Last night was quite the adventure - so much that it warrants its own post.
Ami and I decided to get dressed up and go to a trendy restaurant. With all of our other outings, we have relied on recommendations from co-workers or Ami's family members. This was an impromptu decision, so we instead relied on Zomato, which seems to be an Indian equivalent of Yelp. There was an article on Zomato about the top 25 trending restaurants in Mumbai this week, so we figured it would be a good start for finding a fun place to eat. We had a little chuckle at the fact that Starbucks was the #1 trending restaurant, but it kind of makes sense, since it has only recently been introduced to Mumbai, so I'm sure it's still a novelty. We weren't in the mood for North Indian food, so that eliminated many of the restaurants on the list. We ended up deciding on a restaurant called Smaash - the menu looked like it had some American-style foods, and we were getting hungry, so we didn't do much more diligence than that.
This was the first time that we were venturing out on our own without the use of our driver, since we had already sent him home for the day. We had heard that cabs are completely safe here, although they can get a little warm since they don't have AC. We caused quite the stir walking out of our apartment building in LBDs and heels - nothing inappropriate of course, but it certainly isn't the norm in terms of the building's residents' attire. We jumped in a cab - they're usually lined up outside our building, and gave him the name and address of the restaurant. He didn't seem to recognize the name - which should have been our first clue - but he seemed to know the street name and neighborhood.
After a 10 minute drive or so, he stops at a street and indicates that we're on the right block. However, it doesn't look at ALL like the right block. In fact we're a little scared to get out of the cab, so we ask him to double check that he's in the right place. He takes the sheet of paper with the address written on it and starts walking down the street, asking a couple people if they know the name of the restaurant. He finds a man, who starts gesticulating and talking rapidly in Hindi, so we assume we're on the right track and just have a little farther to go. We start driving again - and after probably another 15 minutes, he stops again. This time, it smells like we're in the middle of a fish market that's closed down for the night. Again, we doubted that we were in the right place for a trendy restaurant to be located. He repeats the process of asking for directions, and then off we go again. We went through this routine another time, and another before he found a man who actually recognized the name of the restaurant - apparently it's owned by the most famous cricket player in India, which makes sense that it would be a trendy place. We only have to stop another 2 times after we got those directions (though we were clearly in the right neighborhood at this point) before we find ourselves at a gate. The cab can't go inside, so we start walking after being assured by the security guards that Smaash was in the compound (by the way - after that much driving, the fare was still only the equivalent of $3). As we're walking, there are advertisements on the light poles for Smaash that looked to be targeted at 13-year old boys (skateboards, motorcycles, etc.) We finally see the building and it looks....big. A lot bigger than expected. The side of the building is plastered with enormous images of cricket players. Again it makes some sense, since the owner is supposed to be a cricket player. We're starting to get suspicious that this restaurant is not what we expected, though.
When we finally get to the front door of the building, we see that we're at a children's arcade! It has batting cages and video games and the like. After all it took to find this place, we're not about to just walk out and leave - plus we figured that it made more sense to pretend that we fully intended to come here for dinner, dressed to the nines - than to admit that we made a mistake by turning around immediately. Plus we had no other ideas of where to eat, and at this point it was after 10 pm, so we were starving! So we walked inside, trying to ignore the stares coming from the mothers and their small children as they are waiting in line for cricket batting practice, and located the restaurant. There seemed to be some loose affiliation between the restaurant and the TV show "The Big Bang Theory" because it was called "Bazinga" and the captions on the food referred to physics quite a bit. Regardless, we had to wait for a table, since there were only about 4-5 tables in total, which seem to normally be used as a place for parents to hang out while their children play. To pass the time while waiting, we found a fun video game and played it - a version of Connect4 - laughing at ourselves the entire time for being so inept at locating the fun nightlife in Mumbai. We are seated pretty quickly, enjoy some Indian-ized arcade food for dinner (we totally should have read the menu more thoroughly before deciding to come to dinner here), all the while cracking up at our situation.
