On a sunny Friday afternoon my office colleagues decided to
break the monotony of a drab office lunch and we made a quick plan to visit
Bakstage Wine Room for their new buffet lunch that comes at a very reasonable
price inclusive of all taxes. Sometimes they say, decisions taken by your
instinct are better than the ones that come to you after loads of
brainstorming, and here also it turned out to be an overall pleasant experience
though we were skeptical in the beginning about visiting this place, after hearing
some really poor recent reviews about its upstairs pub. Anyway, let us delve
deep into this personal experience of mine about their newly introduced buffet
lunch, its pros and cons.
Location - - - - - It is quite convenient to locate this
place once you reach Saltlake Sector-5, it is right on the main road at the
‘Webel more’. Once you reach this crossing you can well spot this place on your
left hand side at the crossing if you are approaching from SDF crossing. This
place is mostly frequented by techies, travelers and young entrepreneurs! :)
Ambiance - - - - - Maybe this is the best part of this
place. The interiors are very well done and help you settle down real fast, the
seating arrangements are very comfortable and well planned and placed, though I
would say when the buffet is on offer the number of seating arrangements are
real less. But then for this reason it is not so cramped up. The wooden finish flooring
with high ceilings, wine cellars, ornate wooden book-shelves and glass walls
comes together to produce an amazing urbane décor and sunlight dining
experience if you are here for lunch. The live pasta and pizza counters are
very close to your seats and you can see your food getting prepared! The
vintage looking wooden decanter themed tables with comfortable high chairs add
more glam to this place, and not to forget the white scooter at the entrance
that adds to the bit quirky quotient of the place. Overall the classy interiors
of the ground floor is to give you a leisure dining experience, maybe with some
wine in the evening. The wooden stairs that goes to the first floor pub is also
there at this place but that sadly eats up some dining area space at the ground
floor Wine room. But as a whole, I really loved the warm and elegant ambiance
this place has got.
Food - - - - - The food is real good at this place, to start
with. I was not aware of their INR 499 all inclusive buffet offer which one
friend of mine let me know. We opted for this buffet and I would say the price
charged is more than reasonable.
I did not find this buffet related information
on their Zomato page though, but I was quite pleased to have discovered it. The
buffet spread is quite big if not huge like in few other places around the
city. But whatever items they offer are real good and enough to satiate the
hunger of any foodie with a big appetite. They serve all the starters along
with pasta and pizza from the live counters on the table and you need to help
yourselves with the main course and the dessert. But I would say, they should
add some provision for mocktails which was badly missing from the buffet menu.
If the mocktails are there this buffet menu (along with this classy ambiance),
it can surely make this offer more than irresistible.
We started off with cheese and corn stuffed veg starters
which were simply heavenly, I am not sure how many pieces I gobbled up! The
classic panner tikka, chicken tikka, dry chilli chicken, chilli baby corn were
all good, served in quantity and served repeatedly. But the chilli chicken was
not boneless which was a bit of let down. But there was one butter fried fish
starter with tarter sauce dip that was just amazing, the flavors were subtle
and the fish in there was just so fresh! After this we were asked for pizza and
pasta from live counters and we ordered for one chicken pizza and one penne in
white sauce with mushroom, chicken and other ingredients.
The pasta was just
amazing and very soul-satisfying; the pizza was equally good with a thing crust
and toppings of chicken, sweet corn, onion, bell peppers, etc but I would
suggest them to offer some oregano and chilli flakes along with this pizza. As
the starters came to an end we were still feeling the need for some great
mocktail which was missing, I guess some soft drinks would have also done!
The mains were good but I was a touch disappointed with the
mains after having those amazing veg and non-veg starters. To start with, I did
not spot any soup out there. Maybe some simple lemon coriander soup could have
done wonders. Then there were assorted ingredients kept for DIY chaats and
salads, which were pretty good but could have been fresher, maybe they were
lying there for a long time and were bit dried up. There were again options for
pasta in the main course along with veg noodles and schezwan chicken (again the
chicken was not boneless), rest of the items were mainly Indian. Notable items
were - lovely aromatic veg biriyani (which I simply loved), steamed rice with
masala fish and chicken tikka butter masala. The fish was again very fresh and
flavorful, the dals were tasty. The desserts were nice and had options for
caramel custard, chocolate pudding, chocolate cake and fresh fruits (pineapple,
apple, cherry, kiwi, etc). Again I felt atleast one option for vanilla icecream
could have done wonders here which was not there. But anyway after the lunch
was over, we were overstuffed, overwhelmed with the food options which were
there!
Service - - - - - The service was good, they were good order
takers but somehow lacked warmth I felt. After we had finished we were asked to
please sit on the high chairs since another group was waiting for the buffet
lunch, that was okay but I guess asking someone to sit aside is not the perfect
thing to do, if such problem persists you need to increase your seating
arrangements rather than asking guests to sit on another table, we were anyway
not going to sit there for more than a minute or two since we had already
finished.
Summary - - - - - Here are my granular ratings:
Food quantity: 3.8/5
Food quality: 4/5
Food presentation: 3.5/5
Value for money: 3.8/5
Ambiance: 4/5
Service: 3/5
My overall rating comes to 3.7 out of 5, which will be
rounded off to 3.5 out of 5 in Zomato.
Overall I felt - keeping less food options on buffet menu,
not keeping provisions for mocktails, icecream, soups and introducing more veg
items (like veg biriyani instead of chicken biriyani) have helped them to
maintain the INR 499 price tag for this buffet lunch which was overall nice
only for the flavors which were very honest and intense, thumbs up for that. I
guess you can go try it out for yourself, not sure how long they will continue
this offer :)
And yes, you can enjoy live cricket and all day sports at this
place on the television which is strategically placed at the centre atop a book
shelf! The place is now all decked up with elements pertaining to the ongoing cricket T20 World Cup 2016.
But anyway, I guess I need to visit this place again, not
for the buffet lunch but for some wine at this Wine Room which was badly
missing in this outing! But finding out reasons to come back again to this
place give me more joy and satisfaction now while I am here to wrap up this
review of mine. I wish they keep serving great food and beverages in the coming
days!
Cheers!
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