Restaurant Review: IMBISS, off Hill Road, Bandra West

I came across IMBISS (or is it Imbiss, like any other regular name? I don't know) categorised as 'Hidden Gem' on Zomato. With a tagline like 'The 'Meating Joint', the rave reviews on Zomato AND THE FACT THAT A MEAL FOR TWO WOULD COST RS 600 I couldn't get there soon enough.

And I COULDN'T get there soon enough. Correction- I wouldn't have been able to get there if it was not for the most excellent of apps, the superhero of helpfulness, the king of customer satisfaction- aka Google Maps. Tucked into a tiny lane off Hill Road, IMBISS can easily be skipped from most dinner plans, simply because its just not visible.

But once you put yourselves in Google Maps' reliable hands, you easily find your way to Carnivore Heaven. Located on the ground floor of a residential building, IMBISS is cosy (read: small) restaurant with a small paved yard in the front, lit with fairy lights. The yard (or more prosaically, the small space in front of the building) slopes gently downwards, giving you a lopsided dining experience, if you sit outdoors.

But who cares about tiny benches and stools and slope-away floors when the menu boasts of schnitzels and sausages, ribs and roasts- most of them under Rs 200? The most expensive dish on the menu, baby back pork spare ribs is listed at Rs 375. It is incidentally also one of the most raved-about dishes in Zomato reviews.

Agent J and I, however, went with the other dish that was lauded by foodies- the Signature Sausage platter.
 
Priced at Rs 180, this dish features 8 sausages, ranging from small cocktail ones to big snags. What was remarkable was that every sausage had a distinct flavour and taste- from the Indian-ish spiciness of the cocktail chicken sausage, to the hearty smokiness of the big pork one. There was a mild, cheese-studded chicken sausage and a pepper-spiked pork one. Some were very soft, others were toothsome with a nice bite to them.  Such a playground of tastes and textures! Yum yum.

For the next dish, we asked our server for a recommendation. I must take time here to mention that the server young yet knowledgeable and showed a sense of ownership about the menu and the place that was heartening to see. He first recommended the ribs but cautioned us they could be fatty. When we demurred, he suggested trying one of the daily specials- grilled pork tenderloin, saying that the portion was small and manageable. We decided to go with the recommendation and what a good decision it was! A small serving of pork loin, grilled till well done and a soft -yet-firm texture. A plump sausage on the side, along with super smooth mashed potatoes and lightly sauteed vegetables- beans, carrots and peas. All swathed in a brown sauce- not the British brown sauce (as I had fretted it would be, with its sweet vinegary undertaste) - but  salty, savoury and flavoursome, more like a jus or gravy.

Since Agent J has a healthily restrained appetite and not too great a love for meat. So we stopped our culinary explorations after these 2 dishes. However, while I was not hungry anymore, I COULD HAVE made space for some schnitzel, had I a kindred soul (or stomach) for company. Sigh.

Anyway, the 2 dishes that we DID feast upon cost us a total of Rs 470. Try eating for that much in any other fancy Bandra West eatery that serves 'Continental' food!

The menu is littered with interesting eye-catching items like fried duck egg, pickled quail eggs,  Bavarian meatloaf, Bratwurst, duck sausage and so on. Am definitely going to be back- for culinary research, of course! ;)

The Local: the purposely-grungy pot of gold at the end of a treasure hunt

Did you know, in these egalitarian times, there are places that are 'members only'? Where the golden doors (in this case, an unmarked anonymous cream-coloured door) open only for those select few who have IT?

The IT in question is the password, and the patience/coolness to hunt for the entrance to The Local. Yes, there is no signage or visible clues to locate the entrance -  but along with the password, they do give you directions that are just about enough for you to begin the hunt. And once you locate it (not giving any spoilers!), punch in the password, the innocuous door unlocks and you enter with a sense of achievement. Made it! 

The Local has an urban-grunge vibe, with its dim lighting, quirky wall murals, a speckled mirrored wall and the naked electric bulbs fixed into a lattice of tubes and pipes reminiscent of the classic Mad Scientist's laboratory.  The music is fun, wait staff is friendly and polite, the bar is generous and the menu eclectic. They also have interesting off-menu specials listed on the blackboards on the walls. As Agent J and I made ourselves comfortable after placing our order for drinks and kheema pao, I remarked that the only things left to make The Local perfect in my eyes were WiFi and charging points at every table (my iPhone devours battery charge like a glutton!) And guess what? Right below our table was a charging point (my hungry iPhone was soon gulping down electricity) and there was free WiFi too! Smiles all around. :)

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​Our drinks came by quickly enough but the kheema pao took so long that we were left wondering if the kitchen was busy chasing down the goat who would yield the mutton for our kheema. But before we could grow too antsy, our smiling server came over and apologised for the delay , explaining that the kitchen was busy with prepping for the busy Saturday evening. Score one for the service!

The Kheema Pao, when it did reach the table, made up for its fashionable late appearance. Juicy, tasty kheema topped with a fried egg and a little side serve of fresh onion, capsicum, tomato and mint leaves and a fat wedge of lemon. The kheema had just the right amount of spice and bite and the pao were soft, fluffy with burnished golden-brown tops gleaming with butter. Yummy without being too adventurous. 

We asked our server to recommend our second dish, and he suggested the Smoked Chicken, a blackboard special. The chicken showed up in record time, and was delicious too! A roulade of chicken breast slices, stuffed with chicken mince and served with gravy, mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, this was a classic Sunday Roast kind of dinner. The mash was scrumptiously buttery and smooth, the veggies steamed just-so (not mushy at all!) and the chicken was soft and juicy. And the gravy, flavoursome with a gentle chickeny-peppery taste, just amped things up to a whole new level. 

The Local hosts karaoke nights on Tuesdays and Thursdays (so the little signboards by the bar proclaimed) but they opened up the karaoke system on the Saturday that we were there. By then, the place was heaving with cool, well-dressed, hip young folks eager to grab the mike and ruin some of the loveliest songs of the decade. Oh well. You cant have everything in one place!