Our original intent had been to go from our "swanky" dinner to a nightclub - Ami had figured out that the #1 club recommended by Lonely Planet was within walking distance of Smaash. So there we are - walking out of an arcade, still dressed like we're going clubbing - and are actually trying to find a club to attend. Immediately outside of the arcade compound is a makeshift slum, where people have erected tents of sorts on the sidewalk, using buses parked on the street as a structure from which to hang their canvas sheets. People are sleeping on the sidewalk, in the street, on top of buses, below buses, wherever. There are people braiding each other's hair, sleeping on towels, cooking meals over small fires, smoking, chatting, etc. And every single one of them STARED at us as we were walking by. We were walking basically in the middle of a busy street because that felt safter than walking close to the buses. We ask for directions a copule times - no one has heard of Shiro nightclub, and we get directions from about 4 different people before someone recognizes the name and tells us that we should get in a cab and ask to be taken to the Hard Rock Cafe, since Shiro is right next to it. We do just that - and the cab quotes us a price of about $0.40, which is appropriate for a 5-10 minute drive. We agree quickly - we're ready to get off the street in these clothes - and the cab ride ends up taking about 20 seconds. The Hard Rock Cafe is easy enough to spot - we had just passed it about 30 yards back but hadn't noticed it because it's set back from the road like Smaash. We still can't find Shiro though - aside from a vague sign at the entry, indicating that we are indeed in the right place. Walking around the building through a side alley, we see a solitary door with a crowd of people outside of it. Thank heavens! We've found it!
We walk into the lone black door and feel like we've come through the looking glass. We walk through some beaded drapes and immediately see a gigantic stone buddha statue surrounded by other stonework, fountains, and with black and deep scarlet chandeliers. It's crowded but not incredibly so, and the DJ is playing "Staying Alive." Seriously - where ARE we? Oh well - at least we don't stand out so much in our dresses here, so we head to the bar to get a well deserved drink. I - naturally - stand out pretty much wherever I go in India because of my race, and it's no different here than anywhere else in Mumbai. Still - we found it! Almost immediately, a man walks up to Ami and says hi. I couldn't tell if he was just being very forward about trying to pick her up, or if she actually knew him. She had gone out the night before to a bar to meet up with some Wharton classmates (she's going to Wharton in the fall), and apparently she had met him there. How funny that she's only been here a week and already she's bumping into people that she knows! Regardless, his name is Varun and he proves to be quite the character. He grew up in Bombay but lives in Sydney now, so we talk about Australia for a bit. He is at the club with a friend - Paresh - who is much quieter than Varun. Varun is bubbly and outgoing - always dancing or joking around. Paresh is quiet but just stands there in the corner, smiling and bobbing his head along to the music. Varun and Ami were talking, and I was attempting to pull some semblance of conversation out of Paresh, just so as not to feel more awkward than I already did around him. He turned out to be QUITE the Romeo. After a lull in the (dull) conversation, he turns to me and says "You're very beautiful" I nodd a thank you, but he's not done yet. He points to my face in a circular motion, says "Face!", and then gives a thumbs up. I seriously can't make this shit up.
We end up hanging out with these guys for the next few hours, as Varun is quite entertaining, and Paresh was...well, there with Varun. Apparently Friday nights are "retro nights" at this club, which explains the music. We are able to sit down by going to this upstairs, lofted area of the club. Shiro is also a restaurant, and this lofted area would be a very cool place to eat. We're just about level with the head of the giant Buddhas (there turn out to be 3 - one on each side of this lofted area). There are fountains and stone dragons and comfy tables and chairs. We spent some time up there chatting, and some more time downstairs dancing along to ABBA and Wham! - all in all, a fun night. I learned more about Paresh - my family will know what I mean when I describe him as an Indian version of Alan Gretzinger (a high school boyfriend of mine). He's very muscular and clearly spends a lot of time in the gym, but has very little idea how to interact with women. Varun is clearly very keen to spend more time with Ami - even though she has already told him she has a boyfriend - so we may be seeing more of these two. One weird thing about the night is that the guys kept wanting to take photos with us - they probably took about 30 photos throughout the night. One with me and Paresh, one with Ami and Varun, then one with Varun and me, one with Ami and Paresh, one of just Ami, one of just me, etc. It was kind of weird. On top of that, a photographer came around and snapped a photo of our table. We figured he was just a club promoter or something, but then he tried to sell us a copy of the photo as a souvenir. The hilarious part is that Varun actually bought one! Ami snuck a photo of the photo itself on her camera, so we still have a kind of keepsake of that night...
Anyway, we get home late, our feet tired from dancing, and ask ourselves again - really, where are we?
