The rendezvous at Cafe Potluck, spilt over into a dinner at Stir. This was a buffet dinner. Almost a year ago, a friend of mine from Malaysia was down with her parents. The were staying at the Taj Gateway and we were treated to the Indian dinner buffet at Stir. Anoushka was a toddler then and so I spent more time crawling on the floor of the restaurant behind her than enjoying what was on offer.

This time round, she had settled herself on Sudhakar and was pretty alright. For a change I actually walked around the buffet and took a look at what was there. We were offered soups at our tables - they were the regulars of sweet corn and a chicken clear soup. We decided to go straight for the starters since we were still nursing our drinks - there was a live starter counter, not unlike Cafe Masalaa at Eva Mall. Its just that here there were two chefs manning two separate counters for veg and non-veg starters. Most of the offerings were the regulars in the tandoor section with just one or two standing out for really great taste.

In the vegetarian section, what really stood out for me was the rajma cutlets. I never really knew that such delicious cutlets could come of something as humble as the rajma. After this I headed for the salad bar, where I helped myself to a vegetarian pasta salad, a spicy potato salad, a bitter gourd salad (karela) and some other salads that did not have any unusual ingredients for me to talk about. But it was nice to see a salad bar sans mayonnaise and salad dressings. OF course this was the Indian buffet. Not to forget, there was also a small chaat and yoghurt based counter of dahi vadam dahi bhalla and dahi aloo.

Next, on to the main courses, which I did not take photos of simply because the dishes were placed a little too high for me to get a good shot. And also once I opened the dishes, I could not reach up to get the lid down. All thanks to my "good things come in small packages" built. Anyways, there was an assortment of rotis with once again standard Indian fare of a chicken gravy, a paneer and muttar gravy, a fish gravy that I did not try and to round it off, the biryani in vegetarian and meat.

Main courses done, it was now time to hit the dessert section which took up a substantial part of the buffet. But before that we took a drink from the digestive section. There was jal jeera and mattah (a version of buttermilk). Now for the desserts - the rasamalai was being put together in front of the guests. There were an assortment of burfees - dry fruit, kaju katli and chocolate. For those who liked gooey Indian sweets there was the exotic rasamalais, champakalis all. Some of these were westernised with chocolate sauce and cherries.

This buffet is good value for money at approximately Rs 650. The staff are effecient and were highly taken up by my little imp. They offered her special dishes from the kitchen like a pasta with white sauce, hand made chocolate and tidbits of pineapple, cheese and cherry on a toothpick. Service was nice and so was the ambience. This is not one of those buffets where you need to check the name of each dish you put on your plate. This is a buffet where you go for a hearty meal at a great price.