Column

In Mumbai’s constantly changing cityscape, Le Pain Quotidien at Apollo Bunder is a welcome addition. Actually, as you go down that road, everything’s changed — no more Mandarin, Hong Kong, Nanking and even Cottage Industries has become a shadow of its glorious self. Of course, there are compensations like Indigo Deli and Moshe’s and now The Daily Bread (I translate loosely from my schoolgirl French).

This bakery-eaterie is part of an international Belgian chain and a major feature is a “communal” table (this is not communal the way we use it in India so perhaps community would be a better descriptive) where strangers can sit and eat together.

We’ll get to that later. For now, we feast our eyes on the display of bread and then focus on the small but adequate menu.

To start, we order the quiche lorraine — with a ham and cheese filling — and also two mint lemonades. There is a wine menu but both rock chick and I are feeling abstentious.

The quiche is delicious — the pastry is light and the filling is heavy, absolutely chockfull of ham and cheese. There’s also a light pesto sauce on the plate, which adds to the flavour.

For the mains, we order two tartines or open sandwiches: a parma ham and mozzarella and a tenderloin from the warm section. The bread has a slight smear of mustard and the ham is thin and perfect.

The mozzarella, sundried tomato and pesto sauce add bite and flavour, as do black olives and gherkins.

The tenderloin tartine takes this course though, competing with the quiche for top ranking. The meat is tender and the light sprinkling of gravy adds to the taste but does not make the bread soggy. A bit of bite comes from the gherkin. The bread in both sandwiches is whole wheat and holds its own with a fabulous crust. The portions are not very large — which turns out to be a blessing as the meal heads towards the dessert section.

We order an espresso tart and an apple crumble. Both are large and sumptuous portions. The espresso is redolent of both coffee and chocolate making each mouthful a real taste factory. The pastry case is light and crunchy, providing both texture and contrast. The apple crumble, which comes with ice-cream, is soft with apple and crunchy with pastry and sugar. Lots of currants add extra texture and taste.

This is when you start to feel real full and wish you had eaten less of this or that. (Actually you don’t. You just wish you were not so greedy).

By the way, there’s salad and some delightful melon served with each main course. (Not with the dessert of course). Some excellent coffee, served French style in a bowl.

Overall, Le Pain Quotidien is a very international and satisfying experience. A couple of observations — the decor is a bit monochromatic and therefore dull and the baguette which I bought just three weeks ago (show off, I know!) at the Le Pain Quotidien branch at London’s Southbank was infinitely superior!

But these are small quibbles for an excellent meal which was decidedly unpretentious. And, yes, maybe next time, more people can try the communal table and share a little.