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ShareSalt Water Café
Ground Floor, Rose Minar
Annexe, Chapel Rd.,
Bandra (W),
Mumbai -- 400 050
Tel: 26434441
Rating: 3
meal for two: Rs4,000(With alcohol)
Although it sort of shares the name with the Salt Water Grill in Chowpatty which has since closed down, Salt Water Café is not a fancy fine dining eaterie, but as it suggests, a café.
And a very attractive one at that, with all its wood accents and whatnot. It has a ground floor restaurant, an upstairs bar and an open air area, so ample seating space but it was pretty full on a weekday night.
The menu is very deli and the bar is extremely well-stocked. In keeping with that, you have an extensive starters menu. (Note to self: may be a good idea to make a meal of this another time).
We picked the chicken liver pate, the cheese board and the prawn and calamari ajillo. I really like the onion chutney that went with the chicken liver pate but the companion was not so impressed. The pate was good enough but I was not happy with the apple slice. I find that the Chinese apples look pretty but are far too fragrant -- there's more smell than taste. A crisper, tarter apple would have been a better choice. This is a quibble. Who cares about a wafer-thin sliver of apple anyway?
The cheese board had a good selection of cheese -- brie, emmenthal, gorgonzola and grand padano. There was one slice of melba toast along with this, but palate cleansers aplenty -- Muscat grapes, them apples and some arugula leaves.
There was also plenty of scrumptious bread and delicious sweet butter in seemingly endless supply. Good idea for stomach lining if you aim to drain the bar.
The prawns and squid in their garlicky sauce were quite delicious. Both were fresh and tender with not a hint of chewiness, but yet firm and meaty.
You can get pretty full up on a cheese board and so many starters, but it was on to the main course. There's a large and interesting sandwich section (and a great breakfast menu as well, though it opens a tad late at 9 am) but we stuck to the main stuff.
The smoked duck carbonara with linguini and candied orange peel (the duck replacing the bacon) was good enough, though the candied peel did not really add substantially to the whole deal. The duck was very good and so, there could have been more of it! But the carbonara effect came through very well -- creamy -- and the smokiness of the duck enhanced it.
The chorizo stew, which sounded superb, was a tad disappointing. Chorizo has so much flavour by itself that it does not really need to be bolstered. In which case, the stew was too much like a strong sweet gravy and the result was tongue overload.
In a strange way, if you combined the linguini and the chorizo you got a fine mixture.
For dessert, we had the dark chocolate crème brulee which was an absolute winner. The chocolate custard wrapped itself round your tongue and then slid down your throat like a bit of heaven. The portion was tiny but wicked!
One most important point: Salt water Café has perhaps the best service you can get anywhere in this city. The waiters are friendly, knowledgeable, helpful and efficient. They're there when you need them and vanish when you don't: a precious quality which is awfully hard to find.
Good experience and on the next visit, some more experimentation required.
