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Basil's Bar (Mustique, West Indies)
by yackers1 Basils Bar is located on the exclusive island of Mustique, considered to be the island of the rich and famous. It is the place where, supposedly, celebrities like Bryan Adams, Mick Jagger and Shania Twain amongst many others go for a sociable drink. However, during my visit to Basils Bar we didn't see another person, other than the ... staff, let alone a celebrity so I was a bit disappointed. Prior to going to Basils Bar I was told what a wonderful place it was and how I was sure to see someone famous. The venue was really hyped up and I couldn't wait to go and although my expectations were high I was assured they would at least be met, if not exceeded. Basils Bar is no more than a wooden shack on a wooden pier over the sea, although I guess this is to be expected, and walking towards it I was less than impressed. I was expecting something grand and exclusive, after all we were in a rich man's playground on an exclusive island in the Caribbean where renting out properties of the famous cost thousands of dollars a week, but what I saw was totally different. Don't get me wrong, it is well maintained, looks quite pretty and has adequate furnishings but it is still a wooden shack. The variety of drinks served at Basils Bar includes local beer and rum, imported alcoholic and soft drinks and cocktails. This is no different to any other bar I visited during my stay in the Caribbean which surprised me somewhat. Being an exclusive bar I thought there would have been some signature drink or cocktail but there wasn't which was a bit of shame. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the drinks is the prices. Even though the clientele that frequents Basils Bar are wealthy and have a few pennies to rub together the cost of the drinks is the same as other bars in the Grenadines. The captive audience and lack of competition is an ideal opportunity to exploit the tourists but Basils Bar does not capitalise on this, which I think is very noble. In the UK and many other places in Europe the tourists are ripped off at every opportunity but not here, oh no, the people of the Caribbean are far too nice for this. As well as a bar Basils is also a restaurant. The food consists of the usual Caribbean dishes and seafood is one of the specialties, which is not surprising given the plentiful fish, molluscs and crustaceans around the island. The food is very nice and the ingredients are locally sourced, very fresh and the chefs cook them perfectly. This is not surprising as it appears to be the norm throughout the Grenadines. The food served at Basils is no more special than that served in other restaurants in the Grenadines, which surprised me. Basils Bar is in an exclusive location that serves wealthy clientele etc. and there are no signature dishes. Just like the drinks the food is priced competitively and is comparable to many other restaurants in the Grenadines. During my visit to Basils Bar I had grilled lobster for lunch and it cost about the same as a burger meal in the UK and this was one of the expensive special dishes. The atmosphere at Basils Bar is great. The staff make you feel very welcome and are very attentive but not over powering. Nothing is too much of a problem and everything is done with a smile, which is nice. It is just so comfortable. I also found it was a place where I was not rushed. Once I had finished a drink I didn't feel like I had to buy another one immediately, unlike in many places in the UK. It was nice not to have to chain drink and have the opportunity to let one drink go down and settle before consuming the next one. I must stress that I visited Basils Bar in the middle of the afternoon and there were no other people there. Whether the atmosphere is so laid back and relaxed during a busy evening is something I cannot comment on. The views from Basils Bar are simply stunning. The golden sands stretch far in to the distance and the crystal blue waters gently lap the shore. It is mesmerising and sitting there supping a beer without a care in the world is great. It is so far away from the hustle and bustle of daily life that it is impossible to be anything but relaxed. Turning the other way, with your back toward the sea and looking inland you are confronted with lush greenery, mountainous backdrops and some stunning properties. The view inland is as good as the view out to sea, but both are obviously different. Sitting in Basils Bar I could understand why celebrities would want a property on Mustique as it such a magical place that is so secluded and private you can just be yourself. If I ever had the funds available or won the lottery the first thing I would do would be to buy a property on this stunning island. ****Conclusion**** Overall Basils Bar is a lovely place but it is not head and shoulders