There are a lot of Indian restaurants in Boston, some good, some not so good. Personally, I think there are better cities to eat Indian buffet. But nonetheless, I still end up going to a few of these places again and again. Here are some of my favorites:

Punjabi Dhaba: This is a small take-out place, but you can also take your tray up stairs. The food, restaurant and energy of the place are great. I always ask for saag paneer, korma and roti. Tandoori chicken is also good here too. Fun place to take a few friends and then head over to Inman Square for some late night outings!

225 Hampshire St
Cambridge, MA 02139

http://www.royalbharatinc.com/royalbharatincwebsite_017.htm

Mela Modern Indian Cuisine: The restaurant is in the South End– the only one of it’s kind I’ve stumbled upon in the neighborhood. Go here for a more formal setting. The food can be a bit on the spicy side, even when you ask for medium spice, so opt for mild if hot food is not your thing. The service here was also slow, even when there weren’t that many customers.

578 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02118

http://www.melaboston.com

Shanti: I’ve blogged about Shanti before. It’s generally a good place for buffet, which are the only times that I’ve eaten at this Dorchester restaurant. The buffet always has good variety and is different every time I go. I’ve had some really awesome dishes here, including the spinach daal and the vegetable coconut curry. Shanti always gets good reviews and is supposed to be the best for delivery.

1111 Dorchester Avenue
Dorchester, MA 02125

http://www.shantiboston.com

Mumbai Chopstix: They used to have a restaurant on Newbury Street, but last month it closed. I haven’t been to the new location but I know it is somewhere in Cambridge (haven’t been able to find the address online for some reason). I’ve generally liked the food I have ordered here. It’s a cross between Indian and Chinese cuisine– something very popular in Bombay. They like to use a lot of lemongrass or  sometimes they’ll serve you a traditional chicken dish with mango and garlic-chilli sauce. They also serve some fusion cocktails, like ones with lychee fruit and pomegranate. It’s good to have an open mind with this menu.

(617) 927-4444

Dosa Factory: This South Indian has never actually been here. Some of my friends have gone, and they’ve had lukewarm responses. Sadly, there aren’t a lot of choices in Boston for South Indian food. I prefer to stay in and make my own homestyle food. But I’ve heard Medford has some good places for idli and sambhar.

571 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139

www.DosaFactory.com

Tamarind Bay: If you are in Harvard Square, and you are craving Indian food, this is a good place to go. It’s on the higher end, and the food is always pretty good. They have afternoon lunch buffet, but it gets busy around dinner time. Tamarind Bay is supposed to be known for their coastal cuisine and their paneer. I’ve tried it once a while ago, and it is very tasty. They make it fried, and they’ll serve it alone. It’s definitely one of those places to take your parents or relatives if they are in town.

75 Winthrop St
Cambridge, MA 02138

http://www.tamarind-bay.com

Wading through four-foot-high snow piles, we made it to Mumbai Chopstix at 11:30am on a Friday. The Indo-Chinese fusion restaurant opened in April 2010 and I’ve been hearing mixed reviews ever since. Furthermore, after visiting The Dosa Factory (same owner) a few weeks ago, I was reminded that I should try it out! When we arrived there was no host, so when I saw someone in sweats come upstairs carrying place settings, I apologized for arriving early and asked what time we should come back. The quick response was “we’re open right now! Buffet or menu?” The whole situation was very confusing and unnecessarily rushed. I would have come back if they weren’t ready to open.

We began the meal with Calcutta-style hot and sour soup, which had a thick and sweet broth. The mushrooms and vegetables were delicious, but I ate them with chopsticks to avoid the broth.

A small plate of fried noodles and chickpeas was next. The server said this was a street food snack. It was tasty. We also had small salads from the buffet with a fresh-tasting oil and vinegar dressing.

In the buffet were six dishes, a combination of vegetarian and meat. The vegetable hakka noodles (similar to lo mein), vegetable manchurian (like mini veggie burgers in ginger and cilantro sauce), and “hawker-style” eggplant and tofu in garlic sauce were my favorites. Other dishes included Calcutta Szechwan chicken (terribly sweet, I could only taste sugar), a beef dish & standard a fried rice with vegetables. The selection was simple: I would have liked a few more unique dishes, along with at least one seafood dish. I would have also liked to see more fusion (most of the dishes seemed like standard Chinese food, maybe with the exception of the veggie manchurian).

Our server was very friendly, but became a bit too involved in the conversations my friend and I were having. It would have been fine if this was our third or fifth visit, but not when you’re serving to complete strangers. We also couldn’t find him when we were ready for the bill.

The interior was intimate and easy: Mumbai Chopstix feels like an awesomely-cool Brooklyn apartment. Food was mediocre. Service was oddly unprofessional. The room was empty until we left at 12:30pm.

We couldn’t find the cost of the buffet when we ordered (based on the entree prices, I expected early/mid-teens), but at $9 for a complete meal on Newbury, it’s difficult to be too critical. I would consider going again if I was shopping at lunch time with an out-of-towner, but the quality of the food and service would keep me from returning for dinner or with someone other than a close friend looking for a casual meal.

