Birthdays are difficult. Specifically, birthday meals are difficult when you go out with your whole family. In my family, for instance, my dad loves North Indian food, my mom adores South Indian food (would settle for good North Indian food too!) and both are not at all experimentative. On the other hand, my sister is crazy about Chinese and Thai cuisines and does not like to spend any special occasion having Tandoori Roti or Paneer alone :P I, like the true blue Hulk, am fine with anything and everything vegetarian. Keeping all this in mind, on my birthday, we landed up at Global Fusion for lunch on Monday afternoon, one of those places where everybody gets something to satisfy their palate!
Excellent ambiance with fish tanks, Chinese art motifs and green plants creating an aquatic/forest dreamland, huge space divided in different sections for families, corporate crowds, couples and the like, nice comfortable sitting and the hustle bustle of staff everywhere. Walk in and soak in the different counters, one serving starters, another soup and dim sum, another devoted to sushi and salads, one loaded with main course items and finally the one enticing us in with all the desserts, including a Baskin-Robbins counter. You have got to starve yourself for a day before coming here and plan your meal. Common sense would dictate that you fill up on starters and desserts because those are the unique items that you won't get anywhere else (especially not within Rs. 800 per person price tag!) Unbelievably value for money for the sheer spread. Of course, for people like my parents, there are safe options too. Win Win all around.
Go to the various counters. Main course, sushi, salads, desserts are self service whereas starters have to be ordered via token. The staff explains the process, don't worry. Pace yourself or you will get stuffed soon and won't be able to enjoy a 3 hour long cuilnary extravaganza. Try sipping on fresh lime soda intermittently like we did and binge on :D
We started with Sweet Corn Soup (sweet,duh!) and Manchow Soup (nice crunchy veggies,spicy) and then came in a boatload of starters- recommend worthy being Veg Shanghai Paneer, Pepper Mushroom, Crispy Corn and Baby Potato. Oh, everything here is laden in oil and gravies and spices, the health freaks will have to stick to sushi and salads I suppose! Do not go looking for authentic gourmet preparations in anything, it all tastes good and that's that :)
Cheese Garlic Bread was also good and I also liked Baked Paneer but it won't be everyone's cup of tea, being all bland and everything, but yay for the health quotient. The dumplins section is especially good with delicious Spinach Corn Dumplings and Veg Ginger Dumplings, both equipped with thin outer layers and wholesome flavors inside, we repeated them thrice :D
I do not remember the various Sushi names but I tried them all and liked them. I remember Global Fusion Bandra outlet was the first place where I had Sushi 3 years ago and at that time,I had no idea how Sushi was supposed to taste. Now however I have tried good Sushi at some other places and can confidently say that the Sushi here is not the best, BUT it is not bad either. It is a good intro to Sushi for those who have never had any :) They can work on keeping the stuffing more flavorful and the rice part a bit less thick but overall, I like it still :) Among salads, Russian Salad is good but simply avoid Kimchi!
Now, for those who either want to stick to safe options or are still hungry after the huge spread of starters and sushi, there is a whole ship full of dishes- do try Tandoori Mushroom, Veg Seekh Kebab, Hakka Noodles, Red Thai Curry, Pulao, Tandoori Roti, Paneer Gravy, Jeera Aloo. Surely I am missing out on many items but you get the idea, they are all good, my parents had a hearty meal and no heartburn later either. (Just avoid the pasta, too oily and spicy) Other than pasta, everything else was fine. Good food, good experience :)
The desserts section has excellent Gulab Jamun and Moong Dal Halwa, in fact these are the best desserts here worth indulging in, even though there are other items such as French Chocolate Pastry, Chocolate Balls, Walnut Cake but somehow they paled in comparison to Indian desserts :) Ofcourse, the star is the Baskin Robbins counter-Black Currant, Mango, Banana-Strawberry, Almond Praline, Chocolate, Papaya-Pineapple flavors ensuring that we made at least 4 rounds here :D I think fruits were missing on this counter the day we went and they should definitely have it here too.
And the best part, they even played the birthday song for me and gave us a special chocolate pastry for the family (which we were too full to finish,but hey the gesture counts) making my birthday a truly memorable occasion. What more one needs to say- huge spread, value for money price point, individual attention by the staff despite huge crowds, quantity with quality..there are so many reasons Global Fusion is loved by Mumbaikars :)
Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you.
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