Firstly, for once I am going to start by pointing out that '5' is located not in Bandra but in Santa Cruz and thus hope that MS folk relocate this place on the web site.
Have passed by '5' so many times adn have wanted to go in to at least take a look too many times. But usually because of the odd location, never really managed to. And I say odd location, because its sort of mid way, for me, to no where. I don't shop in Santa Cruz, don't stay there, have nothing to do with that place etc etc and couldn't really imagine that the place would be good enough to merit a special visit there. So, it was kept for one of those times when we were passing by and needed a meal.
That is exactly what happened yesterday. After having spent a harrowing half hour at Milan Subway for car accessories in the blistering heat, we were passing by Santa Cruz, needed lunch and just made a quick decision to stop by at '5' because neither of us had been there before. Something that went for '5' was the fact that there was parking available right in front of the eatery. We went in, and were ushered in by the servers who were standing outside. That actually also told us that the restaurant was unoccupied, but then it was too early for most Indians to eat lunch. It was just an hour past noon.
It felt nice to go into a well airconditioned place and we chose to sit right below the a.c. unit. The place is small, most probably was a regular small house which has been converted. It has two and a half rooms which work at the seating area, about 7-8 tables at max. The walls are pleasantly painted in ochre, and the windows have 'chik' type vertical blinds. We sat in the first regular room, inwards. From there, since I faced away from the road, and looked into some sort of vegetation, it didn't really seem I was sitting in Bombay, and almost right on S V Road. Couldnt hear the traffic much either and that I think is a plus point.
The table mats are the eco friendly, hand made paper type. Something gave us the feeling (though we were the only customers at that time), that the place most probably is a bit pretentious and pretentious people visit here as well. I braced myself, because I get turned off by places which are pretentious without being of that quality. Only places like say the Indigo or the Olive can choose to be so, at least in my opinion.
Anyways, we were handed the menus and we started looking at it. We ordered a couple of Pepsis in the meanwhile and were served from cans and that I think is a good sign usually. The server seemed to be polite too. As I looked through the menu, I noticed that every section has five items to it. There were the soups, the appertifs, the main entrees, grills /bar be cues, beverages and the desserts...darn, that makes is 6 doesnt it? :-). The food is designed to be more Italian, continental in nature, guess.
We chose to have a chicken cane soup, gave the appertifs a pass. For the entrees, we gave the pastas a pass and chose to eat Moroccan chicken and leg of lamb. Assuming usual helping size, we chose to break the soup between the two of us. And with the knowledge that the food is going to be a while, we let our shoulders slouch, and relax.
Meanwhile, the first table in the restaurant got occupied by the owner (?), her friend /business associate and another gentleman. And the table behind us by two guys, very in with today's teenager styles etc. Though I strongly believe that only the African American people in the US dress the way these two were dressed. We also noticed that though these two tables got occupied long after ours, the bread baskets reached them first. Shouldn't the owner be a little more careful about this? Isn't she wanting to run a business? That did piss me off a bit and a possible decent gratuity suddenly started vanishing from the servers' fortune.
In a while the soup arrived in soup plates and I liked that. Most restaurants these days prefer soup bowls rather than the soup plates. Dunked my soup spoon into the soup and noticed there was hardly any soup, implying that the helpings in this place were not going to be decent. And I had to ask for the bread basket to be brought in. That did the gratuity in, completely.
The soup was sort of indifferent, nothing really to write home about. The slivers of chicken were few and far between. The warm bread arrived meanwhile, the butter on the table helped and that made me feel nice. As we waited we sort of overheard the other people on the other tables and the apprehensions of pretentiousness of 5's customers (people who need to use both the fork and knife for knife carvable meat??) came true.
The food arrived and did look nice. It also did smell nice. The chicken was mine and it came with a few diced pieces of tomatoes and yellow bell peppers. The breats of chicken sat on a bed of rissotto and a brownish sauce. The chicken was tender, but would have expected it to be knife carveable, but it wasn't. A bit surprised, though the chicken did taste nice. The sauce was nice too. The helping was not. The rissotto was nothing really to write home about and had more or less the same flavours as the rissotto that I cook up once in a while, so no big deal. Food in a restaurant is expected to be better than that cooked by an amateur.
The lamb came in diced pre-prepared portions and I believe was very soft. It had some rice pilaf, some corn and peas. The sauce used was the same as in my chicken. Perhaps that was the sauce of the day. The helping again was not much.
The food tasted good and thus there wasn't enough reason to crib. However, both of us were pretty hungry when we started to eat, but by the time we finished we felt really full. Why would that be? The food wasn't really all that rich. Would it be a generous helping of soda bi-carb in the rice?
We finished our food, skipped the dessert and asked for the check. Take a guess how much we must have paid for the food that I described above? It was more than Rs 650. Rather awkward, isn't it?
Was it value for money - given the food, the helping size, the location? Nope.
Was the service out of the world? nope?
So why would I want to pay more than Rs 600 for a small meal? I wouldn't.
Would I go back to this place? Nope.
Would I recommend you to go to this place? nope.
If I wanted to eat this kind of food at better prices, at a location closer by, with better service and a better environment...where would I go? Retrobay in Bandra.
