Never let it be said that my friends are normal. After all, would a normal group of people go out all together to celebrate one friend’s birthday on another friend’s birthday? (if you’re interested, we’re probably celebrating the first friend’s birthday close to when the second friend’s birthday will be). And all this when both said friends are present. Weird, huh? Well.
The friend whose birthday it was not, but whose birthday we were celebrating asked me to choose where we’d go for dinner. I choose Barbeque Nation at Pali Hill, Bandra. It had opened mid-January this year & somehow or the other I’d not gone there yet.
The ambience of the place is very lounge bar-ish and I was pretty impressed even before tasting the food. There’s an indoor (with AC) and an outdoor section (with ambient street noise). Tables need to be reserved in batches (i.e. before 8.30pm or after 10.30pm).
The food is excellent, so says moi, an ardent lover of meat. This is the type of place to go with a group of friends (it’s not a sweet little nice romantic place, no way) - after all it is an all-you-can-eat place priced at INR 400 a head (+ taxes which works out to around 450ish).
The way it works it this - first they stuff you with starters - and when I say stuff I say stuff. Oh my dear gluttony stomach!!! (Dev, shut up).
There were Lamp Chops, Kebabs of every kind (yes on skewers), Shrimps (simply divine!) and my personal favorite - the Lebanese Mushrooms. The center of the table was scooped by our so-oh-perfectly-efficient waiter Pawan (seriously we were so badly behaved that I told him it was my first time in a restaurant) to add a grill so we could skewer our own meat and re-heat anything if we wanted.
By the time we got through the snacks, I was already full (am not a buffet person) and so were many at the table. One particular person (who shall remain unnamed) was lounging about almost horizontally on the bench!! We had a very convenient corner for our group, so we could (and did) behave terribly, laughing loudly at the most inane & stupid jokes (ok fine, many of which I cracked - what would K* be called during WWII? hehe).
After (or in between) all the meats, we had some soups, mine was mushroom cream & was delicious. I was pretty wasted by this time and actually skipped the main course (told you I was not a buffet person) because (a) I was full and (b) nothing really interested me. There was biryani and some pasta and some bakes and seriously, I’m going for desserts.
Desserts turned out to be hot gulab jamuns (great!), kiwi soufflé, another soufflé (listen I was too full to remember the names) and some vanilla ice-cream with fruits and sauces. Must mention that one girlie in our group ate ALL the fruit at the counter.
And if that doesn’t convince you how badly behaved we were, there was another girlie drunk on laughter and life who was busy twirling the little cocktail umbrellas around. Pawan very sweetly obliged the silly creature by bringing her more umbys when required.
Oh yes, and I did organize a cake for both my friends to cut. I was waaay too full and waaay too drunk to take any more confusion about whose birthday it was or not. Have a good year ahead you guys.
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October 24th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
looks like a good party and a good place to go. I love BBQ, though i only chicken. We ahve a BBQ grill at our home and summer time it is always time for paneer kebabs, chicken tikka, grilled sandwitches and next year we wanna start doing grilled pineapples. hope u had a good time
October 25th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Whoa!! This looks like a fun place and the food looks oh so yummy
liked the idea of having a grill to reheat food.
October 25th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Thanks for stopping by. was it your Birthday? If it was Happy Birthday.Looks like you guys had a lot of fun and food.I love to Barbeque.
October 25th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
@ Lalitha: No it wasn’t my birthday. Unlike some of my mixed up friends, I actually celebrate my birthday on my birthday and not on the birthday of another friend. Never mind.
October 26th, 2006 at 6:41 am
Dear Melody, Please convey my wishes to friend one and friend two. I tried to sms friend one but did not get a reply. Will try to call friend two on the day. My wishes to all.
October 26th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
October 26th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
YUMMMY FOR MY TUMMMY!
October 26th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
I have sinned. I have not commented on this post yet, when there is such an open invitation to do so.
The smile says it all… a very satisfied and dear-gluttony-stomach-filled-playing-with-umbys Mel. With that killer smile, no wonder the waiter obliged you… I mean, poor chap must really have been scared.
Yes, the Dev of old is back. Just like Don.
Btw, my friends are worse than yours (so there!). We usually find it tough to get together most times, being in diff cities and all that, that we actually celebrated one friend’s birthday twice (last year’s, which we missed, and this year’s) on the eve of another friend’s birthday, and celebrated the birthday of the friend whose birthday it was, on his birthday itself, and then we celebrated another friend’s birthday which was coming up on the same day ie. the birthday of the second friend. (Phew! I think I lost you somewhere in the fourth line. Mel, dont compete with my friends…)
And my comment is probably bigger than your post.
October 27th, 2006 at 8:37 am
@ Dev: Firstly glad to see the old Dev back. Darn did I really say that?? I must be going
too.
Killer Smile…. owwweeee… you mean he must have been totally bowled over!!!
And am not competing with anyone’s friends
much less your stupid ones 
Actually, am glad to know there are other insane people in the world too. Makes one feel less bad.