Ami and I decided to get dressed up and go to a trendy restaurant. With all of our other outings, we have relied on recommendations from co-workers or Ami's family members. This was an impromptu decision, so we instead relied on Zomato, which seems to be an Indian equivalent of Yelp. There was an article on Zomato about the top 25 trending restaurants in Mumbai this week, so we figured it would be a good start for finding a fun place to eat. We had a little chuckle at the fact that Starbucks was the #1 trending restaurant, but it kind of makes sense, since it has only recently been introduced to Mumbai, so I'm sure it's still a novelty. We weren't in the mood for North Indian food, so that eliminated many of the restaurants on the list. We ended up deciding on a restaurant called Smaash - the menu looked like it had some American-style foods, and we were getting hungry, so we didn't do much more diligence than that.
This was the first time that we were venturing out on our own without the use of our driver, since we had already sent him home for the day. We had heard that cabs are completely safe here, although they can get a little warm since they don't have AC. We caused quite the stir walking out of our apartment building in LBDs and heels - nothing inappropriate of course, but it certainly isn't the norm in terms of the building's residents' attire. We jumped in a cab - they're usually lined up outside our building, and gave him the name and address of the restaurant. He didn't seem to recognize the name - which should have been our first clue - but he seemed to know the street name and neighborhood.
After a 10 minute drive or so, he stops at a street and indicates that we're on the right block. However, it doesn't look at ALL like the right block. In fact we're a little scared to get out of the cab, so we ask him to double check that he's in the right place. He takes the sheet of paper with the address written on it and starts walking down the street, asking a couple people if they know the name of the restaurant. He finds a man, who starts gesticulating and talking rapidly in Hindi, so we assume we're on the right track and just have a little farther to go. We start driving again - and after probably another 15 minutes, he stops again. This time, it smells like we're in the middle of a fish market that's closed down for the night. Again, we doubted that we were in the right place for a trendy restaurant to be located. He repeats the process of asking for directions, and then off we go again. We went through this routine another time, and another before he found a man who actually recognized the name of the restaurant - apparently it's owned by the most famous cricket player in India, which makes sense that it would be a trendy place. We only have to stop another 2 times after we got those directions (though we were clearly in the right neighborhood at this point) before we find ourselves at a gate. The cab can't go inside, so we start walking after being assured by the security guards that Smaash was in the compound (by the way - after that much driving, the fare was still only the equivalent of $3). As we're walking, there are advertisements on the light poles for Smaash that looked to be targeted at 13-year old boys (skateboards, motorcycles, etc.) We finally see the building and it looks....big. A lot bigger than expected. The side of the building is plastered with enormous images of cricket players. Again it makes some sense, since the owner is supposed to be a cricket player. We're starting to get suspicious that this restaurant is not what we expected, though.
When we finally get to the front door of the building, we see that we're at a children's arcade! It has batting cages and video games and the like. After all it took to find this place, we're not about to just walk out and leave - plus we figured that it made more sense to pretend that we fully intended to come here for dinner, dressed to the nines - than to admit that we made a mistake by turning around immediately. Plus we had no other ideas of where to eat, and at this point it was after 10 pm, so we were starving! So we walked inside, trying to ignore the stares coming from the mothers and their small children as they are waiting in line for cricket batting practice, and located the restaurant. There seemed to be some loose affiliation between the restaurant and the TV show "The Big Bang Theory" because it was called "Bazinga" and the captions on the food referred to physics quite a bit. Regardless, we had to wait for a table, since there were only about 4-5 tables in total, which seem to normally be used as a place for parents to hang out while their children play. To pass the time while waiting, we found a fun video game and played it - a version of Connect4 - laughing at ourselves the entire time for being so inept at locating the fun nightlife in Mumbai. We are seated pretty quickly, enjoy some Indian-ized arcade food for dinner (we totally should have read the menu more thoroughly before deciding to come to dinner here), all the while cracking up at our situation.
Me and one of the cricket player cardboard cutouts. Fabulous.
