Trader Vic's Mai Tai - a review

Like I mentioned in the previous post, my friends and I met up at Trader Vic's Mai Tai for lunch a couple of weeks back.

Location: Phoneix Marketcity in Kurla
Other locations: Lower Parel, opposite PVR Cinemas

Google tells me that Trader Vic's is an internationally established family of restaurants & lounges and home of the original Mai Tai. I did not know this when I first visited Mai Tai. It was a coincidence that hubby and I one day ended up at Mai Tai. We were looking for a different cuisine and hubby suggested we try this out. And I am so glad we did!

Mai Tai offers Asian, Italian and Thai cuisine. Since hubby and I like all these cuisines, we thought to give it a try.

Before I start, let me say that hubby and I love this restaurant and thats why we asked our friends to meet us here for lunch. However, Mansi, from the previous post, was a bit skeptical. I could not understand initially why this was so. When she met us, she mentioned that in all the reviews that she had read, everybody praised the non-vegetarian fare but there was nothing on the vegetarian dishes (me and the friends are all vegetarians).

Well, the myth was burst. Mai Tai has good reviews on non-veg food (though I cannot comment personally on that). But its veg food is very very good too. In fact they actually have a separate vegetarian menu (the green one in the below pic is the veg menu).

So here is the review ..................

Food: While the selection is not very large, the food at Mai Tai is delicious. My personal recommendation would be the Baked Spinach and Potato Dip with pita and crostini. We have it every time we go to Mai Tai and it got a thumbs up from all my friends. They also offer Bruschetta, cheese balls, summer rolls, hummus and mushrooms. Other recommendations (these ones for the main course) are the Garlic Chilli Asian Greens and Green Thai Curry. Two really delicious items these are. And not missing out on dessert, we ordered the Polynesian Snowball (what a fantastic name!) which was vanilla ice cream rolled in shredded coconut and served with chocolate sauce. See the pics below.

Baked Spinach and Potato Dip

Honi Honi Mushrooms

Polynesian Snowball

Ambience: The seating and ambience at Mai Tai is very comfortable. They have indoor as well as outdoor seating. Since the Mai Tai where we went is within a mall, their outside sitting is basically within the mall (the first pic in the post). but it has been set up very artistically and it is lovely to experience outdoor seating indoors ;-)

Staff: The staff is very friendly and helpful. You can have a ball with your friends or have a romantic dinner for two; the staff serves efficiently and are very sporting about jokes. They definitely make your experience even more pleasant.

Budget: For 3 couples, the bill came to INR3,000 which is quite reasonable. And everyone was very satisfied with the food and came out feeling sated but not super stuffed, which can happen when you have fried Indian cuisine. (The bill would be more for non vegetarian food, but I do not expect it to be exhorbitant).

Overall rating: I love it!!! And my friends agree with this. I would definitely recommend everyone to try this restaurant. And if you have already been here, please share your experience in the comment section below!

Note: The restaurant at Phoenix Marketcity currently does not offer liquor.