Monday, December 04, 2006

Le Rock Cafe

It's been a while since we've had a guest reviewer. MadMan paid a visit to Le Rock Cafe and reports in with this review:
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Landed up at this place at 10:20 last night.

(Why? Well, a couple of my friends said they'd buy me birthday drinks at Geoffrey's last night. Was there from 8:30 to 9:40. Got serious sticker shock - Rs. 450 for Long Island Iced Tea - and watered down cocktails, and then my friends dropped a "we have to work tomorrow so we have to leave now" bomb. So had to quickly phone around to see who was available. Only one dude, who happened to be at Le Rock.)

Right, so drove to Le Rock and met my friend. Decided to go upstairs and have a drink or two. Ordered a Black Russian and later a Banana Martini. Both arrived in 90 ml liqueur martini-shaped glasses, which was odd. (In other words, not a lot of booze in there.) Cost was about Rs. 250 each.

For starters, ordered a "seafood basket" for Rs. 200, and while the prawns had a bit too much batter, the dish as a whole was surprisingly good. It came with a lot of fries and potato wedges too, which my vegetarian friend happily ate. Everything was well-seasoned and not greasy, which made me happy. The waiter seemed awfully keen to push the "tandoor" items on us, so I'm guessing it didn't sell too well that day.

Alas, at 10:40, the waiter bloke came and told us "last order", which surprised both of us (but I know the cop action in that area is harsh, which probably explains it.)

I wanted to order some main course, and was told that much of the main course section was unavailable, and once again was persuaded to try the "tandoor" dishes, and he finally recommended the "grill chicken", which turned out to be a chicken tikka redesigned. Except that it was hideous. I could taste little except for raw chilli.

The lights came on at 11 PM and 10 minutes after that, everyone was rushed to finish up. Our waiter even told us that he'd pack my friend's beer in a takeaway container if he wanted (there was half a bottle left.)

The place had emptied out at 11:25 PM.

Total cost - Rs. 1211 - for:

3 Beers
2 Mini-cocktails
1 Mixed seafood basket
1 Chicken tikka aka grilled chicken

(There is a 5% service charge added to bills.)

I like the big plasma screens and the sound quality is definitely good, though the music was a tad too loud (personal bias disclosure: I'm not a fan of loud music.)

And hey, I didn't have to shell out Rs. 325 per chicken dish like at Geoffrey's. (3 drinks and 3 starters there were about Rs. 2200.)

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