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What could really make or break your Sunday is the meal of the day

Sunday Brunch
The Elbo Room
Behind Levis Showroom, Linking Road, Khar
Tel: 26483316u00a0
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What could really make or break your Sunday is the meal of the day. Ours went from okay to bad to worse. Here's why. The first thing you notice about Elbo Room at Khar, is its coat of arms set against dark wood with 'Established in 09-09-09' engraved below. It makes you smile because such engravings are usually for century-old establishments and this one's been around for barely four months.

The du00e9cor is very comfortable, cut off from the main road and with 'first-date-place' written all over it thanks to the dark paneled wooden seating area, shaded by trees and plants. It would look rather lovely after sundown. Nice so far.

Coconut water, natural and refreshing, is the welcome drink. We pick one alcoholic (Rs 999) and one non-alcoholic (Rs 599) brunch and browse through the menu. The buffet's indoors and about to close in half an hour (we're extra late this time), so we hurriedly place the egg orders: Cheese and Mushroom Omelette, a Fried Egg, and a Red Wine Sangria, before the buffet walk.



A minute is all it takes to look at the buffet tables. Cereal, cornflakes, milk, curd, jam, breads and fruit custard make up breakfast which we ignore except for the breads. The salads are more imaginative: we pick Potato Sausages with Preserved Eggs, Khimchi Chicken Salad, Diced Veggies with Cashewnuts, and the intriguing Lady's Finger with Babycorn, Green Chillies and Spring Onions.
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Umm, eggs don't always taste great when preserved, is the first lesson we learn from the Potato Sausage with Preserved Egg salad. Also, the potato is too tart. And someone probably ate up all the cashewnuts from the Diced Veggie salad, so we're left with diced vegetables. It's the Khimchi Chicken salad that comes to the rescue, the pieces of cured chicken succulent and mildly flavoured. The Lady's Finger salad is a winner too. The unusual blend of long-stripped Lady's Finger with the tender babycorn and sharp chillies is super. The breads, sadly, aren't fresh, they have a lingering day-old taste which even the jam can't disguise. As the brunch continues, we realise that we ought to have stuck to the salads.

The eggs arrive with identical bowls of baked beans. The Mushroom and Cheese Omelette is warm, bursting with cheese and very comforting. The fried egg with runny yolk is flavourless and surprisingly, there isn't a salt-pepper shaker on the table. The sangria with diced apples topping blood-red wine promises to improve the mood. And does, only, the wine isn't chilled enough.u00a0

Part of the main course is buffet and the other, pasta, is made to order. We call for Spaghetti with Creamy Cheese sauce, Corn and Mushroom, and a Fusili with Paprika Sauce, Olives, Corn and Bell Peppers. The servers press us to have another drink each so it's a Caipiroska and Pineapple Juice.

Another server informs us that the lunch buffet's almost ending and sees to it that we get servings of each of the hot-plate items: Exotic Vegetables in Mushroom and Wine Rice Sauce, Chilli Chicken in Chilli Garlic Sauce and Stir Fried Noodles with Pokschoi, Chinese Cabbage and Bamboo Shoots. Sweet of him but he needn't have bothered. We could have missed this buffet and not been sorry!

The exotic veggies aka cauliflower, carrots and spinach, swim in a sauce that doesn't taste of anything. The Chilli Chicken is just as badu2026 the flavours are too much and too many, the natural tastes of each ingredient lost. And the Stir Fried noodles have a pinch too much of ajinomoto, it's like takeway Chinese food.

By now we're almost regretting having called for the pastas as well which come soon enough. Same story here. The Fusili with Paprika Sauce seems almost Indianised, just a mixture of masalas with no toplining flavour of olive oil, tomato, olives or even paprika. The Spaghetti with Creamy Cheese sauce is a pale cheesy affair too with corn providing crunchy relief every now and then.

But it's the Caipiroska that is the final straw. It's bitter and not just by the vodka but the days-old brownish slices of lemon, whose seeds free-fall to the bottom and get picked up by the straw.

We leave the mains midway and call for the check, appetite totally dead and no desire for dessert. The staff is quite crestfallen which is a pity. Elbo Room is such a pretty place with such a helpful, pleasant staff. But the menu needs imagination and the ingredients freshness!

All reviews are done anonymously and paid for by Sunday MiD DAYu00a0u00a0

Brunch for 2
Rs 1,598

Worth it?
Well...

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Arty meal

Art brunch today at Reflections, JW Marriott, Juhu, with artist Vipul Salvi's works on display. The paintings will be complimented by the Sunday brunch served at the restaurants Lotus Cafe, Mezzo Mezzo, Spices and Saffron, from 12 to 4 pm. To make a reservation, call 66933000.

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Festive spirits are available at Opium Den, Trident, Nariman Point, all this month, every evening from
5 pm to 1 am. These include Spanish Sangria, German Gluhwien, Bubbly Champagne and other warm and spicy spirits. Call 66326320

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