A new bar in Andheri took us back in time, for all the wrong reasons
Eating out
Billionaire Bar & Kitchen
Food: Bad
Service: Basic
Ambiance: Garish
A 10,000 sq ft space designed to give a swanky hotel vibe, along with an ode to Indian royalty décor and European Renaissance — that’s what Billionaire Bar & Kitchen claims to be. Instead, what we got was an empty bar that looked like the shady den of a ’70s underworld don. It ticked off all the décor requirements for the genre — velvet sofas, a dark room, tacky chandeliers and water fountains. The lone element that seemed out of place was Animal Planet and Discovery playing on TV.
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Billionaire has open-air and air-conditioned sections
There was a dance floor for special boogie nights too. The food continued our bad run. From the bar menu, the Madras Breeze cocktail sounded interesting, but on enquiry, we learnt that it contained watermelon and vodka; what was the ‘Madras’ factor, we wondered.
We played safe and ordered Billionaire Bling (Rs 550, all prices exclusive of taxes), a cocktail made from champagne and vodka. It tasted fine, but was not chilled. A billionaire who serves room temperature champagne is epic fail. We finished the rest of our meal with cola on ice. From vegetarian appetisers, we picked the Billionaire Special Crispy Potato (Rs 249). Instead of being hand-cut and fried to perfection, we were served ready-to-fry French fries in basic ‘schezuan’ style sauce.
Curried Chicken Nuggets
We were relieved when we tucked into the Curried Chicken Nuggets (Rs 399). The dish, with a crispy coating and tender chicken meat, was the saving grace. The restaurant also offers a vast Chinese menu and another smaller one featuring a weird mix of Indian and European fare (the spelling mistakes invited guffaws throughout, Harisha Fish, anyone?). We ordered the Malai Chop Veg Burger but were served a Malai Chop ('299) appetiser instead. The breadcrumb and batter coated paneer chops needed more flavour but didn’t disappoint.
Billionaire Special Crispy Potato
From the Chinese menu, we called for the Billionaire Spl Stir Fry Prawns In Clay Pot (Rs 399). The rice tasted odd in our very first bite, and the prawns smelt so bad that they managed to scare us off. We sent it back, called for the bill and left as soon as we could.
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