'Wild Dining': Restaurant Review

To Nishant, Shobhit and PamPam, my accomplices to this place. What the hell, Shobhit, you ruined my diet plans!

In a lame gully somewhere in Andheri near Oshiwara police station is this place called 'Wild dining'. (Naam shady hai) It's on the top floor of this place called Om Heera Panna Mall. The location is quite out of the way and that works against the place to an extent.

This is a buffet-only place. You pay a cover charge and you eat around. (Mineral water is free. unlimited. Nahaa bhi sakte ho... ) Have been told people spend as many as four hours here.

The place is dimly lit and has leopards, tarzans and monkeys and artificial trees and branches all over. The music plays on in (thankfully) a low volume but suits the mood of the place. The table looks like a typical log cabin table - and thankfully, the tables are set sufficiently apart. Ambience ke liye full marks.

Now, I am one person who ALWAYS visits the loo each time I eat out. And like I tell my friends, it's not that I am eternally dysentrified. I believe that a good/well-maintained washroom is a sign of a good/well-managed restaurant. The washroom here is made up like a forest cabin with "For Lion" written on a sign outside and smelled good. Full marks on that too. (I am talking about the gents washroom here. Didn't really go to the other half which said "For Lioness")

The staff is dressed like forest officers and is almost always attentive - though our starters (which are served at the table) came quite late. No complaints overall.

Coming to the food, there was a good variety of salads here. We had the vegetarian soup (the name of which I do not remember). It was a Chinese soup but the taste was just not right. They have a live pizza/pasta/tacos counter. While all of them were strictly average, we couldn't help but have almost two servings of each. The main course consisted of four vegetarian and a couple of non-vegetarian (chicken/kheema/fish) sabzis and some biryani/fried rice stuff. The main course was fine. The fish tasted good.

The desserts were extremely tempting and I couldn't help but take half a spoon of some of it. (Swear, only half a spoon) (They had pastries, four flavours of ice cream, phirni, souffle and gulabjamuns) The souffle and the gulabjamuns were particularly nice. The ice-cream must've been good too but since they didn't make it (or so I think), you can't really give them the credit for that.

On the downside, there is nothing 'free' to drink apart from the fukat ka paani. And the mocktails and cocktails are quite overpriced.

Meal per head (inclusive of taxes): 430Rs. (This was the cover for a weekday dinner. They also have lunches)

Overall, excellent ambience, good food. Good for the treats where a group of people cannot zero in on the kind of food they want to have. (or for people who want to hog around.)