To celebrate our second anniversary (court wedding date) yesterday, Priam and I went to Masala Library in the Bandra Kurla Complex. Similar to SpiceKlub (click here for my SpiceKlub experience) except non-vegetarian, this restaurant serves Indian food with its own twist. Masala Library supposedly gets booked fast, so we made a reservation one week ahead of time for 7 pm. The restaurant was pretty empty when we got there, which is typical of Mumbai restaurants because most Mumbaikars do not eat that early.
Before our appetizers came out, the waiter gave us the following amuse-bouches:
The yellow bubble popped in my mouth, releasing liquid that tasted like Thandai (an Indian cold drink with almonds, milk, sugar, and spices). I liked the texture and flavor. The bread had a good flavor too (I think a mix of herbs and spices in it).
Our first appetizer to arrive was mushroom chai:
The waiter made an elaborate show of presenting a tea kettle with separate containers for the dehydrated mushrooms and truffle powder. He first added the dehydrated mushrooms to our cups, then the truffle powder (explaining that it acts as the “cream”), and finally the hot water. The soup had a good flavor of spices and salt, although overall I felt that the process of creating the soup in teacups instead of a soup bowl was more unique than the soup itself.
Next came the prawn balchao kulcha (“balchao” is a Goan spicy meat dish and “kulcha” is Indian leavened bread):
The balchao kulcha was bursting with flavor, although so much that I could not really taste the flavor of the prawns. This dish was still good nevertheless.
The last appetizer to arrive were the pesto kebabs:
There were originally four pesto kabobs on the plate above, but the waiter started serving the kebobs on our plates before I had a chance to take a picture. I like pesto, and these kabobs were good. The Parmesan cheese on top was a nice touch.
We were given yogurt popsicles as a palate cleanser before our main course:
These popsicles had a flavor quite similar to my favorite yogurt drink, which I buy all the time in Mumbai:
Yakult is also easily available in Asian supermarkets in Boston and Los Angeles.
The yogurt popsicles were good and the presentation interesting. At one point, the waiter used a small machine to disperse out rolled towelettes first and then cleansing liquid before handing them to us.
Our main course was Kashmiri chili duck:
This entree initially had a beautiful presentation, but the waiter started serving portions to us as soon as he came to our table. When he finally put the plate down, it looked like the picture above. I really liked the sauce used for this dish; it was sweet, sour, smoky, and spicy. Priam thought that it tasted like a mixture of East Asian and Indian flavors, while I thought it tasted like an Asian version of American BBQ.
We paired the duck with naan made with white wine:
I forgot to try the naan by itself (the duck sauce overpowered any flavor I could make out in the naan), so I cannot speak for whether the naan tasted unique or not.
Since I had read so many rave reviews online about jalebi caviar (jalebi is deep-fried batter soaked in sugar syrup), I ordered it for dessert:
While the presentation was very cool, unfortunately this dessert was too sweet for Priam and me. I think it would have been more doable had there been five people sharing this (one person per starfish arm) instead of two. The orange things in the center that looks like caviar (but is not) was the jalebi, and the creamy liquid surrounding it tasted like liquid condensed milk.
We were given complimentary paan cotton candy (click here for my description of paan) at the end of our meal:
I thought that this paan cotton candy was delicious; I like it more than the basic pink cotton candy in America and street paan because it was more aromatic than American cotton candy but not as overpowering as street paan (which for me has a perfume aftertaste).
Masala Library has good food and interesting presentations, although I don’t think that it’s necessarily better than other fine dining restaurants in Mumbai (reviews online really hype up this place). In my opinion, the most unique thing I ate was the paan cotton candy. It was a good way to celebrate our 2nd anniversary, and I’d recommend Masala Library for special occasions.
American Foodie in Mumbai 