Eat & Drink All Night In Pune

So, Pune has a hookah joint – one at which you can eat and drink the night away. On Baner Road, Aundh, is a restaurant called SICE (Something I Can Eat) where you can eat at till about 1:30 am (that’s pretty late for Pune). But what you’ve got to do is ask the waiters of SICE for CO2, so they can guide you to a smoky underground place where you can smoke and drink till your lungs and liver beg for mercy above the blaring music. CO2 – Live The Smoke is where it’s at if you want to eat, drink, smoke or play pool or snooker all night long in Pune.

Bar Review: Sai Prasad

Food & Drink 24x7

This isn’t a bar review, it’s to let you know there’s a place where you can go at anytime of the day to tank up. Located on the Western Express Highway between Andheri and Jogeshwari, Sai Prasad is on throughout the night and is frequented by drunkards and people who work in call centers. Haven’t tried the food there, so if you do be sure to let me know what you think of it. The alcohol is reasonably priced for a place like this – around 250/- for Antiquity/Signature/Blender’s Pride (180 ml) and 150/- for the costlier beers (650 ml). Buy booze from here on dry days. Yes, you can smoke cigarettes in there.

The Dry Day When Blue Frog Turned Into A Toad

– by Dipankar ‘Demonos’ Roy

Sabri brothers. The hallowed Sabri Brothers who have such reputation that a Pir at the dargah or the pilgrim at the mazaar both shed tears of ecstatic rapture in the praise of divine love.

Well I quite cannot bet on all of the above when I saw the ‘lesser’ brothers playing at Blue Frog on the Father of the Nation’s dry day, sorry birthday. At the counter we were warned by the familiar faces rather pensively – “It’s a qawwali night & no booze today. Tomorrow is Neuromotor…Trance DJ” What a response!

But that was something we knew and risked for. A rare occasion I should say after all, ‘coz when will I ever get a chance watching traditional Sufi qawwali at one of the prime live nightspots in Bombay. And just as we were ushered in, we could hear the wail of ‘Chaap Tilak’ one of the most revered songs by Amir Khusro written in praise of his Guru and divine love Nizamuddin Aulia. (For the uninitiated – no he wasn’t gay!)

They started off with a good note playing to a scant audience. I remember one inebriated bourgeois uncle with two very hot un-Sufi bourgeois aunties in flowing split skirts entering getting into the show with ‘wah wah’ on their lips. They occupied one of the front seats near the stage. And I thought maybe I can just ignore them and go on with the show and get transported into Sufi realm without a drop of alcohol or a strain of high. But followed was shocking…as the night unfolded!

Qawwali singers generally interact with audiences to make way for an exciting evening and these ‘lesser Sabri Brothers’ – I call them lesser because these folks were nowhere close to the real Sabris. I remember someone asking me – Safri Duo?? you went for Safri Duo@Blue Frog? I thought that was real silly coming from a silly cow of a DJ.

Well immediately after 2 Sufi tracks – Khwaja ki Diwani and others, the brothers thought maybe they were not ‘offering’ their best to the audience; hence they started with some mild classic numbers which were still a bit of a shock for a purist like me. After that it was total havoc. They started addressing the venue as ‘maikhana’(bar) and playfully addressing the audience as ‘sharabis’(drunks) and with smitten smiles at whatever remaining people were taking in the fiasco. Post that they belted out-and-out crass songs like ‘Tum to thahere pardesi’, ‘Khallibali Khalliballi’ and ‘Jhoom Barabar Jhoom Sharabi’ – all this happening again on a dry day. Intermittent cheeky slew of ‘shayaris’ followed directed again to the unsuspecting crowd…wait, not crowd but to few sound men, waiters, staff, one inebriated bourgeois uncle with two very hot un-Sufi bourgeois aunties in flowing split skirts with ‘wah wah’ on their lips and the unfortunate us (coz my neo-classical sitar playing friend wouldn’t leave as it would be a sign of insult to the ‘revered’ musicians).

Finally when I could finally not subject myself to any more cheap tricks, I walked out thankful and remorseful at the state of things around art and poor Khusro.

Arz kiya hain… (the ‘hain’ should painfully echo in your ears)

Hum toh gaye thay Blue Frog meh Sufi mazay lootne,

Magar Sabri ne humhi ko loot kar saaf kar diya.

Adaab & Amen.

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Restaurant Review: Sugandha Refreshment

You can get to Sugandha from Andheri East (it’s off Old Nagardas Road) or Andheri West (walk till the middle of the flyover and take the steps down from the right) for a quick meal at anytime till 2 am.

The menu is on the wall and you have to see it to believe the prices – everything here is cheap, and you can brag about your appetite if you can run up a tab of 200 bucks at Sugandha.

You get very basic food – chicken, fish and mutton curry and biryani dishes, basic South-style vegetarian dishes. The dal fry at Sugandha is the cheapest one you’ll ever have and is tastier than the ones we shell out good money for at most fancy restaurants. Your stomach can be filled for less than the price of a beer with a vegetable gravy (karela/baingan/aloo/paneer/whatever) and the dal fry along with a ghee roti or two.

I guzzle at least 5-6 glasses of buttermilk whether I’m eating or not – the chhaas is always perfectly salted and they’ve often run out of it and have had to make more because of me. They use some strange kind of papad which tastes really bad. And anyone can share the table with you, but no one bothers you, everyone just wants to eat and go.

Go here if you want an inexpensive, satisfying meal before 2 am in Andheri. After 2 am you can pay more to eat not very tasty or healthy stuff outside Andheri Station (West).

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