Mumbai Chopstix, 254 Newbury Street, Boston

• Where East meets East
• This restaurant opened its doors earlier this year
• This restaurant recently got a new chef

The clues did nothing for me, I had no idea where we were meeting. Amanda from Kitchen Misfit tweeted that she knew the location right away, and she guessed right – Mumbai Chopstix. It made perfect sense, East meets East: Chinese and Indian fusion cuisine (if you couldn’t tell from the name).

I was thrilled about the physical location of the restaurant, because I conveniently work on the same block, but I’ll admit I was semi-disappointed about the restaurant choice. Since it opened, I have heard nothing but bad reviews about Mumbai Chopstix. Plus the Tavolo / Ashmont Grill Mystery Meet last month is a tough act to follow regardless. I remained optimistic though because a new chef could make all the difference.

The interior of Mumbai Chopstix is really nice. There are buddah’s everywhere, a dim red lighting, and a guy playing the sitar the whole time, an Indian stringed instrument that sounded really great and set ‘East meets East’ mood.

(forgive the quality of the photos – the red light made it hard to focus!!)

The first course was supposed to be similar to Indian street food. it was a mix of vegetables, potatoes, chickpeas and crispy noodles with a yogurt sauce. This was interesting… I’ve never had anything like it before. It was like a cold salad with a salty (soy sauce like), yogurty sauce. I would definitely get this again if I came back.

Then it started to get a little confusing. The menu told us we had a choice between two different soups and we ended up with one. Then the waiters took our order for the third course without asking about the second. The whole process was really unclear, which was so different from the last Mystery Meet where the service was flawless.

The hot and sour soup was pretty good. The great part about the soup was the broth, I could definitely taste both Chinese and Indian ingredients. They worked well together. What I didn’t like about the soup was the cup was only half full (as pictured above) and I would have liked a little more substance (veggies, chicken, anything).

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I’ve got good news and bad news for Bostonians. The good news is that an Indo-Chinese restaurant, Mumbai Chopstix, has finally arrived. The bad news: the food is not really up to par and will leave you feeling teased rather than satisfied.

Steamed Vegetable Momohs

At Mumbai Chopstix, the execution of the food is poor and the service mediocre. I tried several of the dishes. Among the starters, I had the vegetable momohs, the “authentic” bhel, and the papaya and mango salad. The steamed vegetable momohs (dumplings) were terrible. The wrapping was undercooked so that the texture was doughy and tough. The immediate taste to overwhelm your palatte was that of raw dough…a flavor which permeates and persists in the mouth. The filling was tolerable but lacked any personality.  The “authentic” bhel was unimpressive as well. Though the presentation was beautiful – a tower of rice puffs capped with a puri (fried bread dough) holding sweet chutney, yogurt and sev (a fried snack shape like thin noodles) – the bhel was far from authentic and was actually a bit dry and dull in flavor. The papaya and mango salad succeeded more as a side salad than as an appetizer salad. It provided a much needed cooling respite from the overpowering spiciness of the entrées. It was crunchy and acidic and tasted almost like pickled vegetables. The few mangos in the salad gave the dish a much needed brightness and tang and in fact, I could have used a few more of those mangos in my salad.

Papaya and Mango Salad

As for the entrées, I sampled the vegetable Manchurian, the vegetable Hakka noodles, the chili garlic noodles, the lachew cauliflower and the chili paneer. The vegetable Manchurian was the absolute biggest disappointment on the menu. This dish is my favorite item when it comes to Indo-Chinese so my disappointment was magnified. Usually, the dumplings in this dish consist of steamed cabbage, carrots and onions that have been loosely bound together with flavoring agents, eggs or boiled rice and flour. They should be slightly crispy and golden brown on the outside but fluffy, light and slightly chewy on the inside. If I had to guess, I would say the Manchurian dumplings at Mumbai Chopstix were made out of frozen veggie burgers that they cut up and rolled into balls and then fried. They were extremely dense and tasted like soy and mushrooms: simply awful. The vegetable Hakka noodles and the chili garlic noodles fared much better. They were very similar to each other, but the Hakka noodles had a tomato-based chili sauce on them while the chili garlic noodles were coated in a black pepper sauce. Both of these noodle items were extremely spicy. The lachew cauliflower was one of the better items on the dish. It had the crispy texture on the outside that I was looking for. It was much less spicy than the other dishes, so probably more appealing to a wider audience. The chili paneer, however, was the highlight of the show. Again, it was quite spicy. But the paneer was cooked exactly how it should be – soft with a bit of resistance to the teeth. And it had a great brightness and acidity to the flavor that was lacking in most of the other dishes.

chili paneer, vegetable Hakka noodles, and chili garlic noodles

Aside from the food, the drinks were surprisingly good. I would especially recommend the lychee Bellini. The service on the other hand, was not so great. The waiter who served us mumbled and could not be understood by a single person at our table. He also seemed like he didn’t care all that much.

Overall, if you are having a tsunami craving for Indo-Chinese where you are considering going to NYC to get your fix, then you can stop in at Mumbai Chopstix and order the chili paneer and one the noodle dishes. If you are keen on any other item, I recommend skipping this place and planning your next trip to NYC.  Or better yet, have a party, invite your friends and cater it from Bombay Club, which will provide you with what you are looking for.

Mumbai Chopstix
254 Newbury Street (between Fairfield and Gloucester)
617-927-4444