Derby Cafe in Mumbai needs to get a new pace to stay in the race

Someone had mentioned this place to me a couple of years ago but I had forgotten all about it until rock chick got a flyer in her newspaper. The picture on it — which appeared to be some sort of a steak — looked tempting so we thought, why not.

It is somewhere in the bylanes around Khar station and on the fourth floor (I think) of this hotel. The closest other landmark is close to WTF. It is hard to know once you get up there whether you are Derby Cafe or U Turn, since there are no names (at least that I could see) on the fourth floor. But since the waiters wear T-shirts which say ‘Steward no 22’ and there are some horsy pictures on the walls, I’m assuming we were at the right place. Which appears to be a sort of pub and truth be told, the staff were a little gob-smacked when confronted by two middle-aged females demanding lunch. There was no one there but a DJ and some Hindi phillum music. Since I immediately got a tummy ache, I approached the DJ for some change in pace. He took one look at my grey hair and said, “Retro?” and promptly and kindly played some romantic pap from my best-forgotten youth. The tummy ache
receded a bit.

We were given menus for Derby Cafe and U Turn. The second was all Indian and Chinese. From Derby, we ordered devilled cheesy mushrooms and fish fingers for starters. The first was an indulgence and the second an obsession of rock chick’s, as regular readers may have twigged on to by now.

The fish fingers were good — the right amount of batter, lightly fried, a very light almost yogurty tartar sauce. The mushrooms would have been much better if they had been served hotter but they did really have the burst of cheese and celery promised on the menu.

For the main course, I stuck to Derby and tried a herb-crusted rawas while rock chick, unnerved by the preponderance of chicken on the said menu, opted for the Chinese section of U Turn. She ordered prawns salt and pepper and egg fried rice. Unfortunately for me, the rawas was burnt on the grill and this somewhat destroyed the taste. The Chinese food on the other hand was solid Indian style Chinese — a few notches higher than Hungry Eyes and very comforting and edible.

I was a bit chary of dessert after this, but decided to go for a tiramisu and thank god we did. It was creamy, not too sweet, lots of coffee flavour and a delicate layer of cake adding the bite to the dish — amazing.

Meanwhile, Derby had become full of college kids doing their thing and you got the feeling that normal order had been restored. The music changed from retro pap to hip hop, which was quite a welcome change by then.

This was an experience though I’m not sure if I would repeat it.