Restaurant experiment: Cafe Bombay

Café Bombay

2615 Briarcliff Road at Woodcliff Drive

Atlanta, GA 30329

404-320-0229

http://www.cafebombayatlanta.com [warning, has background music]

Café Bombay is actually located in the same small shopping center as Queen of Sheba, where I had eaten not too recently ago.  The parentals were the ones to tell me about this place since they had been several times and were over the moon about the lunch buffet.  We all went one Saturday, and I was pleased that the buffet was offered on Saturdays too, not just weekdays.

The main dining room is a cozy space, if a bit dim from gauzy curtains.  The buffet is divided so that there are two stations as follows (or at least what I can recall):

• Station 1: vegetarian entrees
  • Fritters
  • Spinach
  • Etc
  • Basmati rice
  • Naan
  • Gulab jamun

• Station 2: meat entrees
  • Goat curry
  • Chicken tikka masala
  • Tandoori chicken
  • “Chicken 65”
  • Etc
  • Chutneys
  • Raita
  • Kheer
  • Biryani

The service may not have been fawning-over-you-friendly, but it was certainly efficient and polite.  The food bins at the buffet stations remained constantly full, and everything seemed fresh.  I tried a little of everything and was generally happy except for a few very spicy veggie entrees.  The chicken tikka masala with its rich tomato taste and the tandoori chicken were standouts.

The rice pudding [kheer] was a pleasant surprise.  Usually I am not hugely into rice pudding, but it had a pleasing almond taste, and I found myself having a second serving.  The gulab jamun was too syrupy for me, but it’s tops in the books of two others in my party.

For Indian buffets, definitely try out Cafe Bombay.