Restaurant Review: Hard Rock Cafe, Mumbai - Hardly Rocking

Finally after a week loaded with office work, I managed to indulge myself in an atmosphere filled with cigarette smoke and alcohol smells.

I went out on Saturday night with some known friends and some new acquaintances to India's very first Hard Rock Cafe. It's located in one of the old estates, the Bombay Dyeing Mill Compound, South Mumbai side. This world famous joint was opened sometime in September this year but had closed down for couple of weeks due to some legal issues. However the place is now open to the Mumbai public.

Melody (The Voice In My Head) who happens to be one of those "party-till-I-die kinda women" and who was also a BIG part of my outing that evening, has put up her views of the place along with some dark but visible pictures.

"The music is great, the crowd is decent & the ambience, well, it is a Hard Rock Cafe! There are all the necessary rock star paraphernalia that goes with the HRC name - the autographed guitars, the crazy outfits (I saw a nice one belonging to the artist formerly know as Prince), the photographs, the trivia. I love it, I love it, I love it. Yes, in case you didn't get it, I really love it."

Though I agree with the whole music and ambience bit, I still wouldn't say that it's THE place to be on a Saturday night. And No! It's got nothing to do with the company I was hanging out with.

See, the thing is for me besides good music and ambience; I need good food and plenty of alcohol. So even though Mumbai's Hard Rock Cafe flaunts it's good music, decent crowd and spacious look - sadly, it totally sucks in service.

It took us an entire evening to get a table and if that was not worse, take this - as soon as we parked our already tired (but still sexy) butts, we were told, "Sorry the kitchen is closed for service". WTF at 12.30 am!

And that's not all.

The entire time we were waiting at the bar area, we had to fight our way through a crowd of 30-40 odd people to get our drinks off the bar. Fuck this, there was also a time when after much struggle managed to get the bartender's attention we were told, "I can't serve you because we have no glasses for the drinks". Huh!!!

So by now, you must have got the drift that I really don't think much of the place - I would have rather enjoyed myself at one of those smaller lounge bars and pubs in Bandra.

But as Melody mentioned, maybe the place would be a much better experience once the whole hubbub dies down.

The Final Word - Go there for the experience but do have back-up plans. And definitely don't think of it as a Saturday night place.