Our original intent had been to go from our "swanky" dinner to a nightclub - Ami had figured out that the #1 club recommended by Lonely Planet was within walking distance of Smaash. So there we are - walking out of an arcade, still dressed like we're going clubbing - and are actually trying to find a club to attend. Immediately outside of the arcade compound is a makeshift slum, where people have erected tents of sorts on the sidewalk, using buses parked on the street as a structure from which to hang their canvas sheets. People are sleeping on the sidewalk, in the street, on top of buses, below buses, wherever. There are people braiding each other's hair, sleeping on towels, cooking meals over small fires, smoking, chatting, etc. And every single one of them STARED at us as we were walking by. We were walking basically in the middle of a busy street because that felt safter than walking close to the buses. We ask for directions a copule times - no one has heard of Shiro nightclub, and we get directions from about 4 different people before someone recognizes the name and tells us that we should get in a cab and ask to be taken to the Hard Rock Cafe, since Shiro is right next to it. We do just that - and the cab quotes us a price of about $0.40, which is appropriate for a 5-10 minute drive. We agree quickly - we're ready to get off the street in these clothes - and the cab ride ends up taking about 20 seconds. The Hard Rock Cafe is easy enough to spot - we had just passed it about 30 yards back but hadn't noticed it because it's set back from the road like Smaash. We still can't find Shiro though - aside from a vague sign at the entry, indicating that we are indeed in the right place. Walking around the building through a side alley, we see a solitary door with a crowd of people outside of it. Thank heavens! We've found it!
We walk into the lone black door and feel like we've come through the looking glass. We walk through some beaded drapes and immediately see a gigantic stone buddha statue surrounded by other stonework, fountains, and with black and deep scarlet chandeliers. It's crowded but not incredibly so, and the DJ is playing "Staying Alive." Seriously - where ARE we? Oh well - at least we don't stand out so much in our dresses here, so we head to the bar to get a well deserved drink. I - naturally - stand out pretty much wherever I go in India because of my race, and it's no different here than anywhere else in Mumbai. Still - we found it! Almost immediately, a man walks up to Ami and says hi. I couldn't tell if he was just being very forward about trying to pick her up, or if she actually knew him. She had gone out the night before to a bar to meet up with some Wharton classmates (she's going to Wharton in the fall), and apparently she had met him there. How funny that she's only been here a week and already she's bumping into people that she knows! Regardless, his name is Varun and he proves to be quite the character. He grew up in Bombay but lives in Sydney now, so we talk about Australia for a bit. He is at the club with a friend - Paresh - who is much quieter than Varun. Varun is bubbly and outgoing - always dancing or joking around. Paresh is quiet but just stands there in the corner, smiling and bobbing his head along to the music. Varun and Ami were talking, and I was attempting to pull some semblance of conversation out of Paresh, just so as not to feel more awkward than I already did around him. He turned out to be QUITE the Romeo. After a lull in the (dull) conversation, he turns to me and says "You're very beautiful" I nodd a thank you, but he's not done yet. He points to my face in a circular motion, says "Face!", and then gives a thumbs up. I seriously can't make this shit up.
We end up hanging out with these guys for the next few hours, as Varun is quite entertaining, and Paresh was...well, there with Varun. Apparently Friday nights are "retro nights" at this club, which explains the music. We are able to sit down by going to this upstairs, lofted area of the club. Shiro is also a restaurant, and this lofted area would be a very cool place to eat. We're just about level with the head of the giant Buddhas (there turn out to be 3 - one on each side of this lofted area). There are fountains and stone dragons and comfy tables and chairs. We spent some time up there chatting, and some more time downstairs dancing along to ABBA and Wham! - all in all, a fun night. I learned more about Paresh - my family will know what I mean when I describe him as an Indian version of Alan Gretzinger (a high school boyfriend of mine). He's very muscular and clearly spends a lot of time in the gym, but has very little idea how to interact with women. Varun is clearly very keen to spend more time with Ami - even though she has already told him she has a boyfriend - so we may be seeing more of these two. One weird thing about the night is that the guys kept wanting to take photos with us - they probably took about 30 photos throughout the night. One with me and Paresh, one with Ami and Varun, then one with Varun and me, one with Ami and Paresh, one of just Ami, one of just me, etc. It was kind of weird. On top of that, a photographer came around and snapped a photo of our table. We figured he was just a club promoter or something, but then he tried to sell us a copy of the photo as a souvenir. The hilarious part is that Varun actually bought one! Ami snuck a photo of the photo itself on her camera, so we still have a kind of keepsake of that night...
If only I could have given two thumbs up, that would have made the photo even better. From left: Paresh, me, Ami, Varun
Anyway, we get home late, our feet tired from dancing, and ask ourselves again - really, where are we?
I love that - Face! (makes circular motion around face) (give thumbs up). Paresh is one cool customer.
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he even looks like an indian alan!!!
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