Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), the new CBD of Mumbai has really started to come into its own. Apart from the gleaming office towers and (relatively) clean and broad roads, what stands out about the area is the growth of quality dining options here. No longer do you have to trek to the airport hotels or Bandra (West) for a decent dining venue with office colleagues. The newest entrant on this evolving scene is Yauatcha - a Hong Kong style dim sum house owned by the same group as Hakkasan, the upscale Chinese restaurant from London which opened its Indian outpost in Bandra (West) last year.
Once on the first floor, a large bar area with ample seating against well stocked wine fridges greets you. You walk past them to where the dining tables are and what surprised me is the proximity at which they are placed next to each other. You can actually participate in the conversation of the table next to you. I visited on a Wednesday evening and the crowd comprised mostly of office goers from the BKC area and a handful of television personalities. The place really starts to fill up around 10 pm and you are well advised to make reservations.
Yauatcha's ambience is sophisticated and understated with dark wooden furniture, small aquariums at either end and subdued lighting. All seating looks onto the expansive open kitchen or the BKC skyline. By the time we left, not a single table was unoccupied.
Now onto the raison d'etre for our visit. Going through the menu, you realize there is plenty of choice even for vegetarians. The drinks menu is interesting and in keeping with its tea-house origins, there are varied tea choices from across China/ Taiwan and India. I was happy to see a personal favourite of mine - Dragon's Well Green Tea - featured on the menu and with most of them priced at INR 250 for a pot, I thought the pricing was quite attractive for tea lovers. The wine list is exhaustive by Indian standards and by those same standards, very expensive too! Cocktails priced at INR 350-500 and beers in the same range are standard in Mumbai which explains their presence on most tables.
We started off our evening with a portion of steamed chicken and prawn shui mai (4 pieces for INR 275) and a portion of hot and sour soup with shredded chicken (INR 300). The shui mai was strictly average - I've eaten way better ones and can say the same for the soup. Next to arrive were steamed chicken dumplings (3 pieces for INR 475) which again were passable. They were kind of gelatinous, bland and not a patch on what you'll be served at a Din Tae Fung (for half the price) or even a standalone tea house in Hong Kong. Wanting to try a prawn preparation, our waiter recommended Crispy Prawn Cheung Fun over the Prawn and Chinese Chive dumpling. Great recommendation! This was by far the best dish of the evening. At INR 525 for 10 pieces, the portion was generous and delicious. The soft exterior of the Cheung Funs wrapped a fried prawn mix inside which was really tasty. We decided to wrap up with a rice dish and promptly ordered the Emperor's Seafood Fried Rice which was a decent size portion of rice with scallops, prawns and squids with a soy chilli gravy on the side. I didn't enjoy it too much and was thankful for the fish we had ordered. The Steamed Rawas in Spicy Black Bean Sauce (INR 650) was absolutely fantastic. Our server recommended Prawns in Spicy Sauce and to my surprise, it was a big let down. It is hard to go wrong with tasty meat like prawns but Yauatcha managed this. Quite a feat in my opinion!
The service at Yauatcha is wonderful. The staff are well groomed and well informed about their menu and are able to make good recommendations. They are not intrusive and at the same time, available the moment you need them. The 10% mandatory service charge is well deserved by the crew. On a side note, let me make a mention here about the washrooms. They are done up in the same dark wooden theme as the rest of the restaurant but the actual cubicles are so small that you have to stand at an angle to be able to open / close the door. And if that isn't enough, the high-tech sensory taps don't work! Not one of the 4 taps in the ladies' washroom worked and the attendant cleaner even rapped them with a prong to get them started but to no avail. Not very befitting of a high end dining establishment.
Yauatcha is located in fashionable Raheja Tower and you can see the restaurant exterior from a distance. The all glass paneled seating area with its 20+ feet ceiling looks warm and exclusive as you drive upto it. For people with disabilities and pregnant ladies, some disappointment awaits. You have to climb a flight of stairs from the reception foyer area to the first floor. There is an elevator but in the usher's own words 'it is located at the back of the building and not so convenient'.
