Restaurant Review: Mama Mia, Hill Road, Bandra (W)

Mama Mia is set back from Hill Road, opposite Globus and that is the only reason I didn’t spot it in all the years I used Hill Road everyday. In retrospect, good that I didn’t – given that it’s a shrine to yummy but fattening food, ignorance was bliss!!

I’d been to Mama Mia yesterday with some folks from work (all of us who’d skipped lunch because we were too busy slaving away on a Saturday…sigh), and hence there are no yummilicious snaps for you to drool over – but I hope I can still do a pretty descriptive review. :)

It’s a pretty large restaurant (by Hill Road standards) and has a comfortable ‘hang-out’ kind of vibe – large windows, teeny-bopper ambience (two toned walls, a large screen TV playing VH1, PYT patrons – you get it) The menu is can be divided into 3 categories of sin –
1. Deep Fried
2. Doused in Mayo
3. Baked with cheese

Truly.

Each and every dish falls into one of the above categories. And no surprises, the dishes we tried were all delicious (can one go wrong with an overload of mayo/cheese/deep-fried crunch? I think not. ) But run for the hills if you’re on a diet!

We started with 2 salads (If you think ‘salad’ denotes ‘light and healthy’, like I first did, then - ha!) - the Insalata Di Pollo and the Mixed Meat Salad. I had plugged for the latter since its description on the menu had no mention of mayo, but I guess the ignoramus that I am, I didn’t know ‘cocktail sauce’ was mayo-based! It was undeniably delicious with the flavours of salami and sausage (chicken, not pork) really shining through the lurid orangy-red mayo-based dressing that was zingy and creamy at the same time. The Insalata di Pollo was your routine chicken salad with mayonnaise, just with lots of spring onions. Simple, predictable and yummy. Both the ‘salads’ were wonderfully tasty, in a artery-clogging way. I could actually feel myself getting full on the single serves that I’d had. (The shame!)

Moving on, we tried the fish and chips platter – and this was a winner! The fish fillets were fresh and oh so moist, encased in crunchy golden-brown batter (breading)!! I think the kitchen had marinated the fish first (not usually done in traditional fish n’ chips) which was the reason it was so palate-teasingly moist. The chips were good, nothing spectacular – they were tasty despite their uneven appearance, but not even close to the fries at Le Golden Arches. :) The fish and chips came with ‘’tartare sauce’ - a fizzy (yes, I was jolted, too!) raita-like concoction with grated carrot and greens that I steered clear of.

Next on the agenda were a couple of baked dishes. The one I sampled was a colleague’s all-time favourite dish, called ‘The Bulldog’. She is the one who got us to MM in the first place, citing it s her favourite pig-out palce in Bandra. In the case of the Bulldog, she instructed the waiter to make the dish extra spicy – and what appeared was a heaven-made combination of chopped chicken salami, shredded chicken baked with beautifully just-cooked chewy pasta tubes and a cheesy spicy white sauce (béchamel, what’s that?!) with a blistered cheese surface. Piping hot and tantalizing.

By this point I was about to burst (despite the small serves - the mayo/cheese do the job as effectively!) and didn’t try anything else. But I had a pretty clear indication of the culinary philosophy that rules MM’s kitchen – ‘Bring on the cholestrerol!’ seems to be the delicious motto! :)

The pricing is surprisingly affordable with the salads going for Rs 75-85, the Fish and Chips being around Rs 120 (with 5-6 pieces of fish and loads of chips) and the baked dishes around the Rs 120 mark.

My aforementioned colleague recommends that vegetarian folks stay away, there’s not much on offer for them, and I agree. Not that the veggie fare wont be good, its that the USP of MM is its non vegetarian dishes.

In short (haha! – Nearly 700 words till now!) MM is a wonderful place for an evening of indulgence with old friends (or foodie colleagues) with whom you don’t mind appearing like a pig. :) The food is uniformly tasty if not completely authentic. But all that LDL-laden food means that MM should not be a regular stop in your food yatra. :)