above all other bars in the Grenadines as I was led to believe before I visited Mustique. Basils Bar is no posher than other bars, it doesn't serve anything different to other bars, the staff aren't better than in other bars and it is no more exclusive than other bars. Basils is different because it is located on Mustique which is an amazing island. Mustique is a magical place and it is very easy to get caught up in the moment and associate everything on the island in the same way. During my visit my rose tinted glasses were well and truly fixed to my face and I am sure other visitors to the island have the same problem and I think it is this reason why Basils Bar has gained the reputation it has. Personally, I think any bar on Mustique would have gained this reputation. If you go to Mustique then a trip to Basils is a must do if not for the ability to say "I've been to Basils Bar" then you have to go for the amazing views, besides being the only public bar on the island it is the only place to get an alcoholic beverage. (This has been posted on other sites under the name of yackers1) Read the complete review |
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New Santosh Dhaba III (Hyderabad, India)
by koshkha Just a stone's throw from our hotel, the Geetanjali, we found a nice little restaurant tucked away on the corner of the street. The hotel reception had a menu for the New Santosh Dhaba III at reception and sent us over with their recommendations. It was our first day in Hyderabad after an overnight flight and I think we'd have eaten ... anything that was put in front of us but we appreciated the proximity. The restaurant has a cash-desk on the ground floor but the dining area was upstairs and we were sent up to find something to eat. As two tired, pale, Europeans we did feel a bit out of place in a local restaurant that clearly wasn't used to seeing many tourists but the waiter grabbed us, gave us a table and brought us some menus. I think we were a bit of a challenge for him as his English was a bit patchy but with a bit of pointing and gesticulating we all got along just fine. The restaurant was a long room with tables either side of a central aisle. There was a large window at the front looking out over the street and the place was clean, modern and - at 2pm in the afternoon - almost empty. I suspected we'd come rather late when the reverse proved to be the case - the longer we stayed, the busier it got. The menu was entirely vegetarian, which was fine by us. I don't eat meat and I firmly believe that you're much less likely to get food poisoning in a vegetarian restaurant than in a mixed one. We didn't order a lot - just mushroom masala and tadka dal with a single portion of rice between us. At the two tables near us, groups were tucking into mountains of food so I think the waiter was a bit concerned that we hadn't ordered enough food. It wasn't a lot but our stomachs were still jet-lagged and we could have always ordered more later if we were still hungry but we knew that if we ordered too much and couldn't eat it, we'd feel wasteful and we'd worry about giving offence. The waiter asked if we wanted 'snacks' as well and this is very typical in restaurants in India which is a bit ironic since the food arrived just seven minutes after we ordered it. Had we taken something to nibble on whilst we waited, I think we'd have just ended up with too much food all at once. We had also asked for two sweet lassi drinks as a 'just in case' measure (just in case the food was too hot to handle). As it turned out the food wasn't too hot but the restaurant was out of yoghurt and couldn't do the drinks. It was also a bit tricky to get bottled water and we had to ask a couple of times and point to bottles on other tables. The food was excellent. The dal was full of lashings of green 'stuff' which my tired brain couldn't quite figure out but was probably coriander or some coriander-like weed. It was quite thin and sloppy (the dal, not my brain) but very yummy. The mushroom masala had a mid-level heat and lots of tasty little mushrooms. I can't believe how quickly we polished it all off. The bill for the two of us came to just 220 Rp, a shade under £3 (or $5). On our third day in Hyderabad we went back again to the same restaurant because we'd enjoyed it so much the first time (and because the other local place we'd tried just wasn't half as good). It might sound dull but we stuck to pretty much the same order as before but with the addition of Channa Masala (chickpeas). The same waiter we'd had the first time was there to take our order which meant he knew what to expect from us (lots of grinning and no local lingo) but he had a friend with him who spoke more English. The friend popped back after he saw the order to warn us that the Channa would be really hot and to check if we were really sure that we wanted it. When an