The heat and noise of the Churchgate street is left behind the second you step into the delightful soothing environs of Goodricke’s Tea Lounge – The Queen’s Deck.
A profusion of whites and greens accompanied by some really comfy seating, makes it the ideal spot to schmooze with your gal pals over tea and nibbles.
And yes, there are generous amounts of both. We tried the Chai Ki Chamak from the Goodricke Curated Range, which promised a sweet smell and rejuvenating properties, and the Turkish Mint Tea which delighted with its notes of freshness.
The menu offers a range of Darjeeling Specials, Assam Specials, Bada Saheb Selections, a Curated Range and even a Bespoke Range, and lets not forget the Iced Tea range.
We started off munching on Avocado Brochettes with a topping of tomato, red onion and coriander salsa – scrumptious! We also sampled the Chilly Cheese Toast from the Nostalgia menu, namely old favourites that the restaurant has retained, but had to rate it lower than the Brochettes.
For mains, we tried the veg version of Shepherd’s Pie, with soya mince cooked in tomato sauce topped with mashed potato. Again, a winner. Our non-veg companion enjoyed the Crusty Chicken, a herb-encrusted chicken cooked with mushrooms and served with spiced carrots and beans salad.
Deelicious! We chat briefly with the charming Head Chef Ritesh Rajguru who has been guiding our choices. In fact, all the service staff as well are pleasant and well-informed.
For a sweet ending, we are recommended the Creamy Matcha Pannacotta (yum) and the Lemon Almond Souffle (not as superlative). Definitely a place to return to, to do justice to its wide range of eats and more than 36 unique flavours of tea.
Where: Queen’s Deck, Resham Bhavan, 78, Ground Floor,
Tea Board Of India, Veer Nariman Road, Churchgate, Mumbai
Eat quick, eat healthy
Gita Hari
Given the hectic pace of today’s times, we can’t stop ourselves from eating out, yet the availability of wholesome food makes all the difference. With millennials getting health conscious, the demand is more for nutritious, non-fried and low carb meals. Keeping this in view, Rashi Agarwal, MD, MuVi Concept Restaurants, has introduced Pita Pit, the Canadian quick-service restaurant in Mumbai.
The menu at Pita Pit offers healthy and nutritious Pita wraps, salads and brown rice salads made as per guest’s choice. We were impressed by the fact that the fillings were not fried but freshly grilled in full view of the guests.
Each item is fully customised, allowing us to pick from different kinds of cheese, spreads, more than a dozen varieties of vegetables and 12 sauces. You can try out different combos on each visit. A separate kids’ combo makes it a family place to eat.
Our choice of pita of Falafel was scrumptious hummus in falafel grilled in secret sauce while a rice bowl of Veg Manchurian with a hint of spiciness in hot garlic sauce went well with organic jasmine tea and luscious mango shake.
The extensive menu lets you create your own chipotle potato, hara bara kebab, falafel, or harissa chicken, roasted chicken breast, BBQ chicken and more.
Their All Day Breakfast menu is inviting with garden and egg in salad, rice bowl or pita. You can also pick one of their veg or non-veg combos and get Lays plus a drink for a steal. As no meal is complete without a dessert, we had pita with Nutella and banana which was truly yum!
A meal at Pita Pit is high on taste, light on the tummy and easy on the wallet!
Where: Pita Pit, Upper Ground Floor, Phoenix Market City Mall,
Kurla Road, Mumbai
High-octane culinary journey
Manasi & Ronak Mastakar
After opening a series of fine dining restaurants, Chef Ishijyot Surri, Executive Chef, SJI Hospitality has come up with ABCD - Any Body Can Drink lounge bar. The entrance leading to the restaurant sets the tone for its sophisticated ambiance, music and expansive seating options.
On the menu are a variety of hard drinks, wines, sangrias, beers, cocktails and mocktails. Our mind was in a tizzy as we tried to shuffle the pages of the menu, finally settling on the cooling Grape Fizzy mocktail.
The place also has an extensive food menu offering not just Indian, but American, Mexican, Italian and Thai cuisines. We started our culinary journey with (our favourite) French Fries and their signature Sea Food platter comprising of Panchphoran Jhinga (prawns), Crispy Fried Kalamari, Fish in Thai Basil Sauce and Ajwaini Fried Fish and moved on to the succulent Chicken Lababdar Kebab.
Exploring the menu further, we tried the BBQ Grilled Chicken Sizzler—not too impressive and the quantity of the chicken wasn’t enough either. From the Oriental menu we tried the Roasted Chicken Dimsum, which was alright but needed a stronger dip to compliment the otherwise bland dimsums.
The best was the Indian Chicken Dum Biryani—we couldn’t stop gorging on the succulent juicy chicken in a non-spicy marinade mixed in aromatic basmati rice.
It was time to end our eating spree and Hazelnut Praline Moussecake and Sizzling Walnut Brownie with Vanilla Ice Cream proved to be the perfect desserts. Overall, though we loved some dishes (and drinks), we weren’t too happy with the quantity of the food, at least not for the price. Definitely worth a visit if you are in Andheri and need a nice party place to spend that weekend.
Where: Floor 1, Crescent Royale, Veera Desai Industrial Road, Off New Link Road, Andheri Lokhandwala, Andheri West, Mumbai
