Disappointment has an alias....

Place: Sahibaan

Location: Alipur Trust Building, 2nd Pasta Lane, near Colaba Market, Colaba, Mumbai.

Seating: Any where between 20-25 people; maybe more.

Ambience:
Poster Red interiors, with inviting photos of some of the food they serve. Their prices and deals and put up in loud colours and fonts, for corresponding photos. Large tables are partially confined in booths, which also accommodate facing couches(comfortable) along the length of the tables. Reflecting surfaces make up the upper half of the walls here. Tables here have a big bowl with a previously estimated number of pairs of Forks and Spoons. The lighting is otherwise dull. But a good place to sit down for a friendly meeting, a chat, and hopefully a good meal.


Food:This place serves Chinese and Moghlai eatables primarily, and they also do some Sizzlers. I have always eaten Chinese here, since it always is the best/safe bet. I had been here not less than a year back. The food I had had then was genuinely good, if not thoroughly impressive. I remember having a good time enjoying the food in particular. But, my last visit to this place, which happened in the previous week, did turn out to be a shocker. I was accompanied by a friend. Due to money constraints, we ordered what they called a “Chinese Thaali”, per head, and a starter of 'Crispy Thread Chicken'. Till the time our 'Mains' arrived on our table, we were served some complimentary Crispy Fried Noodles, with 'Szechuan' sauce(a combo of which I cannot get enough of). The best aspect of this deal is that you can ask for seconds, and perhaps thirds, but we didn't go that far. Then came the 'Thaali', which basically was medium sized portions of all the courses in a Chinese meal, though we have no option but to go for the simpler dishes, as they have a set menu. You get soup, I got myself the notorious 'Manchow', which seemed to be just another soup, didn't jump out of the bowl to pack a punch, as it should. Rather , this one seems to be a shy member of the family. The rice was a plain Egg Fried Rice, nothing much one can say about it, it is self-explanatory. We had it with some Chicken Chilly, which was, for some ambiguous reason and ordeal to finish. It perhaps lacked taste, and certainly the texture was missing. The Thaali also included three(not even a single more), pieces of fried Won-Tons, which were so floury, that I didn't realise when my Iced Tea had touched the bottom of the glass. Nothing that I tried worked out to counter the dryness. Not to forget, the Won-Tons were more flour and less chicken, so less that you might end up thinking that you had a chicken flavoured Pappodom. I was hoping that the Crispy Thread Chicken would save the day. Sadly, Lady Luck is a senile, schadenfreude witch, who cackles at your littlest misery. The waiters mistook our order of 'Crispy Thread Chicken' with a more expensive, for reasons unknown, 'Crispy Basil Chicken'. It, funnily had a unique taste of a particular two minute noodle tastemaker, whose roughly ground also gave a pretty coarse texture. It was over-seasoned with salt and M.S.G.s, and the basil was nowhere to be found. I wonder if basil “disappears on wilting”. Anyways, the lunch ended with a scoop of chocolate ice-cream, which I can't criticise, as it was obviously out of a box. Over-all, we stepped out sour.

Presentation: The presentation is good enough to make you go for all of it. The looks of the place and the food are appealing. That's that.

Service: The service is a desperate attempt to be prompt, but this pursuit results in discord. Out waiter couldn't get our order right, which we realised after inspecting the bill. Consequently, we had to shell out more than what we had planned for. To add insult to injury, the waiter was not apologetic about his err, forget a refund.


Cost: The damages done were worth around 550-600 bucks.

"Worth" factor: I would treat this particular incident, as one of Sahibaan's blue days, 'Cause, I have had better food here, and at another of its branches, more than once. The service is just alright, the prices have certainly gone up, which will further keep me away from it. The food can be better. I'd recommend a research before a visit. But, otherwise I do not mind it.

Verdict:

Pros:
1.> Good setting, pretty looks, and comfortable; certainly a place where you might lose track of time
2.>My past experience with the food here has been great, so there is hope for the future
3.>Decent crowd and rarely is the place packed. So one can expect to sit comfortably and experience the place at one's leisure


Cons:
1.>I personally hate places that lack consistency in providing quality, and now Sahibaan falls in that category
2.>The food, now, is a bit overpriced
3.>The service is painful, and the waiter can be convincingly daft

-Gaurang(Gabo)

The one chinese place you can always depend on....

There are quite a few chinese joints in mumbai. Most of them can be categorized as either authentic, or adopting the more "desi" style. You'll either be having some weird dish that you've never heard about, or some fried rice at a food stall, that you might have become bored of. But there's this other category, called semi-authentic, which does not fall in between the two, but one which adds a different dimension to the cuisine. There are very few places which adopt this style of cooking, which is sad considering how good the results can be. 5spice is one such place which falls under this category. Its a franchise with multiple outlets in the city, and has made quite a name for itself with their semi-authentic style.

Ambiance-Pretty much your standard fare. A bit tawdry for my liking. Its your standard restaurant decor with the occasional chinese relic thrown in between just to justify the cuisine. Its like they took the semi-authentic concept too seriously. Other than that, its pretty well maintained with comfortable seating and well presented tables. A tad too small, considering the crowd it attracts, resulting in queues waiting outside for most of the day. But even so, they provide chairs for the people waiting outside so that's good enough.

Food - Most of the dishes found at this place can range from good to very good. If i had to suggest a good combination, i would say have the crab meat soup, kung pao chicken for starters, Forture rice with fish hunan for the main course, and top it off with a death by chocolate. But you can trade any of the above dishes with any other on the menu and still have a very enjoyable experience. And there's a lot of variety to choose from. They have separate sections for chicken, fish and lamb, and each one of them have a lot of dishes to try. And its not just the quality of the food thats praise worthy, but also the quantity. Its the textbook definition of 'bang for the buck'. One portion of rice or noodles can easily serve up to 3 people. So if you're planning to go solo, don't. That brings me to my main complaint, the lack of half portions. They should have been introduced a long time ago and would make life easy for a lot of people. And its a bad business decision in itself. I can't recount the number of times i had to cancel my plan of going to this place because some friend of mine had some other matter to tend to. As soon as you think of going alone, the quantity comes to mind along with the potential wastage, which is a turn off. But other than that, the food gets no criticism from me.

Service - Depending on the time you visit this place, it can either be very good or disastrous. If you go only to find a huge number of people waiting outside, don't expect to get a table any time soon. The waiters are lousy when it comes to keeping a note of who came first, and you might lose a table to the person who came after you. Other than that, the service is decent. It doesn't take much time for the food to arrive once you place the order, but the time it takes to actually reach this phase can be variable. Do not order food from home. It will take ages. You're better off going there and getting the food yourself. Plus if you go there to take the parcel, they give you a 10% discount, which is a nice motivating factor.

Conclusion - As the title for this article suggests, 5spice is a chinese place which you can always depend on. Although not completely authentic, it has built up a name for itself by serving something different, and it has done this very well indeed. Building up reputation with a high level of quality and then complementing that with awesome quantity; how many places can boast of that? Not many i'm sure. It does have its problems. The service is haphazard, and the ambiance is an afterthought. But when it comes to the food, it hits the mark. And that's the best indicator of a good place. But i wouldn't give it the credibility it deserves until they start serving half portions. That's an absolute must.

Pros-
-Good quality of food
-Good quantity of food
-variety

Cons-
-Ambiance cant keep up with the other aspects
-Can be really difficult to find a seat given the huge crowd it attracts
-service is passable

Final verdict - A must try!!!