Geetanjali, the Restaurant Critic!

I’ve been thinking I should take up an alternate profession – that of a restaurant critic. Why? Well, I’ve always enjoyed filling out the suggestion/comments form given in restaurants, but off late, I’ve noticed that those forms are becoming increasingly crucial. Why you ask? Well simply because of the falling standards of services, not to mention cuisine, in most restaurants. Restaurants are popping up at every nook and corner like wild mushrooms. Unfortunately the increase in their number hasn’t led to an improvement in services. I’d have thought that the increasing competition would make them treat their clients better, but it seems that the scarce importance given to the client has also disappeared!

To me, the complete gastronomic experience includes not just quality meals but also a good ambience and service. If even one of these criteria isn’t fulfilled, then the experience simply isn’t satisfactory. And I’m sorry, but if I’m paying for the meal, then I think I deserve to enjoy my meal…and if I’m not content then I think I have the right to express my discontent and have it noted and taken into account.

This weekend, to celebrate my cousin’s birthday we’d gone for dinner to Bombay Brasserie. I’d been given the impression that it is a rather posh restaurant, BCBG as the French would say – Bon Chic, Bon Genre - only to discover the restaurant was far from it!

The entire experience was so unsatisfactory, that it bordered on disgusting. It’s a fact well-established that one can’t find good personnel in a restaurant in Pune (except perhaps for the waiters at the Blue D restaurants and at La Dolce Vita) but the waiters here had exceptionally dour faces, and were remarkably inept and ignorant. It didn’t help that they had a certain tendency to lean too much into the client’s space while serving (or was it just one client whose space they insisted on trespassing?) Their food and service had me disappointed before the first-course arrived on our table....

Needless to say, by the time I finished my meal, I was utterly disgusted with the complete waste of a good evening. To eat over-salty, over-spicy food in an over-lit restaurant with tacky string lights on the steps of a wooden floor that had been scratched and abused, with waiters who don’t change the cutlery after the first-course (unless specifically asked) and table-cloths that were dusty – well that is far from my description of a good gastronomic experience. I didn’t hesitate to inform them that their cuisine and services were befitting of a lower grade restaurant and that it pained me to be paying them the prices they demanded. I ensured that my uncle who was paying didn’t leave them a tip – I have to be really annoyed to refuse to leave a tip, so you can well imagine the quality of food and services.

Word of Advice – Stay away from Bombay Brasserie, Dhole Patil Road, Pune.

Simultaneous critique in French on Francesay