A cafe by the street

A cafe by the street

Creating an ambience and keeping it that way is an important marketing strategy for any restaurant. So, Pebble Street, in the New Friends' Colony Community Centre, has created the atmosphere of a European streetside cafe, with neon lights, Victorian lamp posts, wrought iron tables and posters on the walls. But the most interesting part of the restaurant begins with the liquor menu. The menu card resembles a passport and offers an interesting array of cocktails, perhaps the most extensive as yet in the Capital: vodka set in thimblefuls of jelly, Bloody Beer (a beer version of Bloody Mary) and Dirty Ashtray (a potent mix of whiskey, rum, gin and almost everything else that's alcohol in nature). There's a choice of cocktails with almost every kind of liquor. Even the mocktails are presented in interesting combinations like the Three Miler, which has a mix of Roohafza, khus and lime soda. The restaurant opened in October last, but got its bar licence in January and has since been serving these interesting liquormixes. And for this, they have a cover charge of Rs 175 per head on the food order after 7.30 pm.

For starters, we had Exotic Sticks and the Mexican Favourite Dip. The chicken resembled Thai Satay complete with peanut sauce, though the menu describes it as Chicken Supreme marinated in secret sauces. The tortilla chips were wafer thin and went down well with the spicy salsa sauce.The main courses are a medley of Continental, Mexican, Italian and Indian. The maitre d' swore that the prawn steak was the chef's best preparation (and the most expensive, too). The dish was not bad, but could have been better, considering that it was the chef's best. But the dessert--chocolate fudge cake with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream--was more than adequate compensation. Pebble Street initially started off wanting to be a Continental and Mexican food joint, but with Ego offering pizzas next door, they decided to add Italian food. Now it is a combination of a pizzeria, a Mexican food joint and a Continental eatery, allat once, with a few offerings of Indian food for those who are hung up on their daal-chawal.What the restaurant will sell on is its ambience and cocktails. The good news is that they have happy hours between 4 pm and 7.30 pm. A meal for two will cost between Rs 450 and Rs 550, excluding the drinks.

--Vidya Deshpande

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