What: Pear and walnut cake by Reshma and Kapil Sanghi, pick up from Kitab Khana at Fort or Mehrina building, Malabar Hill, call 22844242 to order, Rs 900 for a nine inch cake, one day notice required.

Why: We discovered this elegant, addictive cake at a family celebration (happy birthday, mum!), sweetened with pear-studded sponge, iced with walnuts and golden glaze. Baked by the same guys who run the cafe at Kitab Khana, it is rarely spotted on the shelf and must be special ordered. They do a mean fruit cake, chocolate mud pie and other flavours as well.

When: Perfect for a party or tea at home. Just play it by (p)ear.

The Ninja Returns

Educated  at  Le Cordon Bleu, Paris,  Shilarna Vaz is a culinary samurai of many talents - she has set up one of Goa's prettiest restaurants, hosts a TV show (Firangi Tadka) and now is back in Mumbai to revive her dial-a-sushi business, where she delivers fresh rolls of Japanese tuna and smoked salmon, mango mint and pickled plums, asparagus and avocado all over town. Drum roll, please!

Ship-Shape

We Scouters especially love Shilarna's veggie California rolls and salmon sushi, and promise to add her new, uber-healthy offerings to our diet charts: these include vegan sushi made with organic brown rice, asparagus and avocados (no mayonnaise), also Imran Khan Body Builder Rolls - brown rice, double the fish and veggies - for when we're feeling particularly macho.

House Rolls

Along with the individual rolls and sushi platters she currently offers (vegetarian and non-veg), Shilarna is also kicking off a sushi party service at the end of this month, for which she'll cater not only sushi but also fun additions like miso soup and chicken teriyaki.

Perfect for when you're fishing for compliments!

Getting there: Call Shilarna Vaz at 9820036525 or visit the Facebook group here, Rs 250 for a California roll, free home delivery in Bandra and Andheri, minimum order of 10 rolls for South Bombay delivery, advance notice required.

Angry Birds And Footballers

Not content with your mum buying their freezer-to-fryer chicken nuggets or owning English Premier League (EPL) club Blackburn Rovers, Venky’s has now decided to expand its empire further with a chain of fast food centres across Mumbai (they’re in Pune too), one of which opened in Bandra two days ago.

Here, in this intensely red cafe that plays Michael Jackson, screens Blackburn Rovers commercials and houses an open kitchen, they sell combo meals much like the ones you see at McDonalds (with almost the same price tags) made using their own pre-packed chicken products. While the staff seems a tad confused about which food items can be served at the cafe and which ones are available in frozen form for pick up only, we think these first-day wrinkles should be ironed out over the next week.

We just didn’t feel right about dropping Rs 800 for a pint at a bar best described as wannabe-Ghetto, where every table but ours was empty and the speakers were blasting Gloria Gaynor. But despite the pitfalls, we too survived our night out at Cerveza, the much-anticipated beer lounge that opened at Kala Ghoda last week and ended up being, as one friend pointed out, a damp squib.

The Dark Horse?

Perched above Silk Route, Cerveza features a tangerine orange wall stamped with a beer atlas of the world, low ceilings and dreadfully dim lighting that makes the already cramped space look even smaller. There is also a smattering of bar stools, DJ console, bar.

Mitigating the decor a bit is the long list of international brews - lager, stout, draught, fruit, ale, white, wheat and dry – that  some beer lovers may not mind being in a tight spot for. Like we mentioned in an earlier story, these include over 30 varieties such as Saison Dupont, Leifmans, Chimay Red (8% alcohol content) and Irish Murphy’s Stout along with usual suspects like Tsing Tao, Miller High Life, Kingfisher (all except Kingfisher Blue). Get any or all, but stay away from beer cocktails, which taste weaker than the Shandy we surreptitiously downed as fourteen year olds.

Oh My Nosh!

Not since Salt Water Grill have we seen a better located restaurant than Seaface Cafe, which opened at the edge of Worli Seaface last month, a little eatery literally spilling into the ocean. It makes good use of the spectacular view too, with large, wide-paned windows that look out to sea and sparse red furniture – a Goa shack transplanted right into the belly of Midtown Mumbai.

There’s just one catch: we suggest you don’t actually eat here. For one, it is overpowered by the unfortunate smell from a public toilet situated right next door. And even if you have the olfactory chops to ignore that, we doubt that your stomach will stand up to the moldy tomato sandwich featured on the already scarred, shoddily laminated, pure vegetarian menu. Not even for you, dear reader, could we sample that.

The best thing to do is order a Cornetto or Coke, gaze out at the ocean for a moment and think wistfully of the restaurant this could have been, if it weren’t for the grimy kitchen, the lack of a liquor licence, the fragrance from an unwashed Sulabh. The possibilities are dazzling, endless, tantalizingly out of reach. “Maybe next year,” one of us Scouters sighed. Or next month. With the ever-changing, ever-surprising culinary carousel that is Mumbai, you never know.