Indian warns you something is hot, then you can be pretty sure that they aren't kidding so we took his advice and switched to Palak Paneer (spinach and cottage cheese) and we really appreciated that he took the time and effort to help us with our order. It must be quite tempting to think "Hey, let's give these poor foreigners something that'll really make them sweat. That should be good for a laugh". Knowing we were hungrier than last time we also added a naan bread and tried again for the lassis, this time with success. As before the service was fast and the food was excellent. The waiter seemed to think we'd chosen 'enough' this time and didn't try to encourage us to have more though we definitely noticed that by local standards we weren't exactly gorging ourselves. I doubt that you'd find the New Santosh Dhaba unless you were staying in the Abids area but the fact that this is number three in what seems to be a family of restaurants, suggests you've got at least two other chances to find the same menu and approach elsewhere. If you are in the Abids district, try to find it. The food is lovely, the prices are really low and we really didn't feel awkward being the only non-locals in the place. Address: New Santosh Dhaba III 4-1-967/7 Ahuja Estate, Abids Hyderabad, India Read the complete review |
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The Host Restaurant (New Delhi)
by koshkha The Host is a Chinese and Indian restaurant on prestigious Connaught Place in the heart of India's capital city, New Delhi. Unfortunately, it's one of many such restaurants on Connaught Place and it can be very difficult to tell them apart as we realised to our cost. The circular lay-out of Connaught's double donut-ring design is sure to ... confuse the unwary and lots of the restaurants look pretty similar from outside - and indeed from inside as well since the layouts are often almost identical. It's also very difficult to see inside when you are standing at the window peering through. The Host is one I've accidentally stumbled into several times and I've always ended up kicking myself for my mistake. The Host is in F-block of the inner ring of Connaught Place which is several blocks from my favourite Delhi restaurant which is called Zen and which I've previously praised on this site. Connaught is the heart of New Delhi - the place from which the rest of Edwin Lutyens' 1930s 'designed' city of New Delhi radiates out. It's the location of lots of swanky (by Delhi standards) shops, fancy restaurants and grand buildings and it's also a key hub on Delhi's Metro system. Sooner or later all visitors to Delhi find themselves at Connaught Place. We were dizzy from walking round and round looking in shops, evading touts and street sellers, and still a bit dazed from our overnight flight. My husband and I found ourselves on a Saturday evening in October strolling into The Host and remembering just too late that this was the restaurant we didn't like and hadn't enjoyed the year before. Once we were through the large brass door and past the doorman, our typical English reserve made it hard to turn tail and run away. Note to self - there are 1.1 billion Indians; it won't matter if in future we offend one or two by scarpering when we realise we've entered a bad restaurant. We were pounced on by the Maitre d' and whisked to a table just inside the door with a reserved sign. Clearly we'd passed the test of being 'the sort of people' they wanted just inside the door to encourage others in - in this case, I think being European was enough to qualify. We sat down - my husband on a chair, myself on a banquette against the wall - and were instantly irritated by the grubby waiters pouncing to take drink orders. They brought us the menus - one Indian, one Chinese and a big drinks list - and then set about laying the table around us. Looking around the room it was almost identical to other restaurants on Connaught with a lower floor for non-smokers and a mezzanine for smokers. The ceilings were high and the walls were decorated with very tall arched window mirrors. The seating had the worn and grubby look of too many years of ingrained spillages and lack of cleaning. The tables were widely spaced which probably indicates that the restaurant is rarely full. I suspect The Host relies on a fast turnover of tourists who are passing through rather than local repeat business. We ordered a beer to share (Indian beers are big - no sense letting them get warm) and several dishes from the Chinese menu. Despite knowing that we'd already ordered food, the Maitre d' was back almost instantly asking if we wanted snacks with our beer. I pointed out we'd just ordered a full meal but he still wanted us to order more. Was this a sign that there would be a long wait or just desperation to sell more? We weren't sure but no sooner was the waiter back with our drinks than