Cream Centre, Oberoi Mall, Goregaon East

Cream Centre is one of Mumbai's oldest and most famous vegetarian restaurants. They have been around since 1958 and have a landmark restaurant on Mumbai's marine drive. The place is however 100% vegetarian and I half - reluctantly venture into the outlet at Oberoi Mall Goregaon in the company of some office friends and was not at all disappointed.
Cream Centre is a fine dining vegetarian outlet and is nicely decked up. White is the prevailing colour and it adds a nice "creamy" ambiance to the restaurant:).
I was a bit thrown off however by the menu which seemed to be a mix of everything without really having a really large elaborate section on starters/ main course. There was a section on soups, salads and sandwiches, one on starters, one on trademark dishes, i.e. classics that cream centre prides itself on - they actually have the trademark emblem on some of their offerings on the menu card. There were also whole sections on pizza/ pasta and mexican food and a complete section on Thali offerings - a combination of what is there on the menu, you had to choose from a set of dishes which you could also order separately. The menu card also had a very nice picture of the marine drive of yesteryear, specifically pointing out the location of the original cream centre restaurant.
I ordered the Original Chhole Bature TM, and also ended up tasting a number of dishes including Mumbaiya Ragda Pattice, Masala Parathe and Paneer. Here I would like to comment on the service which was very eager to please and asked us specifically if we would like our food to be served together or no. We insisted that the food should be served together but the service was very very dispersed with all the dishes arriving at different times at pretty long intervals. Not good especially after asking first!
The food however was fantastic to say the least. The Bathura was nothing spectacular but the chhole was out of this world - easily the best that I have tasted. The Ragda Pattice was also very good and was served very neatly enabling separate bites of the chhole (ragda) and the aloo cutlets (pattice) as well as the combination offering. The Masala Parathe was also very good, so much so as the same could be had as a meal by itself. I also washed down the meal with another trademark drink they served which was the lime mint cooler. It was as refreshing a drink as can get and is highly recommended from my end. Overall slightly expensive but very good vegetarian fare once you can decide what you want. I think the way it works is that people just come over to the restaurant and order their favourite dishes.
A meal for two at Cream Centre without drinks would cost you approximately Rs 750/-
How to get there: Cream Centre is on the top floor of Oberoi Mall, Goregaon East. The mall is on the Western Express Highway.