El Chico

Firstly this review has been long over-due, I had listed down pointers about the restaurant a while back and then never got back to it, thanks to my latest addiction of online shopping which very easily managed to distract me every time I tried completing this blog post, but now that I'm on it, let me tell you El Chico is what I'm reviewing today. 

El Chico has been at Delma Mall for a while now and has newly opened a branch at WTC mall, which btw I must say is becoming quite a hub for foodies.

So the other day, we decided to do family lunch at El-Chico (WTC) and I was rather shocked on entering EL-CHICO, because the restaurant has just about opened up and yet had quite a decent amount of people who were dining in, however the place is spacious and can easily accommodate a lot of people, so there was absolutely no complaining and we were instantly guided towards a table of four by the server. 

As soon as we settled down, we were given the massive menu card and a complimentary bowl of crispy nachos accompanied by mild salsa.

What we ordered? Top Shelf Guacamole, Chicken Fajita Nachos, Sombrero Platter, Chicken Chipotle, Chicken Fajita Quesadilla, Strawberry Cheesecake and Chocolate Lava Cake.

Top Shelf Guacamole - The guacamole, which is a mixture of avocados, onions, jalapeños, lime and black salt, is made fresh on the table for you, which is also what happens at Cantina Laredo, but take my word on this, it was definitely the best guacamole I've had. My dad was extremely fascinated with the man making the guacamole and was trying to figure out what goes where and how exactly do they make it, so I won't be surprised if he soon experiments and decides to surprise us with some home-made guacamole inspired by El-Chico. 

Top Shelf Guacamole 

Chicken Fajita Nachos - The bean & cheese nachos were topped generously with the well-cooked grilled chicken fajita. However the taste of the beans were slightly over-shadowing the cheese flavor, which is not something I would like in my nachos. But otherwise I quite liked the nachos. 

Chicken Fajita Nachos 

Sombrero Platter - I absolutely love platters, because that way I get to try more dishes :D So this platter was a mix of, fried mozzarella cheese, BBQ chicken wings and chicken strips. The mozzarella sticks were crispy but not the best I've had, the BBQ chicken wings however was extremely juicy and something we all enjoyed having. But amongst the 3 if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the crispy chicken which was extremely tender and literally broke into pieces on touching it. 

Sombrero Platter

Moving on to perhaps the most disappointing dish at El-Chico, which was the "Chicken Chipotle" which is basically supposed to be chicken breast topped up with cheese and chipotle pepper sauce. But unfortunately the only thing I tasted was SALT! Also the chicken wasn't cooked well and was extremely hard. 

Chicken Chipotle

Chicken Fajita Quesadilla - The chicken fajita quesadillas were spot on, it had the right amount of juicy grilled chicken fajita, pepper, onion and cheese. Infact I'm not sure what exactly is it called, but from a lehman perspective, the tortilla was wrapped in a slightly different manner as served in other mexican restaurants (Don't give me that blank look, you might know what I mean once you look at the picture below)

Chicken Fajita Quesadilla

Now inspite of being stuffed with all that we had ordered for, the desserts looked absolutely tempting (they bring a platter to your table with all the options they have, so you get a better idea of what the desserts actually look like) We ended up ordering for the strawberry cheese cake and the chocolate cake which was served with vanilla icecream and topped with chocolate and pecan. Both the cakes were simply out of this world. Infact the chocolate cake did the impossible and kind of took over the 1st place in my "Favourite Dessert" list which was earlier held by the molten chocolate cake from Chilis. Yup, its that good. 

Strawbery Cheesecake

Chocolate Cake

The Quantity? The 1 word to describe it is INSANE. Also going by my past experience, quantity is never an issue with Mexican restaurants. 

The Price? The bill was about 420 for 3 appetizers, 2 main-course dishes, 2 desserts and 4 drinks, which I think is not bad at all, especially for a family lunch/ dinner. 

The Interiors? The interiors are very similar to CHILIS (Which is a part of the same group of companies) however I wish they had added a little more Mexican touch to its interiors. 

The Staff? Extremely friendly and well informed staff. The latter is usually uncommon in newly opened restaurants, but here the server knew the in and out of their menu card. Also the manager   was kind enough to check on us before and after the meal. 

Overall I quite liked the place and will definitely recommend it, I would rate El Chico a 3.5/5 

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It's the time for Shawarma

My colleague and I had just got done with our meeting on Najda and were discussing where to grab a quick bite from and that's when my colleague suggested Shawarma Time, a place he had heard about recently.

When I heard the name 'Shawarma Time' I thought it would be a normal Arabic restaurant and Shawarma would just be one of their many dishes,  but little did I know that the restaurant only was a Shawarma specialist and were limited to just Shawarmas. 

Their menu isn't too cluttered but at the same time they have quite a few variants of shawarmas listed, such as Shawarma Wok, Mexican Bites, Shawarma Pizza, Shawarma Saj etc. Unfortunately most items that were listed were not available.

