MasalaBar could be anywhere in the world, but it’s on Carter Road — and it’s the most un-Carter-esque eatery on the stretch. Angled sunlight glimmers through the patterned glass, until it goes dark outside. That’s when everyone’s eyes adjust to the only lighting: hundreds of candles. Nothing about MB seems quick and dirty, words that fit every other eatery on the street. The bar equipment stocks a distiller, nitrous oxide canisters for foams and infusions, and a centrifuge to clarify drinks. It’s a neat juxtaposition of the pre-industrial with hi-tech; it’s near-impossible to get a signature drink at MB that doesn’t involve drama.
The Great Hornby’s Cloud features a spice-scented fog under a bell jar, which is lifted table-side to reveal a boozy tumbler of whisky, delicately spiked with a home blend of spices. More Mumbai homage is found on the bar menu, with drinks named Sassoon Dock and Sunset@ Carter, but venture east with Bandstand Songkran, in which vodka laced with ginger, lemongrass and thyme is made pétillant in a Perlini carbonating shaker.
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It’s more than just a bar, of course. In line with owner Zorawar Kalra’s other restaurants (Masala Library, Farzi Café, Pa Pa Ya) the food at MB gets its own lab treatment. Here, we have mushroom soufflé nuggets, which feature hot fluid inside a fragile solid casing. It’s food science magic until a chef or a recipe shares the easy technique behind them — it involves a freezer. The nuggets are deeply savoury and delicious. As is channa tempura chaat, the beans frosted with gossamer batter and masala, tossed with curry leaves and pine nuts — crunchy, spicy and meaty, cleverly refined chakna.
Chicken 65 lollipops get a similar upgrade. The sharp edge of spice and stodgy batter is gone, and the sweet-spicy-tangy sauce coating the juicy flesh is worth licking fingers for. A cool, light and tart fruit chaat at MB features strawberries, dragonfruit and paan leaves. After a series of hits, it’s surprising that litti chokha profiteroles came out dry and dull, and a shiitake slider seemed like slapdash coffee-chain fare.
{{/usCountry}}Chicken 65 lollipops get a similar upgrade. The sharp edge of spice and stodgy batter is gone, and the sweet-spicy-tangy sauce coating the juicy flesh is worth licking fingers for. A cool, light and tart fruit chaat at MB features strawberries, dragonfruit and paan leaves. After a series of hits, it’s surprising that litti chokha profiteroles came out dry and dull, and a shiitake slider seemed like slapdash coffee-chain fare.
{{/usCountry}}Carbon bhaji has soft bao-like black mini buns, and coal-dark bhaji. It’s buttery and tasty, but its colour is more memorable than its flavour. Equally dark but more successful is the Black Forest Dirt Pile, a fluffy, fragrant forest floor of chocolate mud with berries, little leaves, nuts and edible flowers. Ask the staff to drizzle the overpowering chocolate sauce sparingly.
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Here’s another reason to try MB before the sun goes down. At several tables after dusk, it’s like dining at Dans Le Noir, a chain of restaurants where food is served in total darkness. All this elaborately assembled food and drink loses its first, visual, impression. Diners can be grateful for another bit of hi-tech: everyone has a phone with a flashlight.
Rating: ***1/2
Where: Gagangiri Apartments, Level One, above Cafe Coffee Day, Carter Road, Bandra (West)
When: 5 pm to 1 am
Cost: Approximately Rs 4,500 for a meal for two, with a drink each
Call: 84519-00257
The author tweets at @RoshniBajaj