The true aromas. Review on Aromas of China, Andheri, Mumbai

A couple of days back we had a chance to visit a restaurant in Andheri, Mumbai, called the “Aromas of China”. And what can I say except that I was drawn into writing this review, such powerful were their “Aromas”!

I don’t think that I need to give too much of a background again into what a fussy kind of eater I am. So much so that out of choice I visit only buffet restaurants and there too concentrate mostly on the salads since most of the main course dishes seem too full of oil to me. And on the other hand my wife is a total Chinese food fan. Though the multicuisine buffet restaurants that we usually go to do have a dish or two of Chinese on their menu, it has been my wife’s longstanding demand that I take her to a fully fledged specialty Chinese restaurant. I had until now been avoiding doing the inevitable, but recently I have realized that sacrificing your food choice for a meal on a weekend is so much simpler than catering to diamonds, or sarees, or accessories or holidays.

I’m sure the married men among us will understand very clearly what I’m talking about.

Well then, let the review begin! The parking in crowded Andheri has been simplified to some extent by them with the help of these unique hydraulic double rising parking platforms. Basically after one set of cars has been parked in the slots around the restaurant, these platforms can be raised and another full set of cars can be accommodated below them. Very unique, wouldn’t you agree. Simply doubles the capacity in the same space.

The décor inside is really nice. Even though it’s not part of a star rated hotel or any such thing, the waterfalls, walkways through the underlying water, table settings, manner of laying the buffet, the upkeep of the toilets, it’s all really up market. In addition to that they have several private rooms for small groups some of which even have provision for their own separate music and LCD TVs.

We of course being a group of about 12 people had one of these reserved for us. The staff at the reception was very friendly and cooperative and made sure we were all seated comfortably. Now even though it’s a buffet restaurant the service levels are rather good and they take the drink orders in a very personalized manner. I may mention here that in addition to the food spread unlimited drinks, wine, beer or iced tea etc are included in the cost of the buffet meal.

Along with these drinks, they serve starters first both of the veg and the non veg variety. The non veg included fried fish and fried chicken legs whereas in the veg variety they had fried potato sticks along with a few other items. I of course did not sample any of these being all fried but everyone else did mention that they were good.

The next part was the salads and though the actual or let’s say the conventional salads were only about 4-5 items, there were plenty of veg and non veg momo type of items with all kind of exotic stuffing’s including sea foods, chicken paneer and veggies. Cold cut meats were also there though only a few. To go with the salads were good soups. Two types of chicken and two in vegetarian were available. In fact in the chicken variety they called it the “make your own chicken soup”. Basically what they had done was that they had the clear chicken soup in a large container and all the additives including dim sums, noodles, cut greens kept separately to be added as per the choice of every individual. Again that was a very unique and good idea.

Now what can I say about the main course, it really was sumptuous! There were six main dishes including crab, lobsters, and prawns chicken and mutton keema. In the vegetarian section, they had similarly huge collection of excellent veg dishes. I may also mention here that in this whole collection nothing was done in excess oil and all of them were in authentic Chinese style sauces. Rarely have I seen such a spread even in restaurants attached to 4 star hotels. Accompaniments of rice and noodles were served to go with both the sections.

Moving to the desserts now, there were many choices there too. Maybe about 7-8 sweet dishes in addition to ice creams of several variety. I cannot ofcource say that I sampled from these but for the likes of me they had all conceivable varieties of cut fruits, like papaya, pineapple, musk and water melon. Must say all had a very hearty meal. In addition we really did not know how we spent time from about 1.00PM to 4.00PM !

And all for what, just Rs 450 per head ! I have to admit; in all the buffet meals that I have had this was the one that I was able to have most main course dishes and that too without a guilt feeling. Are the people in Mumbai lucky to have such joints or what I really cannot decipher? Let’s see what the others who have been here have to say.