Spicy Roots . Review on Spice Root, Chembur, Mumbai

The Foodie adventures continue with me and my gourmet friend Vinayak , we now sauntered into the most awaited restaurant in Chembur .. at least by us … we’ve been seeing the board for quite some time and were waiting for the place to open. ( Check out the Prequel to this review in the review of Anything on a platter ).So we walk into Spice Root to find just another family besides us with around 8 tables neatly arranged around.

Far Eastern cuisine is not served much in Chembur, the old war horse in terms of restaurants Grand Central recently commenced serving Thai Food. Thai food is similar to south Indian food ,only that some of the ingredients like Galang which is a type of ginger are only grown in Thailand and have to be Imported. Far East includes a lot of countries like Laos, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and may include Mongolia and Japan too. This restaurant is supposed to be a specialist in Far Eastern Cuisine but sadly only Chinese , Thai and Mongolian Food are served.

What’s there in the Menu

Starters – Vegetarian and Non Vegetarian ( Saiwoo Chicken , Chicken in Hot black Oyster Sauce , Butter Lemon Prawns , Tofu in Choice of Sauce, Dragon Rolls )

Desserts( Sizzling Brownie with ice cream, Honey tossed noodles with Ice Cream)

Howz the Food

The Dragon rolls came rolling for the Starters and seemed to be a small cousin of the Spring Rolls sans the soy Sauce. It seemed too thin and ordinary. Well it did nothing much to satisfy the ravenous hunger we had on a late Sunday afternoon.

We were wondering whether to have Chinese .. but we have had authentic Chinese before, and were not much in mood for Thai … I just had Coconut milk Stew and Hoppers ( a Kerala Preparation ) the earlier evening and didn’t want a repeat.

Mongolian , that sounded interesting and we queried and were passed two sheets of paper. It turned out that this is some kind of Make your own dish kind of a cuisine. Served only on Flat Noodles (ironically my favorite ) , we had to choose from varied Choices of Fresh Vegetables Which ranged from the Local ones like Cabbage, Carrot, French beans, Cauliflower and the like to exotic ones like Asparagus, Broccoli , Chinese Cabbage and the like. To add to this were choices of Chicken , Meat , Seafood and some add ones like Celery , Crushed Pepper, Garlic etc etc .

Then there were Sauces and a plethora to Choose from ranging from the Contemporary , Hunan, Schezwan , Hot Black Bean to Teriyaki and many more Sauces.

Having made our choices we had two huge Bowlfuls (each costing Rs 125 ) which we huffed and puffed eating as it was quite a portion and we couldn’t resist the Sizzling Brownie which is a small Sizzler plate in which is placed a Brownie , then a scoop of Vanilla ice is topped and then a nice bowlful of Chocolate Sauce is poured over the hot plate and oh this is sinful but hey …We live only once.

Have a go at this place its great, looks pretty empty when I see the restaurant as I pass by it nowadays but I guess no ones still aware of this place