South India: Mumbai: Royal Palms Hotel/ Fountain Cafe

Royal Palms Hotel/Fountain Cafe

North Mumbai



By this point in the trip, we were seriously craving junk food, so we asked our taxi driver, Nazir, for suggestions. He took us to DMart, a suburban grocery store. We bought some junk food to stock up.

This was our haul. From left: Cheeselings (cheese crackers), two types of Knorr instant ramen (Masala Yo was awesome and the Green Curry flavor was so-so). Childa's tomato balls (tasted like sweet tomato ketchup) and Saffola Zest. We scarfed these goodies down pretty quickly.

What to say about our hotel, Royal Palms. The location is pretty remote, about two hours away from Colaba with all the traffic. It sits smack in Aarey Milk Colony, which is a verdant, mountainous area with milk farms aplenty (though it was not stinky at all). The hotel had a nice pool overlooking the mountainside, although the view wasn't terribly impressive. DJKung and I agreed that staying in a more central location would be better.

We were pleasantly surprised by the fare at Fountain Cafe, their in-house restaurant. We opted for their buffet, which at the expensive end of the places we've tried in Mumbai. Although the restaurant was not bustling, the food was rather good. The misses were mostly the Western items, like the fresh salads and breadsticks. The Indian dishes were yummy.

The following pictures are a refresher on Superfatty's Super Buffet Tips. The key to accommodating the breadth and depth of any buffet is to take small portions on your first few forays.

Superfatty's salad plate. From top, clockwise: red leaf salad (a wee wilty), orange terrine, tomato, pasta, corn salad. This was overall a humdrum selection, so I proceeded to the soup.



Soup, Chinese style.

This was DJKung's plate. I think that item on the left is chicken.

Pasta with red sauce and tiny piece of fish. The sauce had a funky masala blend to it---not your typical Arrabiata.

From top, clockwise: salad with hardboiled eggs, fresh naan, fried baby corn (yum), paneer tikka masala (yum).

Yellow lentil soup.

Two types of cheesecake.

More sweets.