I tried out their original ‘Chicken Shawarma’ and the ‘Mexican Bite’.

The original Chicken Shawarma was quite good, the pita bread was fresh and the chicken stuffing was done generously.  Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of the shawarma but I do have a photo of the  way it was packaged which was quite cute.

The Chicken Shawarma

But what stole the show was the Mexican Bite, which was Mexican cheese bun that was stuffed with chicken shawarma, this was a unique concept and the bun was fresh and the chicken was juicy, an absolute treat to my tummy.

Mexican Bite 

The ambiance and interiors of Shawarma Time is bright, they have an open kitchen concept and they have also managed to have a small kids section. The colour scheme of the interiors is very similar to Zaatar W Zeit.

Open Kitchen 

Kids area

Both these dishes were priced at 15 AED each which is quite expensive for a Shawarma honestly, since you could instead get a tastier Shawarma from Lebanese flower for about 6 AED. But yes I would definitely recommend you to try out the Mexican Bite.

I would rate this place a 3.5/5

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Camacho Guido - A unique combination.

Who would have ever thought a restaurant would serve Italian and Japanese cuisine together? Camacho Guido definitely did think that way and came up with this unique concept of serving both these brilliant cuisines together.

I had never heard about this place until 17th august which is also my birthday when my friend and I were craving Arabic food and decided to go to Sheesh Shawarma which was really packed that day and hence we thought of entering Camcho Guido.

We absolutely loved the interiors of this fine-dine and immediately thought of the place as an expensive joint but this wasn't the case, the food here was quite reasonable.

I believe most people were here for the sushi but unfortunately I'm not a fan and decided to go for Italian and called for their Mexican Pizza, this was undoubtedly one of the best pizzas I had ever had. The toppings included red chilly, sweet coconut chilly, cheese, jalapenos and grilled chicken. This thin crust pizza literally melted in my mouth. This is suitable for 2 people.

Mexican Pizza

I had also ordered for the raspberry smoothie here, which was very refreshing and tasted quite good.

Raspberry Smoothie and another smoothie that my friend had called for.

I was really glad to stumble upon Camacho and shall definitely visit the place soon to try out their other dishes.

The staff here was quite friendly and as I already mentioned before the prices are quite reasonable and the interiors are beautiful.

I would rate this place a 4.5./5.

Friday Friday, gotta get down on Friday.

Okay I’m most likely not going to have anyone reading this post thanks to my obnoxious post title, but what the heck.

Last Saturday we kept shifting from Citrus to Jughead’s at Veera Desai back and forth and finally landed up at Thank God It’s Friday – Infiniti Mall (Andheri)

So a friend and I decided to grab a light meal at TGIF and thought of skipping appetizers and calling directly for a main course each. We looked through their wide selection of food on their menu cards and honestly were rather confused as almost everything sounded fancy. After much pondering, we ended up ordering for a Sizzling Chicken and Cheese and the Chicken Chimichanga.

There was also a football match that my friend wanted to watch so we requested them to change the channel on their TV, instead they rolled down their big screen and put on the match for us, so much win J

Coming back to the food, the Sizzling Chicken and Cheese was like a dream dish for a cheese lover like me. However this isn't advisable for someone looking to lose weight. This is basically a garlic marinated chicken breast over melted Colby and Jack cheese served alongside their special melted cheese mashed potatoes. The chicken was very well cooked and had the right amount of flavor in it. This turned out to be an absolute treat.

Moving on to our next dish, that is the Chicken Chimichanga, this is a flour tortilla filled with diced chicken breast, green chilies and cheese. It is topped with Ranchero sauce and melted Monterrey Jack and Colby cheese. It is served with sour cream, black lentils and rice. Just by reading the description, we were all excited and so we were really looking forward to this and thankfully this did not disappoint us either. Similar to the Sizzling Chicken and Cheese, even this was an overload of cheese, not as much but quite a bit. The tortillas were crispy and the chicken was slightly spicy which was in its favor. The rice on the under hand was slightly bland, but we chose to ignore that since we were overwhelmed with what we had already. Also we were really full, thanks to their good quantity.

By now it’s not hard to judge that we loved the food, but apart from that we also loved how friendly the staff here was and their DJ who played really good music while we enjoyed our meal.

The ambiance of the place is also quite good, it’s fun and young. They have a separate bar area too.

However the prices are tad bit expensive. We spent almost Rs. 1200 (Inclusive of Tax) for these two dishes.

Lastly we also were asked to fill some online feedback form which would avail us to a Rs.500 off on our next visit in the same month, but sadly I misplaced the coupon L

Overall it was a great experience, shall visit the place soon to try out their other interesting dishes.

P.S They have a superb dinner deal/offer you can read about in the below image. Photo courtesy – Zomato

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Location - 2nd Floor, Infiniti Mall, New Link Road,
Andheri Lokhandwala, Mumbai

Contact Number - 022 30932030 ext:224