
When it opened, San-Qi may have been Bombay's most ambitious restaurant. With a stunning design by Japan's Super Potato, it boasted of the best Japanese and Chinese food in town. And the Indian wasn't bad. The restaurant's theme was multi-cuisine. You could mix sushi with egg-fried rice or biryani and somehow the meal still made sense. Over time the robotyaki section gave way to a Thai kitchen. But because the food was always cooked by talented chefs imported from Malaysia, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere, you never felt that you were in a multi-cuisine restaurant. Instead, it had the air of a specialty restaurant. Since then, standards have wobbled from time to time but San-Qi remains an oasis of interesting food in the centre of an area that is bereft of good restaurant options.