A series of outings

Over the last 2 months I've been to more bars and restaurants than I've been in the last 2 years in Mumbai. Its nice to be able to get time with friends, especially since we'll be moving out shortly. Also who knows when I'll be able to manage a night out in Zurich- a) I don't know many people there and b) Here we have the maid to help the hubby with the kids dinner and sleep and in Zurich there will be no one.

The girlfriends have been amazing and obliging with my requests to go to this place and another, and some in the middle of the week. So here's a roundup of the places I managed to go to in the last 2 months

1. Escobar: A new bar in Bandra, which boasts of having the longest bar in India. Was ok, they refused to give us a table to sit despite most of the tables being empty saying that they were reserved (for an hour later!) and made us stand at the bar, and finally when we managed to convince them to give us a table which we promised to vacate when the reserved party showed up, they made us get up one hour after the reserved time, saying that the party had arrived then. The consensus at our table was that we were not generating enough revenue for them with our lacklustre drinking! The crowd was a mix of young pretty things and their gym hitting boyfriends and some oldies who were trying to get their groove back (we saw a guy dressed like Bappi Lahiri there!). After our unceremonious exit, we went to the Taj coffee shop for dinner. That was good fun, we could hear each other, we saw Robin Uthapa and the soup was amazing ( i was on my liquid diet courtesy the elastic bands then).

2. Cafe Mondegar: I love this place. We used to go there quite often when we first came to Bombay- travelling all the way by train from Kandivli to town and would usually go there before a movie or before going to another place for dinner. I love the jukebox there and have spent many a happy hour listening to GNR / Pink Floyd. The hubby and I also used to go there quite often (earlier when I was working town side, on some Friday nights, or later when we went into town to catch a movie). I had not been there for more than 4 years- after S was born I didn't have the enthu to leave her and go all the way to town, if we went out leaving her we would go closer in Bandra itself. But this time my parents were at home, and between them and the maid they could manage A and S sleep. The plan was to have a couple of drinks at Mondys and then go to Chez Vous for dinner, but we ended up enjoying the music at Mondys so much that we just hung around there and had our dinner.

3. Barbecue Nation: This was a dinner with my old team from office- the team which I joined in 2005, all of whom had quit before me (I was the last of the Mohicans as my ex boss puts it). We try to meet once in 6 months, and my move to Zurich was a good enough excuse. I don't like the food in Barbecue Nation that much (its the same starters every time) but it was great to catch a couple of drinks with your old colleagues and laugh over old times and bitch about the current set of people working there. Our earlier team was much closer than the team currently working in my office and I realised i really missed hanging out with these people in office. Its been much more impersonal and mechanical, the last couple of years in office and everyone only looking out for themselves

4. Salt Water Cafe: This was a weekday lunch with colleagues who were still working (ha it was so nice to tell them I am off home to catch a nap, you guys go back to work!). My elastics had just come off and I enjoyed the food- the veg lasagne was nice and the portion was not too big so you dont end up feeling bloated at the end of the meal. One of the colleagues is in another team and she gave us good masala on our ex bosses. Its amazing how political and vindictive some people can be.

5. Kobe Sizzler: The hubby and I used to go here very often about 4-5 years back. When we were not so weight conscious and it also used to be very close to our house. I used to love their Spaghetti sizzler and used to drench it with Worcetshire sauce. Through a large part of my liquid diet I used to think about the sizzler and drool!! I was determined to go there once I could eat a bit better. I was highly disappointed and am surely not going to miss this place. The food was awful- i think they are using poorer ingredients and not cooking the food enough, the worcetshire sauce was clearly diluted and even smelt old. I couldn't finish my food and neither could the hubby. Not going back there

6. Eat Around the corner: This is the newly vamped Just around the corner. Again, not impressed. The best thing about JATC was the salad, and how you had a good variety of veg salads and could pile up your plate and make a meal of only salads. Now they allow you to chose only one salad and can't mix two. Of course you can buy as many as you want, but if you want just a small piece of say the potato salad then you're stuck with buying the small portion, and it becomes difficult to eat more than two small portions. Which means while you could earlier mix 6-7 salads on your plate, now you have only 1-2. Also the variety has drastically come down, there will in all 6 veg salads today, while earlier there would have been at least 10. The portion of the food is also really small (for me at least) - I ended up having a thai green curry-rice as well as a small portion of rajma/chole salad! I was meeting an old school friend for lunch- after something like 16 years, so that was great. I got an update on what school mates who I was not in touch with were doing and we continued our gossip on our common dislikes!

7. Blue Frog : I'd never been to this bar ever and had heard such good reviews of it that I really have been wanting to go for ages. So in the last few days of the baby maid being there (she's off from Saturday) I convinced the hubby to come back early from work so I could go there with my girlfriends (we had to have an early night since they were working). I really liked the place. It was stand up comedy night and the first guy was really good. Of coure making jokes on the World Cup and on Big Boss is definetly a good start, but i have a sneaky suspicion I was the only one who understood his joke on Teletubbies! The other three stand up comedians were not that good and the last one, who insisted on only making pondy jokes was awful. There was a break for some time and then a band came on to play. They were alright, some songs were good, some average. I think I had too much wine since I started giving gyaan (and had to stop myself) and became all senti and emotional. My stomach had that queasy feeling all through the night- that feeling which comes when you drink too much and I even felt senti about that- its been ages since I had that feeling and who knows when I could afford that again (certainly not if I have to get up in the morning and look after 2 youngs kids the whole day, instead of being heavily reliant on the baby maid as i was today morning while i drink two cups of coffee and eat a heavy breakfast to get back to a normal day). Clearly i had a glass too many if I could get senti about my stomach feeling queasy. I liked Blue Frog, it has a nice ambience and would love to go there on retro night!

8. Masala Bay: This is the Indian restaurant at the Taj. We went there with the kids last Sunday. The kids had already had their lunch and S was kepy busy colouring and eating the pappads and A (who refused to sit on the high chair) sat on my lap for most of the time eating a spoon and intermittently sat between the hubby and S and ate onions!! I had the chole kulche which was amazing. Usually i avoid the kulcha since its full of butter/oil/ghee but this time I went all out- in Zurich its going to be rasam rice most of the days and maybe chapatti/dal or chappati/sabzi if I'm feeling adventurous!

9. Elco Chat: I went once with a friend and took S along, and the second time with my parents (and we took S and A along). I love the chats there. I couldn't have my favourite which is the Delhi Papdi Chaat as i cant bite into the papdi, but I had the bhel puri and the pav bhaji. S enjoys the dosa there and eats by herself (i dont even have to cut it into small pieces like I do at home). My mom also likes the chat there and we try to go at least every other time my mom is in town.

10. Mainland China : This was unfortunately when I had my elastics so i couldnt eat anything and the soup also turned out to be a disaster since there were small pieces in it and I couldn't drink it. So i watched the hubby hog the buffet there and tried to stop from feeling frustrated. Of course I ordered from China Gate as soon as my elastics came off to make up for this (I am a Chinese food buff

So that's the exhaustive list as of now. Hopefully I've not put on too much of the weight I lost over the 4 weeks of liquid diet. Otherwise, I need to get back to soup dinners for a couple of days.