ITP Indian Travel Places: Food, Travel, Tourism Business Events and Trade Shows
Phone: +919004655554, +919004655559
Address: Juhu Tara Road, Next to JW Marriott, Uditi Tarang Housing Colony, Juhu Tara, Juhu, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400049 India
Time: 12:00 Noon – 16:00 PM and 18:30 PM – 12:00 Midnight
Meals for two: ₹2,000
Cuisines: Continental, North Indian, Seafood, South Indian, Oriental, Maharashtrian, Desserts
Facilities: Home Delivery, Takeaway Available, Wheelchair Accessible, Serves Alcohol, Family Friendly, Live Sports, Screening, Outdoor Seating, Serves Cocktails, Disabled Friendly, Smoking Area, Desserts and Bakes, Live Entertainment, Valet Parking Available, Live Music, Kid Friendly
It’s all about consistency. Read on and you’ll know why. Today’s review is about a restaurant whose flagship, no-frill Fort eatery had me magnetised almost three decades ago. I used to go for dinner to this Lunch Home regularly.
From a small beginning in the late 70s, Mahesh Lunch Home has now expanded and swanked up with air-conditioned comfort and a well-stocked bar, some Oriental and North Indian dishes too. And expanded to span Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Dubai too.
Juhu’s Mahesh Lunch Home
Quite clearly the action has all moved to North Mumbai. I love the youthful energy of the suburbs, of Bandra, Andheri and Juhu in particular. We take the traffic-choked drive to Juhu with the prospect of checking out our favourite Mangalorean cuisine. Today’s review is of the swanky Juhu branch. When it first opened, I had dined here with Kabir Bedi. We had both enjoyed the Mangalorean, as well as the North Indian fare. Today, we dine with Juhu foodies, media professional Siddhartha Chatterjee, charming Namrata and Arjun who’s in Mumbai for a summer break from his US college. We have a fabulous evening bonding and catching up. But, does the food match up?
Mahesh Lunch Home, Juhu, Mumbai: Decor
Juhu’s Mahesh Lunch Home sprawls on two levels. Pink walled and packed. Dramatically lit, it has a comfortable pleasant ambiance.
Food:
All of us are Mangalorean food fans. So it is with a lot of happy anticipation that we order our favourite dishes.
Out of the list of dishes we taste, only three are worth a mention. Golden crisp and fresh, the fried Bombil is as good as ever. As is the generous portion of Surmai fry with the perfect balance of masala and cooked tender, yet firm. The vegetarian stew has a perfect velvetty consistency and just the right proportion of coconut.
Minus Points:
Overload of coconut in the Mutton Sukha, overcooked mutton too. Slushy green Veg mallipuram disappoints. The biggest disappointment is their usually starred dish, creamy, delicately-spiced, intensely flavourful coconutbased Gassi. I’ve had the most perfect gassi in their Fort Mahesh Lunch Home. In it, the best flavours of roasted spices were perfectly balanced with the slight sweetness of coconut. The bedgi chillies infused the gassi with the perfect colour and flavour too. Sadly, the gassi under review today lacks both, texture and flavour. Limp appam and neer dosa as well.
My Point:
I’m often asked as to what is the most important factor when it comes to reviewing a restaurant. Food? Service? Ambiance? Of course, it’s all these but most of all it is “consistency”.
Mahesh Lunch Homes’ service continues to be consistently good (kudos to Paresh) but the standard of many of its dishes has dropped. Maybe it was just a bad day for the kitchen. Your feedback will be invaluable in tracking the consistency.
