Here, just an hour or so before Tuesday comes to a close in southern Minnesota, is this week’s Bombay report. The delay, for a change, is not due to my usual unreliability. I received a new laptop from work today, which meant a period of a few hours when I had no laptop, while data was transferred from the old to the new. Then I had a bit of a nightmare of trying to remember and recover unsaved passwords for a plethora of sites, including this one. And I had to cook dinner. Fascinating, I know; especially as you don’t really care when I post these restaurant reports that are of no utility to you and describe meals in places you are not likely to ever visit. You are welcome. Anyway, we are back in Bombay in April, at a restaurant in Bandra West that most of my friends in the city have not only not eaten at in years, but which most of them were shocked to hear was still in business. Promising, I know, but it was a pretty good meal anyway.

Now, not only did most of my friends in Bombay not know Saayba was still around, even the person who did know, and who recommended it to me, described it to me as a Malvani restaurant. But as you’ll see if you visit—or, let’s face it, by looking at my pictures—the restaurant proclaims on its exterior the fact that it is a Gomantak or Goan restaurant.  But my friends are not the only ones who are misled—Google describes them as a “Marathi & Malwani” restaurant. And when you look at their menu you might understand this Rashomon-like situation: the menu includes Goan dishes, Malvani dishes as well as Maharashtrian dishes. And they have a few mod specialties to boot! What is not in doubt is that they’ve been around since 1987 and that they have no branches anywhere.

We were a party of three and dining early on a Tuesday by Bombay standards. The restaurant was not exactly bustling a the time. We were the only ones there for most of our meal, with one more party arriving just as we were getting done. They did seem, however, to be doing brisk takeout business. The restaurant seems to assume dine-in custom, however, with a large dining room and plush furniture and metal plates and whatnot. Perhaps they’re busier at other times.

What did we eat? Well, there was solkadi on the table to start, of course. On a side note, I don’t believe I missed a single opportunity in five weeks to drink solkadi when it was available. Among things that required the use of teeth, we started with orders of bombil (Bombay duck) fry and kolambi/prawn fry. Both were coated in rava/fine semolina flour and both were very good versions of dishes you’ll find in every seafood restaurant in the city. We were also unable to resist one of the aforementioned mod dishes on the menu: Malvani chicken tacos! I had zero expectations and accordingly am pleased to inform you that the tacos were excellent. A good reason to go there if you live in Bombay and have not been. Like us, you might then also be interested in their special Konkani butter chicken. If so, I hope you won’t experience the crushing disappointment of being told they don’t have it. Will I go back again in 2028 in the hope of trying it? Maybe.

What we did share for our mains were the following: mutton masala/sagoti and a “light” fish curry with surmai made, the menu says, as it has been since 1987. The “light” here refers to the thin texture and yellow colour of the curry made with thin coconut milk as opposed to the thicker red tikhala and green masala dishes made with ground coconut. Both of these were very good as well. We ate the fish curry with steamed rice and the mutton masala with chapatis.

To close, aamras. The excellent aamras at Chaitanya had been made with Kesar mangoes. Here it was made with Hapus/Alphonso from Ratnagiri. I couldn’t say it was better but it was excellent. The restaurant was also selling boxes of Ratnagiri Alphonsos at a very good price and one of my companions purchased one. I would have got one too if not for the facts that a) I was leaving a few days later and b) I was at this point laser-focused on eating only Kesars, which I devoutly believe is a superior mango. But that is neither here nor there.

For a look at everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see what’s coming next on the food front.

I cannot tell you how much the meal cost as I was not allowed to look at the bill. But you can work it out from the menu. Service was very good. Would I say that there’s a big reason to eat here when there are so many comparable seafood restaurants serving up more or less a similar menu across the city? Probably not. Or, more accurately, I would say that there’s no reason to travel across town to eat here unless the prospect of Malvani tacos or Konkani butter chicken excites you (as they should). But if you’re in Bandra West, it’s certainly not going to disappoint you.

Alright, my next report from Bombay will be of one of two meals I ate at the high end of the market. That’ll go up next week. Before that, look for a Twin Cities report tomorrow (but best to look for it in the evening), a Seoul report on Friday and a Delhi report on Sunday.