he also was starting on the 'Do you want any snacks?' routine. To start we'd ordered Tom Yum Soup - prawn for me and chicken for my husband. Anyone who's read other restaurant reviews of mine will know I am very consistent - if it's on the menu then I ALWAYS order Tom Yum soup. When it arrived it was absolutely dreadful - more Tom Yuk than Tom Yum - and I hated it. It was the wrong colour, had the wrong spices, had no leaves and sticks and bits floating in it (part of the delight of a good TYS is spending half your time taking the bits out), had no spice-heat to it and had a texture like dirty washing up water. I was intensely disappointed. For our main courses, we'd ordered vegetable Manchurian (little vegetable dumplings), roasted bean curd in garlic sauce and a fish sweet and sour. The sweet and sour was ok with a good level of spice, lots of crisp vegetables and not too much stickiness in the sauce but the absence of a key ingredient - in this case the FISH - was unforgivable. Oddly enough, the same waiters who'd hovered around desperate for our order, melted into invisibility when we wanted to challenge the lack of fish in the fish dish so we shut up and ate whilst wondering all the while if there might be some fish under the next piece of pepper. Nada - not one molecule of fish in the entire dish. The Manchurian balls should be light and fluffy but were sticky and heavy and rather cloying. Annoyingly the sauce on the veg Manchurian was exactly the same texture and appearance as the sauce on the bean-curd just several levels spicier. Of the three dishes, the bean-curd was probably the best but then I do have a real weakness for good bean-curd. The rice came in a large bowl and was distinctly grey in colour which seemed odd. Even the cheapest roadside joint will have perfect white rice, yet the Host couldn't even deliver on that. All the portions were large but the quality was poor and the flavours badly balanced. With only about half of the food eaten, we gave up and stopped eating, ordered another beer to help wash away the nasty sticky taste of the food and skipped dessert. Why is it that when you've left half your food the waiter STILL wants to push a pudding on you? We declined politely but with increasing irritation. The bill when it came was for 1170 Rupees which was approximately £15. The waiters predictably brought the change with no 50 Rp notes ensuring they got a bigger tip. I suppose we could have given them just 30 Rp but that would have been pretty insulting even if it were quite justified. Second note to self - stop being so nice to crap waiters..... One thing which really annoyed me during our meal was that the restaurant kept the door open for most of the time. It wasn't clear whether this was an attempt to lure unwary tourists in - "Look, here are some nice clean English people eating lots of food in our lovely restaurant" - but the side effect was a massive influx of mosquitoes and midges. If we had wanted to sit outside, we'd have looked for a restaurant with a terrace and dosed ourselves up with DEET to prevent biting. October is still warm enough to have to consider the health risks of mosquitoes and making your customers into a blood sacrifice for bugs is a pretty extreme tactic to encourage custom. I'm now more alert to avoiding The Host. On our return to Delhi at the end of our trip we did exactly what we should have done to start with and went straight to Zen in B-block where we knew the food, service and atmosphere would all be perfect and the bill only a few pounds more. The Host won't be getting our business again unless of course we make the same mistake and get disoriented and stumble in again. But maybe next time we'll turn round and walk straight out again any restaurant that can destroy a Tom Yum soup the way The Host did, doesn't deserve repeat business. Third note to self - next time a waiter asks "How was it?", tell him straight. Read the complete review |
Asia Restaurant International |
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1 review Address: 1055 Silom Road / Restaurant International / Bangrak / Bangkok 10500 / Thailand / Tel: (66) 2624-9999 |
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Restaurant International / A chain of Chinese restaurants in Hyderabad, India. |
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The Taj Mahal Hotel in Hyderabad has a very popular vegetarian restaurant / Restaurant International / Address: 4-1-999, King Koti Road, Abids, Hyderabad - 500001 |
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1 review Restaurant International / Bar and restaurant located on the tropical island of Mustique in the West Indies. |
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1 review Address: 4-1-967 / Restaurant International /7 / Ahuja Estate / Abids / Hyderabad / India |
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