Lounge Review | Social, Bangalore
Another self-consciously cool bar with quirky food, fun menus and mason jar drinks
How many self-consciously cool bars with quirky food, fun menus and mason jar drinks can a central business district accommodate? Any number, it would seem, especially if you price the alcohol cheap, offer valet parking and abide by that old restaurateur’s mantra: location, location, location. Hospitality entrepreneur Riyaaz Amlani’s Social opened a few weeks ago in Bangalore at a spot most businesses would kill for; it is scheduled to travel to Mumbai and New Delhi soon.
The good stuff
It begins even before we can step in, as a valet offers to take the car off our hands. Finding parking in the Church Street-MG Road area on most days is more difficult than discovering a butcher who knows his art. So we happily hand over the car keys and step into Social, expecting it to be lightly populated on a Tuesday night.
The place is throbbing with life, every table is taken, and the noise level could shame a football stadium. We aren’t too wrong about the last, we discover: The Bengaluru FC are in the house, fresh off their I-League win, and they are in the mood to party.
However, our grey hair probably helps us snag a table soon. As pleasant is the fact that there’s no need for wild gesticulations for a menu: Each table is equipped with multiple rolled-up copies of the food and drink listings. We pore over the menu, the server takes our drinks orders and we’re set for a good evening, we think. The cocktails and beer arrive promptly, but it’s all pretty much downhill from there. The saving graces: The Thai Sweet Chilli Fish Bao ( ₹ 180), an ingeniously stuffed pair of pita breads, with the taste-free basa a happy vehicle for the piquant sauce, and The Thai Thali (rice, vegetable green curry, raw papaya salad, mango pickle, ₹ 240), charmingly served in kansa (bell-metal) utensils.
The service is amiable, if slow, the buzz exhilarating, the grunge-meets-industrial décor intriguing enough to be a talking point. The best, though, is saved for the last: The bill, when it comes, is so low by Bangalore standards, we check and double-check, in case we’re missing the taxes. But no, the grand total is the not-so-grand total and we leave pleasantly surprised and a bit more appreciative of the power of super-competitive pricing.
The not-so-good
The food and drinks, in general, are pretty meh. The emphasis is on the presentation: Bring on The Longest Long Island Iced Tea ( ₹ 480 for 500ml; ₹ 780 for 1,000ml) in chemistry lab-like apparatus, or the Aacharoska (a lime pickle twist on the Caipiroska, ₹ 250) in a miniature ceramic jar, or even the iced tea ( ₹ 90) in something that resembles a bed-pan (how gross is that). A friend’s Old Smoke whisky cocktail ( ₹ 280) arrives with the smoke trapped in an upturned glass, but the drink itself is overpowered by the orange zest oil. My Aacharoska is simply unpalatable: a concoction that resembles what slop water from washing out a pickle bottle would taste like if topped with crushed ice.
The small plates are relatively less offensive, if not particularly memorable. Beneath the cheesy crusts of Them Potato Skins ( ₹ 180), the mash itself suffers from an over-generous sprinkle of black pepper, and the Hickory Smoke sauce announces its bottled origins from a foot away. The Southall Fish n’ Chips ( ₹ 220) is innocuous and oily. The unfortunate soy-kafir lime-rosemary-thyme marinade, however, can’t disguise the excellent quality of the meat in the Sexy Sautéed Tenderloin Chunks ( ₹ 220). It encourages me to order The Jus-C Lucy ( ₹ 350): Again, the very good meat patty is let down by the stone-cold buns and the indifferent assembling of lettuce and cheese. But the biggest puzzle is the Grilled Kingfish with Kokum Butter ( ₹ 280): The fish steaks with a strange kokum coating come inexplicably with rice and a glass of sol kadhi. The lack of cohesion in the dish is quite astounding.
Talk plastic
A meal for two, including alcohol, averages around ₹ 1,650, including taxes.
Social, 46/1, Cobalt Building, Church Street, Bangalore (41622755); open 9am-11.30pm.
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