09 January,2018 11:13 AM IST | Mumbai | Raul Dias
Bhaji in pav cones
Picture this. You are all done with perhaps one of the worst meals of your life, during which you constantly rue the fact that you've wasted precious time you'll never regain. You hand over your card to be swiped with a mighty sigh. The machine chimes in a cheery "payment accepted" beep, as does a phone text message from your bank, acknowledging the debit made from your account. You prepare to leave, but are accosted by the waitstaff and manager, claiming that their machine is faulty and rudely insisting that you cannot leave the premises till you make another payment of the same amount. Again. Now!
BBQ buffalo chicken wings
But first, a little back story. Our tale of horrors at the newly opened G77 Club and Kitchen at the Goldfinch Hotel in Andheri's MIDC area, which is saturated with industrial estates, begins at the entrance of the under-renovation lobby area. Not a soul on site knows what G77 is. On further probing, they learn that it's the new name for the erstwhile Café Mojo and usher us towards the stairwell, where we climb two flights of stairs, nearly tripping over puddles of wet concrete and loose floor tiles.
The interiors of G77
The restopub itself is nothing to look at. In fact, it looks like any other faux Irish pub. Certainly not the kind of place where you'd expect a bottle of Dom Perignon to set you back by a jaw-dropping '40,000. But that's exactly what you spot on the cardboard menu, along with other shockers like a cocktail called finish me off for '800 a pop. Our cloyingly sweet fruit punch ('375), a medley of orange-pineapple-mango and pouring cream, is downright unpalatable and is cast aside at once.
Served in a shovel, one of our main courses - the super bland Arabic samak harra grilled fish (basa) with fries ('375) arrives a good half hour before our appetisers! The latter being a quartet of bhaji in pav cones ('160) that sees an overly salty veg bhaji stuffed into stale, dry bread cones. The BBQ buffalo chicken wings ('300), accompanied by a spicy cheese dip, fare better, thanks to the smoky sauce that coats the generously plump wings. The stodgy and boring basa shows up once again in the soggy fish-n-chips with a pesto tartare ('400).
Far from satiated, we call for a thin crust pizza corn funghi ('250) and are at once put off with a measly, six-inch thick-based doughy pie topped with baby corn, watery sautéed mushroom and a coating of cold, processed cheese. For dessert, the same old dry pav cones show up in the Caribbean puff scones ('175), stuffed this time with a crunchy, underdone gajar ka halwa with a squirt of rancid whipped cream stepping in for the promised 'Malibu cream'. Nothing remotely Caribbean or scone-like, this one.
Timings: 12 pm to 1.30 am
At: Goldfinch Hotel, MIDC, Andheri East
Call: 66880909
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