One would imagine that the success of Bombay Salad Co. would’ve have prompted food entrepreneurs to open salad-focused joints at the speed at which fro-yo places once populated the city. This has not been the case; few salad places have opened in the two years since the Bandra restaurant came up. One of them is the three-week-old Ministry of Salads in Breach Candy.
The place is not South Mumbai’s answer to Bombay Salad Co. It’s vegetarian, leaving out people who like meat in their meals, and it has some catching up to do in the creativity department. That said, the salads are well prepared, fresh and seem so healthy you feel you owe yourself a calorific treat at the end of a meal. In fact the menu lists the calorie count of each of their 11 salads (you can also make your own). Folks on a diet will be thrilled that most are well under 500 calories.
One flank of the tiny black, grey and white tiled restaurant has three tables that can fit six diners in all. The other is taken up by two vitrines containing an array of ingredients. Plants in wooden brackets and tchotchkes like glass bottles are the only ornamentation. The menu lists salads, sandwiches, wraps, vitamin boosters and cleansers (also known as juices) and smoothies.
The only non-veg item is the egg Caesar salad (Rs360), a toss-up of boiled egg, iceberg lettuce, parmesan croutons, a creamy dressing and a generous dusting of parmesan. It’s probably the healthiest Caesar we’ve had. The dressing is light and flavourful even though it lacks the customary punch of anchovy or garlic and the croutons have no grease, which explains why the salad contains just 473 calories.
The Roast by the Coast (Rs340) is the fattiest of the lot at 748 calories. This is perhaps also why it was the tastiest of the salads we tried. It’s a multi-textured medley of dried fig, walnut, celery, salad leaves, tomato, goat cheese and a sweet and tart pomegranate-yoghurt dressing. The Thai Crunch (Rs360) is a mix of raw papaya, broccoli, kale, French beans, cherry tomato, glass noodles, leaves and peanuts in a sweet chilli lemon dressing. It’s a serviceable salad that could’ve been improved with a more generous dose of peanuts and more chilli and lemon to offset the predominantly sweet dressing.
The Lentil Mental (Rs320), a jumble of puy lentils, spinach, roast pumpkin, almonds and pomegranate in a honey mustard dressing, sounded promising. But the dressing was too sweet, there was too little pumpkin and the ingredients failed to come together as a satisfying whole. The sandwich and wrap menu has four items, all of which are standard except for the Peri-Peri, which has a filling of paneer peri peri, artichoke, sundried tomato and spinach, a radical combination whose outcome is hard to predict. We decided to stick to the standards. The Leb-Mex (Rs200) was a lightly grilled wrap encasing spinach, zucchini, jalapeno peppers and cheese with a side of hummus. It was tasty, if unexceptional, and the hummus was smooth with the perfect balance of garlic and olive oil.
Similarly there was little reason to fault the Pesto-Wich (Rs200), a grilled sandwich of tomato, mozzarella, roasted bell peppers and pesto in multi-grain bread except that they could’ve been more generous with the amount of pesto. The salad portions here are adequate for a person of average appetite. For big eaters, a salad and a sandwich or wrap will be sufficient. In keeping with the place’s low-calorie outlook, there’s not a single dessert of the menu. Though if you feel like cheating, you can order the Nutella and hazelnut smoothie, the only truly decadent item in this ministry of outrageously healthy food.
Get: Roast by the Coast (Rs340), Egg Caesar (Rs360), Leb-Mex (Rs200), Pesto-Wich (Rs200).
Skip: Lentil Mental (Rs320).
Prices exclude taxes. The review was conducted anonymously.
It is our policy to wait at least a week after an establishment has opened before we review it.
Ministry of Salads, Shop No.4 Nainik Niwas, opposite Tata Garden, Breach Candy, Bhulabhai Desai Road. Tel: 97698 23777. Open daily, from 1pm to 10pm. Get directions here. Ministry of Salads home delivers only via Scootsy.com between Colaba and Lower Parel.