbai. Wud suggest the chef to use good potatoes with all other ingredients being just so good.

Hamachi and caviar – pounded hamachi, black caviar, avocado tartare, Japanese mayo. The restaurant manager Mr Bhansali suggested that we have all the ingredients together and so we did. Outstanding is the word again. Full of flavours and fantastic taste. Loved the different texture in every bite. Rate it 4.75/5

Atlantic salmon was good but it was in the wrong sequence. It’s like a good local Dargah singer attempting to sing a Amir Khusrow just after Farid Ayaz sahab finished his 1 hour qawalli session!!! This shud hv come b4 the hamachi. It took us few bites to start appreciating this and then it was very nice. Super soft flavourful salmon chunks – wah. Rate it 4.25/5

Morels corzetti – in-house made corzetti, morels, wild mushrooms, garlic butter. When we heard that this vegetarian dish was one of the best, we did not blink on ordering this. It was wow. Flavours were outstanding. Every element of it from taste to texture was perfect. Rate it 4.75/5

Black truffle ice cream fantastic truffle flavours – as good as it could get. 4.75/5 on flavor. Very average taste 2/5. Unidirectional, spineless, non opinionated, meek are words that come in mind when I think of taste of the dish. 2/5 on taste. Overall dish averages out to 3.4/5

Overall rating of food in day 1 averages out to 4.5/5

Day 2

We walked out in day 1, Looking forward to revisiting and trying out more dishes. I was told by the manager that some of their Kerala curries r fab.

We ordered oysters at the beginning as this was left out from the previous day. As is the norm, it was served on a bed of ice with 2 sauces on the side – an apple based sour sauce with sugar grain sized chopped apple in it and a soy sauce. Loved the oysters as it is and also with a permutations and combinations of the two sauces. As good as it cud get – best we have had in india so far. Rate it 4.95/5

Then we ordered why we came here for – shrimp coastal curry and Malay paratha. The curry was INSANE. It had brilliant flavours of roasted coconut, spices and seafood. Seasoning was perfect. The curry had optimum amount of hotness. Texture was lovely. Rate it 4.95/5

The Malay paratha was also a work of art – it had infinite folds and the crispy outer layer just kept falling off. The paratha was too good to be eaten as it is and also with the curry. Rate it 4.75/

The manager also recommended us to order mantou bread, which we hesitated to order after hearing that it is deep fried. However as we started eating, we kept aside earlier inhibitions and ordered mantou.

Thankfully we did. What a bread. Crisp deep fried outer side and extremely soft & fluffy inside that had a nice fermented feel to it. Wow. Rate it 4.75/5