I remember learning the meaning of santé during my short and futile stint at studying French during my junior college days. ‘A votre santé’ is what is typically said when you raise a toast ‘to your health’. The Santé closer back home also forces you to raise a toast and make merry. Santé in Bandra is one of the many bars that infest the Queen of the Suburbs, but I’m not complaining. More the merrier, I say! Hic Hic Hurray!

After many that came and went, Santé is the latest entrant to occupy space at the C’est La Vie club in Hill road. Divided into an outside section with exposed brick walls…yet again, twinkling fairy light, and a chariot that’s converted into a love seat for two; along with an inside section which we couldn’t step into that night because of a group of exuberant adolescents celebrating their graduation. A table filled with food lovers/bloggers, mid week drinking, and finger food – my evening was looking bright. 

Out of all the appetizers I stuffed my face with, and all the cocktails I gulped down, here are my picks off Sante’s menu. Yes, you’ll are welcome.

Burma Burma, Fort’s all vegetarian Burmese restaurant is over a year old, is still running packed, and has received brilliant reviews. Then why eat there, and review it now, after all this time? Because sometimes your meal is just so spectacular or lackluster that I feel it’s mandatory to blog about it. This meal was a bit of both. Started off beautifully only to end with a sour taste in my mouth.

Burma Burma has been in the news ever since it has launched, and I’ve never heard such contradictory opinions about any place. Bloggers have been raving about the food, I know friends who frequent the place on a monthly basis – they love the food that much. And then there is the social media outrage over their reservation policy and how exclusively snooty they are behaving. Always booked, no tables whenever you call and reserve. 

Bee and I were in that part of the city one Sunday afternoon, and I decided to pay a visit and clear the confusion myself. I also believe that the best reviews are done a few weeks after a restaurant is launched. All teething troubles get eliminated, staff is trained, and you get to see the actual representation of the restaurant. This on the other hand is a tad bit too late. LOL 

Apart from being known as ‘Land of the Cupcakes’, Bandra can now re-christen itself to ‘Shawarma Town’. Only in Bandra can you see an equal number of Shawarma rotisseries and traffic signals. Okay, I’m exaggerating here, but you get the drift. Latest entrant on the Shawarma scene is Cairo Grill – a Mediterranean take away space that does the staple shawarma in addition to a lot more.

Situated in a by-lane off Linking road, surrounded by cafes and fast food joints, Cairo Grill is a small space. But none of these factors deterred the crowd away. This take away joint was swamped with customers on the Sunday evening I visited. The two page menu, listed on the wall covers your basics – salads, hummus and it’s variants, cheesy fries with toppings, and shawarmas. But I was most excited to try their New York food truck style rice-meat combos. 

We placed our order, and watched the food getting assembled in their tiny albeit clean kitchen. The most important aspect of a take away place is now well the food travels in the containers. Our boxes endured a bumpy rickshaw ride home, and everything was well packed and taped, including the sauces.