Lemon-flavour

So for Sunday lunch, I went to 'Lemongrass' (the Malad location) with my friend Chelsea Dagger. I have eaten at the restaurant in the past, though not at this location. I liked the interiors of the place, but they were nothing compared to what the Bandra 'Lemongrass' used to have. This place is definitely smaller and its interiors do not evoke the feeling of 'Far East' as well as the Bandra location did.

The service was good. The servers knew the menu and were willing to help out. Even though our order was small, there was plenty of opportunity for them to mess it up. But since this did not happen, I would give them full marks.

The food was great. We had ordered some chicken dumplings and lemon iced teas to begin with. The dumplings were good, but the sauce with which they served the dumplings was to die for. I felt like getting one order of just the sauce packed to take home. My friend and I tried asking the server for the name of the sauce; to this, we didn't receive any satisfactory response. The owner of the restaurant, who was standing right beside us, told us that it was a chef's special sauce that was served with dim sum. So, we tried to decipher the ingredients of the sauce, so that we may be able to recreate it if we wanted to and after much effort, could come up with only three: roasted chilli (the sauce has an overwhelmingly smokey taste); roasted peanuts; and lemon juice. Sigh! but it was definitely worth the effort.  

For the main course, we decided to split Burmese Khau Suey (chicken) and Lamb Satay Thai-style. I've tasted the Khau Suey only once before; during the Kalagodha Arts Festival, 'Joss' sets up a stall and serves the most delicious Khau Suey. While this version was not as good as the 'Joss' one, it was really good. The sauce was slightly thicker in consistency but overall, it had the same smooth goodness. The vegetables and chicken were cooked just right and the toppings were good. The portion size was huge; even after splitting the dish, both of us got huge bowls of it. 

The Lamb Satay I did not enjoy too much. It was basically marinated, skewered slices of lamb, with some broccoli and red bell peppers, done kebab-style. The lamb was too chewy for me and somehow, also a little too rare. There was a sort of salad on the side, with cabbage and some kind of a sweet sauce. This was just ok. I guess I must have been expecting them to serve marinated, skewered lamb with the peanut sauce or something. Overall, this dish was a let down.I think despite this, the other food made up for it quite a bit. Enough to make me want to come back to 'Lemongrass'.