Getting there: Worli Seaface, opposite Worli Dairy, Rs 30 for a sandwich.

Mumbaikars don’t dance. Is that why there are so few dance floors in the city? Or is it the other way around?

As you ponder this funky chicken-and-egg situation, here's the A-list of Mumbai clubs to get into this party season -- and why. Read the full story on CNNGo.com.

Tryst: To See Your Name on the Menu

A night at Tryst is like attending a spectacular light show, where more than a million color-changing LEDs poke out of almost every corner and bright green absinthe potions swirl around in glasses.

If you’ve got the bucks, you’re in the spotlight.

The focus of this futuristically designed club is elevated VIP tables with a minimum billing of Rs 25,000 each (The King Table dictates that you spend at least a lakh), with a personal butler and your own bouncer to boot. Two special VIP tables -- Den 1 and Den 2 -- even have gadgets built into table tops that will display your name, a personal message and your customized menu for the night.  

“It’s a great way to impress your date,” says co-owner Rajiv Tandon, who’s busy prepping Tryst for the upcoming party season with powerful air conditioners, a fatter hip-hop track list, a glossy new dance floor and if you can believe it, more lights. Many more lights.

462 Phoenix Mills, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel; +91 (0)22 6661 4365/6; www.trystmumbai.com

What: Cremica mayonnaise by the bottle, call Neelam Aunty at 9821501151, pick up from a Khar home, price on request.

Why: It can be found at restaurants all over the city and even in a McDonald's burger, but this super delish egg-less mayonnaise is woefully absent from grocery stores. Famous for her home cooking classes and fiercely passionate about burgers, Neelam aunty remedies this travesty by sourcing and retailing the brand straight out of her home. Condiment queen!

When: You want to enrol into Mayo College.

Gone are the sixteen year olds in too-short dresses, the flaming shots, the pulsing music; in fact, you would barely recognize the space that once was Oba, Colaba’s after-party night club and as one friend described it, “hangover central”. Like we’d reported earlier, the space is now 5 All Day, a serene, sunlit cafe livened up by citrus-spiked interiors and an interesting menu.

Seconds, Please

From the same guys who run 5 – The Restaurant in Santacruz, 5 All Day shares part of its menu with its predecessor, including delish pumpkin and fenugreek soup (one of us Secret Scouters ranks this amongst her favourite Mumbai foods), Penne Mamaroza  and a superlative banana torte. Get all, regardless of the location you are visiting and wash them down with cocktails, including a surprisingly awesome whiskey and tomato juice concoction and watermelon sangria, bobbing with balls of fruit and served in a glass goblet.

There are plenty of new dishes here too, many of which are smoked – a technique chef Mrinmoy describes as this restaurant’s “signature”. We tried and enjoyed smoked Bloody Mary soup, thick and peppery and just a little bit sour, as well as hickory smoked chicken burgers, dowsed in dressing and starring perfectly marinated meat. These come with crisp curly fries and gingery home-made ketchup that we now crave with every meal. Vegetarians, try a corn and bean burger instead of the feta cheese option, comprising of nothing more than a couple of slices of zucchini and a stingy smattering of feta cheese.  This combination works much better in cold zucchini rolls, tart, light and perfect for the second summer that is October.

Fishy Business

Bar Fight, Anyone?

We have a pact at the bpb office: If there’s an argument that goes over a certain decibel level with no end in sight, we’re allowed to hit pause and go get a beer at Woodside Inn. The pub is a “Space Between” fist and future that Dave Matthews Band sings of, and incidentally, one of the only bars in Mumbai that plays this DMB track. Comfort is bound to make itself found, we believe, if not in the larger, then on the specials board.

Ornithology

That kind of vibe is hard to live up to, we thought while driving to Woodside Inn’s new Andheri outpost, thinking of sequels that have failed in the wake of great originals. But when we spotted its simple green awning in a cramped row of garish eatery signboards on Link Road, we knew that this new Woodside was at least going to try.

What: Cerveza, new beer lounge at 38, K Dubash Marg, Kala Ghoda, Fort, call 22818572, Rs 200 for a Kingfisher and Rs 850 for Chimay Red (yikes!).

Why: The super pretty Silk Route is now Cerveza, a bar that will serve over 30 varieties of international beers including Saison Dupont (fresh farm beer), Leifmans (fruit beer ), Chimay Red (8% alcohol content) and Irish Murphy’s Stout along with usual suspects like Tsing Tao, Miller High Life, Kingfisher (all except Kingfisher Blue). Also available will be beer on tap and beer cocktails. Non-beer drinkers can help themselves to a full bar, complete with speciality cocktails like Batidas – made from condensed milk, fresh fruit pulp and rum – as well as quick bites including spicy dragon rolls, Mongolian prawns and mozzarella cheese balls.

Interiors here double up as history and geography lessons, with a giant beer map up on one wall and table tops outlining facts and origins of different brews.

When: Opens tomorrow, September 30 at 7 pm. bpb review out soon!