Once on the first floor, a large bar area with ample seating against well stocked wine fridges greets you. You walk past them to where the dining tables are and what surprised me is the proximity at which they are placed next to each other. You can actually participate in the conversation of the table next to you. I visited on a Wednesday evening and the crowd comprised mostly of office goers from the BKC area and a handful of television personalities. The place really starts to fill up around 10 pm and you are well advised to make reservations.
Yauatcha's ambience is sophisticated and understated with dark wooden furniture, small aquariums at either end and subdued lighting. All seating looks onto the expansive open kitchen or the BKC skyline. By the time we left, not a single table was unoccupied.
Now onto the raison d'etre for our visit. Going through the menu, you realize there is plenty of choice even for vegetarians. The drinks menu is interesting and in keeping with its tea-house origins, there are varied tea choices from across China/ Taiwan and India. I was happy to see a personal favourite of mine - Dragon's Well Green Tea - featured on the menu and with most of them priced at INR 250 for a pot, I thought the pricing was quite attractive for tea lovers. The wine list is exhaustive by Indian standards and by those same standards, very expensive too! Cocktails priced at INR 350-500 and beers in the same range are standard in Mumbai which explains their presence on most tables.
We started off our evening with a portion of steamed chicken and prawn shui mai (4 pieces for INR 275) and a portion of hot and sour soup with shredded chicken (INR 300). The shui mai was strictly average - I've eaten way better ones and can say the same for the soup. Next to arrive were steamed chicken dumplings (3 pieces for INR 475) which again were passable. They were kind of gelatinous, bland and not a patch on what you'll be served at a Din Tae Fung (for half the price) or even a standalone tea house in Hong Kong. Wanting to try a prawn preparation, our waiter recommended Crispy Prawn Cheung Fun over the Prawn and Chinese Chive dumpling. Great recommendation! This was by far the best dish of the evening. At INR 525 for 10 pieces, the portion was generous and delicious. The soft exterior of the Cheung Funs wrapped a fried prawn mix inside which was really tasty. We decided to wrap up with a rice dish and promptly ordered the Emperor's Seafood Fried Rice which was a decent size portion of rice with scallops, prawns and squids with a soy chilli gravy on the side. I didn't enjoy it too much and was thankful for the fish we had ordered. The Steamed Rawas in Spicy Black Bean Sauce (INR 650) was absolutely fantastic. Our server recommended Prawns in Spicy Sauce and to my surprise, it was a big let down. It is hard to go wrong with tasty meat like prawns but Yauatcha managed this. Quite a feat in my opinion!
The service at Yauatcha is wonderful. The staff are well groomed and well informed about their menu and are able to make good recommendations. They are not intrusive and at the same time, available the moment you need them. The 10% mandatory service charge is well deserved by the crew. On a side note, let me make a mention here about the washrooms. They are done up in the same dark wooden theme as the rest of the restaurant but the actual cubicles are so small that you have to stand at an angle to be able to open / close the door. And if that isn't enough, the high-tech sensory taps don't work! Not one of the 4 taps in the ladies' washroom worked and the attendant cleaner even rapped them with a prong to get them started but to no avail. Not very befitting of a high end dining establishment.
Overall, I recommend Yauatcha for an evening out with friends. The elegant ambience, innovative drinks and swish crowd all make for a fun evening out on town. If you are planning to come here only for the food, I would say once is enough. Tea house style dining is a new concept in India and I am not sure most people will take to it since it can be quite tedious. The concept is to order multiple dishes so you can sample a variety of them (also because portion sizes are small) but the Indian palate is different. It can get quite boring to pore over the menu again and again to come up with the next portion. What doesn't help is that the most popular dim sum dish of any tea house - Juicy Pork Dumplings - don't make an apperance at all on Yauatcha's menu. Having lived in Hong Kong, my high expectations were probably misplaced especially with respect to dim sums. They left me highly unimpressed. I would say Yauatcha's dimsums are at par with the dimsums you'd be served at most decent 5 star hotels in Mumbai. Would I be back to Yauatcha? Only for the food, no. For a chilled out evening with friends in a nice setting, Yauatcha is as good as it gets.
No comments:
Post a Comment