Once Again by Uncle's Kitchen

Hello folks!

We are back ‘Once Again’ with a food review! We got invited by Mr. Vaibhav from Team Once Again and so on a sunny, lazy Saturday afternoon we visited this place that is located at Mith Chowk, Malad West. Mr. Vaibhav introduced us to Chef Lindon who has previously worked in Taj Colaba and has 6 rich years of experience there and then continued to explore more of cooking abroad. Chef Lindon along with Team Uncle’s Kitchen created this place called ‘Once Again’ that encompasses on multiple cuisines like Indian, European and North Indian.

Nice illustrations!

Directions!

This place has really nice and funky paintings on the walls as you can see in the picture. The place is small and cozy where you can chill, click pictures with cool backgrounds, eat and spend some nice time with your friends, spouse or your family. The place is vibrant with pops of colours here and there. Chef Lindon says that he doesn’t add any food colouring, ready-made spices, sauces or any flavours. He insists that he makes everything from scratch be it some puree, spice mix or sauces. Even the Ice Tea he served us wasn’t made out of a packet, but from scratch.

The place is neat and our plates got cleared every two dishes or so. Chef Lindon was warm and he knows his food. He explained us about each dish and what special technique he uses as compared to the other food chains. We observed that his food was light, not at all oily or greasy and hence we could eat more. Even after a humungous meal we did not feel lethargic and ready to take a nap.  The food he serves be it European, Indian or North Indian, is so authentic!

Specials Board

Now coming to what we actually ate, here’s what he binged on:

1.       Ice Tea: We were greeted with two not-too-cold Ice Tea’s. Let’s be honest, we aren’t a great fan of Ice Tea’s. But this one was awesome! It was so refreshing especially because the climate was so hot outside. It was perfectly sweetened.

Ice Tea

2.       Lemon Soda: In the middle of our meal, we were also given Lemon Soda to sip on while we ate. It was freshly made and it quenched our thirst quite well!

Lemon Soda

3.       Prawn Butter Chilly Garlic: The first starter for the day was this prawn starter. It had a strong prawn flavor along with mild butter, chilly and garlic flavor running in the background. The fish was crispy on the outside and soft inside. The starter was perfectly cooked!

Prawn Butter Chilly Garlic

4.       Green Mayan Fried Fish: Next up was a green coloured starter made out of succulent basa fish. This starter had the most amazing flavours combined! It was spicy, tangy, tiny bit sweet all at once. This starter teases your taste buds like no one’s business! The fish was soft, tender and mushy but it still held its shape when we dug through it. A sign of perfectly cooked fish once again! Also, the name says it is fried, but doesn’t feel one bit oily!

Green Mayan Fried Fish

5.       Tandoori Chicken: As if the Mayan Fried Fish wasn’t a good enough starter, this one stole the show! We are so used to eating Tandoori Chicken that’s been loaded with artificial colour and ready-made batter. But this one is unique among the all the other Tandoori Chicken serving places! It doesn’t have an ounce of food colouring or any batter. The flavor comes from ground whole spices and cooking the chicken in an actual tandoor. And we must say it tastes far better than most top rated places that serve this dish!

Tandoori Chicken

Delicious!

6.       Chicken Burger with Smoked Ham Slice: Now again, this dish was different. We know that burger means lots of mayo and cheese. But not this one. It had a nice thick chicken patty, no excessive oil and a super thin smoked ham slice. We were surprised to see how such a thin ham slice could hold so much flavor! This burger was surely very light to eat and was authentic to the core.

Chicken Burger with Smoked Ham Slice

Mouth Watering!

7.       Once Again Pasta: This was a white sauce pasta, again cooked without adding heavy white sauce cooked in butter, maida and cheese. It was light again, it had spinach which was a bit meh for us as it tasted slightly bitter. The pasta was good, not so cheesy, had chicken pieces running through. If you are a cheese lover, this’ll be a slight disappointment because of the lack of cheese in white sauce pasta.

OA's Pasta

Slurrrp!

8.       Chicken Xacuti gravy with Butter Naan: It is a confusing name to pronounce but it is pronounced as ‘Shakuti’. It is a dish from Goa that is made out of roasted coconut. It has a dominating roasted coconut flavor to eat, very different gravy from the ones we are used to eating. The gravy was thick and there was no oil floating above it even though it was cooked with coconut. The naan was good too and had mild butter flavor which went superbly well with the gravy.

Chicken Xacuti gravy

Served with Butter Naan.. Yum!

9.       Chicken Tikka Biryani: The biryani is similar to a home cooked biryani with no added food colour or biryani masala. It wasn’t loaded with ghee or any fat. It was full of delicious flavours along with juicy chicken pieces. It was served in a nice manner.

Chicken Biryani

Perfect!

10.   Apple Crisp: An authentic European Dessert that we wanted to try since a long time. One of us has a major sweet tooth and we loved this dish too! It wasn’t overly sweet as the cinnamon cut the excess sweetness. The pastry was crispy and the apple filling was so good! It was served in a traditional manner with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and cinnamon sugar mix dusted on top. A perfectly sweet ending to a huge meal that we had!

Apple Crisp!

Dessert Heaven!

Overall, we had a blast at this place eating so much, talking to the Chef and it was an afternoon to remember. It does take time to bring your order because these guys don’t keep food ready. When the order comes in, they’ll start preparing the food.

Ambience: 4 / 5

Food: 5 / 5

VFM: 4 / 5

Service: 4 / 5

We recommend the Green Mayan Fried Fish, Tandoori Chicken and the Chicken Xacuti gravy!

Bon Appetit!