You’ve had a really tough day at work / college or if you’re just bugged by classes and you need a break. And by break you mean a relatively cheap (the adjective cheap is purely subject to the amount of alcohol you consume) night out that involves cold beer, loud music, drunkenly singing along, friends, no cigarettes inside the restaurant and food which by the time you eat, you’re so ‘happy’ that the taste really doesn’t matter.
Then you have to head to Toons - the cafe down under.
An ideal evening at Toons would begin at about 8 pm, but for some it can begin as early as 6 pm as we found out. The first thing to do is order a chilled beer and follow it up with some fried sausages or the sausage and salami platter for Rs 200, which is very good indeed. The service is quick. The beer comes fast, and the starters follow soon. We ordered a plate of french fries and some sausages. What I learnt is that it is important to keep your french fries away from tomato-ketchup-spraying-psychos who may be sharing a drink with you. The other thing you can bet on at Toons is the music. If you’re starting your beer evening early, then you’ll probably get to see the DJ set up and once he starts playing, you’ll wonder if you should stick around in a place with music like that. But it gets better.
Classic rock will start, and if you suffer from Summer-of-sixty-nine-phobia, don’t worry. You won’t have to listen to that track. Other anthems will play though. And gradually the genre starts to get heavier. Metal heads will start banging in the background. Feel free to join in if you know the lyrics to Fear of the Dark (it is almost always played). And then it switches seamlessly to more modern alternative stuff. A tip for those who have a —- desire to fit in with the crowd: drunken singing is necessary. So learn the lyrics to Wake me up when September ends by Green Day, In the end by Linkin’ Park, Rockstar by Nickelback, Zombie by Cranberries and Chop Suey by System of a Down - these tracks are almost always played. Other track are by Breaking Benjamin, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Creed, Limp Bizkit, etc Unfortunately, our day gets over at 10 pm and moments after as we sat down at our table surveying the ambience with great pleasure and nostalgia, a waiter came up to us. “It’s time to place your last order,” he told us. We were quite hungry, (yes, beer doesn’t qualify as food!) and this is a food review, so we decided to eat. We settled for the Chicken Paprika Steak and Chicken Stroganoff and another beer.
The beer arrived first and that’s when we discovered that just one more beer is never enough at Toons. We tried asking for another, but it was too late; after all, it was 11pm. We surveyed the place and sighed with pleasure. The walls are a tribute to Mad magazine and classic rock heroes. The bar had moved down the room, and the pool table I remembered weren’t there any more. There were TV screens tuned into sports channels. And more importantly, the drunken singing was very audible. If only I got off work earlier, I’d be able to visit more often. Then DJ announced the last track for the evening and the crowd begged for more. But our food hadn’t yet arrived. People around us were paying their bills and being asked politely to leave. Finally, our food arrived. And it seemed to us that the chef was desperate for us to leave as well. The Chicken Pepper Steak was not steak. It was bits of chicken swimming in what looked like watery butter chicken gravy, but tasted nothing like it. It was accompanied by nice rice, garlic potato croquettes and some other veggies. I took only one bite and decided to eat the stroganoff, even though the potato was nice. The stroganoff was much more edible and the coleslaw that came along was full of mustard, thinly cut, cold and made me wish for more.
Address:
Toons, 26 Wonderland Basement, Mahatma Gandhi Rd, Camp, Pune - 1 Ph: 020-26136879, 66011942
An ideal evening at Toons would begin at about 8 pm, but for some it can begin as early as 6 pm as we found out. The first thing to do is order a chilled beer and follow it up with some fried sausages or the sausage and salami platter for Rs 200, which is very good indeed. The service is quick. The beer comes fast, and the starters follow soon. We ordered a plate of french fries and some sausages. What I learnt is that it is important to keep your french fries away from tomato-ketchup-spraying-psychos who may be sharing a drink with you. The other thing you can bet on at Toons is the music. If you’re starting your beer evening early, then you’ll probably get to see the DJ set up and once he starts playing, you’ll wonder if you should stick around in a place with music like that. But it gets better.
Classic rock will start, and if you suffer from Summer-of-sixty-nine-phobia, don’t worry. You won’t have to listen to that track. Other anthems will play though. And gradually the genre starts to get heavier. Metal heads will start banging in the background. Feel free to join in if you know the lyrics to Fear of the Dark (it is almost always played). And then it switches seamlessly to more modern alternative stuff. A tip for those who have a —- desire to fit in with the crowd: drunken singing is necessary. So learn the lyrics to Wake me up when September ends by Green Day, In the end by Linkin’ Park, Rockstar by Nickelback, Zombie by Cranberries and Chop Suey by System of a Down - these tracks are almost always played. Other track are by Breaking Benjamin, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Creed, Limp Bizkit, etc Unfortunately, our day gets over at 10 pm and moments after as we sat down at our table surveying the ambience with great pleasure and nostalgia, a waiter came up to us. “It’s time to place your last order,” he told us. We were quite hungry, (yes, beer doesn’t qualify as food!) and this is a food review, so we decided to eat. We settled for the Chicken Paprika Steak and Chicken Stroganoff and another beer.
The beer arrived first and that’s when we discovered that just one more beer is never enough at Toons. We tried asking for another, but it was too late; after all, it was 11pm. We surveyed the place and sighed with pleasure. The walls are a tribute to Mad magazine and classic rock heroes. The bar had moved down the room, and the pool table I remembered weren’t there any more. There were TV screens tuned into sports channels. And more importantly, the drunken singing was very audible. If only I got off work earlier, I’d be able to visit more often. Then DJ announced the last track for the evening and the crowd begged for more. But our food hadn’t yet arrived. People around us were paying their bills and being asked politely to leave. Finally, our food arrived. And it seemed to us that the chef was desperate for us to leave as well. The Chicken Pepper Steak was not steak. It was bits of chicken swimming in what looked like watery butter chicken gravy, but tasted nothing like it. It was accompanied by nice rice, garlic potato croquettes and some other veggies. I took only one bite and decided to eat the stroganoff, even though the potato was nice. The stroganoff was much more edible and the coleslaw that came along was full of mustard, thinly cut, cold and made me wish for more.Address:
Toons, 26 Wonderland Basement, Mahatma Gandhi Rd, Camp, Pune - 1 Ph: 020-26136879, 66011942
review by:
Janice Nesami -Pune Mirror’s food critic.
Janice Nesami -Pune Mirror’s food critic.
1 comment:
good writing dude, keep it up..your resto reviews r indeed helpful to foodies like me..
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