Now if you are overwhelmed with those eating etiquettes at fancy restaurants, bored of trying to get dish names right, cannot take any more snootiness of the wait staff at a restaurant, then here’s what you could do.
Bindiya Chotrani asks you to walk into Dinshaws Xpress Café, a café that has an outlet in Versova and another in Oshiwara, for a simple yet delectable meal.
Resulting from a partnership between the famed Dinshaw’s ice cream and friend-duo Aditya Satarkar – Akshay Kumar (we had to stifle a laughter too), Dinshaws Xpress Café opened up exactly a year ago. While the name Dinshaw’s Xpress Café, in all probabilities, may falsely appears like an addition to the existing league of Irani cafes, it is a far cry from that. We walk into the place, silhouette sketched walls on one side and quotes that encompass a flat-screen TV on the other, pendant lights hanging above each table.
Aditya Satarkar informed us about being short on staff that day, and orders placed would indefinitely take more time than usual to arrive. Well, we weren’t complaining, there was a pack of cards to keep us engaged. And a good playlist to keep us company too.
We inspected the menu, asked for a few suggestions, discussed and finally settled down on a Mushroom Cheese and Chicken Omelette from the All-Day Breakfast section and the Chicken Mexican Supreme for the starters. All of this, while the wait staff was patient enough, to not push us into ordering for our meals. Well, if there was anything that could be compared to manna from heaven, it got to be the Mushroom Cheese and Chicken Omelette. Served with two slices of toasted breads, diagonally cut, and a small bowl of baked beans, this was the star of the night. The omelette was generously loaded with cheese and chunks of chicken, the mushrooms imperceptible though. Fluffy, well cooked, not runny, the omelette was done just the way we wanted it to be. Love at first omelette we say. The omelette had us raving, as already predicted by co-owner Aditya.
The Chicken Mexican Supreme, minced chicken skewers wrapped around toothpicks, were topped with baked beans (cooked with bell peppers and capsicum) again. Served with finely chopped red kraut and shredded lettuce topped with a tomato flower garnish, these were a little chewy and tough to bite on. Covered with the baked beans sauce, the chicken had the perfect hit of tanginess and the right combination of sweet and spicy considering the baked beans sauce.
If the experience (that of great food) could have been any bettered, it definitely was, with the staff, including the owner, shifting from table to table, wanting to know if the food has struck the right chord. Good food and a modest staff, rare combination we say. This one was Dinshaw’s masterstroke and had us floored.
As for the pasta, we chose the Mama Rossa. Usually cooked with zucchini and black olives, we asked ours to be customized, to which the staff happily complied with. Not a huge fan of zucchini, we asked them to be replaced with mushrooms, with a generous helping of black olives. Not very atypical, this was penne in red and white sauce and just about passable.
We called for a Strawberry Granita pick-me-up – a concoction of strawberry juice, lemon juice and crushed ice. And if we speak about the Strawberry Granita and the Mama Rossa pasta, we better be speaking about the playlist here that caught our attention. From Yellow by Coldplay to The Final Countdown by Europe, the playlist couldn’t have been more fitting to our meal.
For the final round, the Chicken in Pepper Mushroom Sauce was our pick. The mains here are usually served with sauté veggies, herbed rice or French fries, a choice of two between the three. Marinated chicken breast, grilled and then cooked in a demi-glace sauce with chopped garlic is generously sprinkled with crushed black pepper. While the chicken dish was slightly heavy-handed with the salt, the French fries could have been a little low on the salt and the oil too. The herbed rice though was just perfectly cooked, with grains that did not stick to each other.
Well, we were stuffed, but if you’ve saved yourselves some space for the dessert, consummate those meals with a kesar pista ice-cream or another flavour of the age-old Dinshaw’s ice-cream. Nothing short of perfect.
If you’d rather opt for a place that may be just above average on the ambiance, not have fancy food names, with wonderfully done meals, then Dinshaw’s Xpress Café is the place to be at. Although a tad on the expensive side, just add a great playlist and prompt service to the good food, and you’re good to go.