Mumbai food: This Breach Candy salad bar is perfect for calorie counters

The Big Mix salad featuring green apples

With inviting, chequered black-and-white tiles, potted plants and a well-stocked salad bar, the brightly-lit, six-seater Ministry Of Salads is a candy shop for calorie-counting folk. Propped up bang opposite Tata Garden in Breach Candy, the eatery is the latest addition to the Silver Beach Hospitality roster, which has affiliated with businessman Dhruv Mehra (designer Nishka Lulla's other half) and Sheetal Nahar for the outing. Though all-vegetarian, with a few egg options, Ministry Of Salads makes up with an array of ingredients, which can be mixed to make your own salad, along with signature salad combinations, sandwiches, wraps and a variety of beverages including smoothies, vitamin boosters and a range of herbal teas. While it opens its doors for indoor seating later in the week, eats will be available on Scootsy till tomorrow.

The Big Mix salad featuring green apples. Pics/Datta Kumbhar

Layer it up
"All the ingredients will be replenished every four hours, so that they are fresh," informed head chef Rohan D'Souza, as he guided us through the ingredients, which can be packed into a seven-layer, customised salad (priced according to the category of ingredients that you choose). These include bases like iceberg and baby spinach, grains like bulgar wheat and quinoa, soba noodles, fruits and veggies like avocado, sweet potatoes and cherry tomatoes, a variety of low-fat cheeses, tofu, prunes, figs along with a range of dressings and pickled options like dates, black garlic, gherkins and mangoes (all pickled and aged in-house).

The well-stocked salad bar is replenished every four hours

Watermelon and Feta Salad

It comes with calorie count
We sampled two of the signature salads, which also feature interesting ingredients like buckwheat, puy lentils and raw papaya. They even have an Egg Caesar. Each salad comes with a calorie count provided by an on-board nutritionist Prachi Managute. We loved the Big Mix (Rs 320), a bowl comprising green apples, rocket leaves, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, pickled shallots and walnuts. Drizzled with a lemon mirin dressing, the salad packed a punch in terms of flavours and crunch. While we've tried watermelon and feta salad at other restaurants, we preferred this version (Rs 250), as it also included rockmelons, making for a great summer binge. Though slightly steep, the portions are generous and a bowl could suffice as lunch. We also liked the Pesto-Wich (Rs 200), a tasty brown bread grilled sandwich stuffed with tomato, roasted bell peppers and buffalo mozzarella; we washed it down with Pondicherry Fruit Tisane, a lip smacking, raspberry-based concoction.