Posted by on Apr 11, 2009 in India | Comments Off

So I finally made it to the famed 13th floor on MG Road with Harish last night.  It was Harish’s idea for he, myself and Sada to try and get a reservation (strictly required) and go for a pub night out.  In the end, Sada couldn’t make it out so it was just the two of us.  At 6:30pm, he picked me up in his Tata sedan and we headed off to attack the traffic and other challenges that driving in Bangalore have to offer.

The drive in was fun as always; Harish is a good driver being agressive yet calm.  He drives a Tata which has been made world famous for its upcoming $2500 USD car that it plans to sell.  At that price point, Bangalore and much of the rest of India should be a complete right off in 3-5 years from now from a traffic and pollution perspective.  The developing world had an advantage in that most of its citizens couldn’t afford to buy a car so they were forced to create public transportation system and focus less on the road systems.  India has a very large train system and a very poor highway system.  I suspect that is because most couldn’t afford the cars.  I expect much North American style pressure to grow for more roads once every middle class individual will be able to afford a car.  Oh well.

When we arrived, we took a small steel elevator designed for no more than 5 people to the top floor.  Exiting the elevator, you get a bit of vertigo looking over the balcony of the building – perhaps it was simply because i wasn’t expecting the building to be hollow.  Later on while leaving, Harish will explain that there is a net at the bottom of this opening to catch jumpers.  Apparently this has been an issue for this building.

The building itself looked quite plain and industrial even until you go inside.  Inside, the 13th floor pub is a modern western looking afair with brown leather used through out.  The patio furniture is a modern faux glass chairs with glass table.  Recliners are made of square leather seats that sit low to the ground and don’t encourage much getting up.  The layout was strictly lengthwise taking advantage of the view of the city.  The balcony railings at either end are covered by wire mesh (again, I’m told, because of the jumpers) but not the entire length of the main railing.  Guess it’s one thing to stop jumpers, it’s another to ruin your signature city view.

The city view, for what it is, is nothing exceptional since a) you’re really only 13 floors up and b) bangalore doesn’t particularly have a signature sky line.  The distinctive buildings that you do see are the Kingfisher brewery buildings but beyond this, Bangalore is pretty dark and not full of much in the way of tall buildings.  But still, it was the highest lookout point I had yet been to so it was nice to see a view.

The ambiance of the place was nice with soft lighting and a cool breeze (again, the advantage of a 7pm arrival and being on the patio).  The music over the course of the night was almost exclusively western starting in the early to mid 80s and by the end of the night, playing only the most modern popular western songs for the hip young professionals that filled the place.

The menu was basically finger food platters.  After a Fosters (brewed locally) I opted the Spicy beef which ends up being beef covered in a spicy sauce chopped up and served with tooth picks.  Actually, all of their dishes were served this way.  Strictly finger food.  The beef was good but again, the spice was the main point of the meal.

After the beer, I opted to venture off the beer list (which wasn’t hard since the menu didn’t even list the beers – “ask server” – which meant that if you didn’t like King fisher, Budweiser, or Fosters, you were out of luck).  Went with a Napalm followed by a Howitzer and then a long island which was strictly too heavy on the rum to the point of being kinda stupid. Overall, the food and drink were fine although not exceptional.

The conversation during the night was more interesting.  I learned the Harish’s wife actually works at Nous (different building) and that they had an arragned marriage and have a young daughter.  We talked about the whole arranged part.  He said its was ultimately his decision and said that lover marriages make up about 30% of the total marriages in Bangalore.  That’s much higher than Farook indicated so i’m sure the truth is somewhere between the two.  His wife sounds like a lovely and modern person.  Very caring and sensible.

We talked about technology – Harish started out as a software developer before moving on to project management – about India – wasn’t sure I would ever move to India and he told me that he didn’t like the US and had let his work visa expire without ever really using it.  We talked about the weather – Canada has a much wider range of temperatures while Delhi may get to zero degrees during the winter months but not much colder than that.  Talked about some drinking experiences when we were younger and our days in university.

At the end of the night, I managed to grab the bill (something like $70 CND for the entire dinner + drinks – God bless the cheap food and drinks) and we headed out.  The traffic on the way out as worse than coming in since the whole place shuts down around 11:30 so there’s typically a mad dash to get home after that.

Overall, a nice place but maybe not worth much of the fuss.  I’m sure I’ll change my mind later on when I’m travelling to the north and getting a modern dinner served is next to impossible.  Perhaps I’ve done things in reverse.