Are you up for an adventure? Hell yeah! Do you wanna drink? Hell yeah! Do you have money? Nope. Nope. Nope! Can we go to a shady bar? Hell to the no. The broke babe in me screamed, yelled and wrestled. Did my moronic friends care? Not a bit. I ended up in Shankari Bar in no time. Forget my alter ego, even my real self does not have the balls to go to Shankari or within a 500 meter around that hellhole of a place in the next 5 years, or more like forever. Read on to know why:
More like shady bar mockery
I know month ends are hard. What’s even harder is the beginning of the month, especially the 1st to 5th slot, when you are still awaiting your salary that always seems to equal to peanuts. So yes, I kept my shame and SoBo-ness right in my Marc & Jobs (read Lokhandwala) tote and walked right in. Hey bhagwaan, bacha lena! (read with a fake snob accent for better understanding)
Placed in the heart of Juhu-Versova Link Road, this place is apparently filthy popular. I have no clue why though. On a weekday at around 8 PM, this place was in the middle of moderately noisy to creepy secluded. I shall alert you beheno, if you are on this adventure alone, please don’t be a fucktard and enter this dark hole. You might just not come back.
Along with a bunch of guys, I stepped in and the waiters looked shocked. Their expression could be translated directly to “dafaq, ladki aur idhar, BC kya hain yeh?”. And I was offended. Why such hostility? They acted like me chilling in the regular hall area would open a door to hell, and collectively pointed upwards. 8 small steps and one head bang later, I was in pseudo fancy upstairs.
This place is made of visuals from C Grade movies. It’s dark as fuck, there’s barely any lighting. The more time you spend in there, the more you feel like you are in a dark hole. The tables are narrow, my fat friend just couldn’t fit in. Juhu, bring your expectations down. Not everyone can be bloody thin.
The AC’s clearly weren’t functioning, so thank god for winters, for not letting me die in a furnace full of sweat and creeps. This place, however, offers cultural versatility. I heard English, Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and something that sounded like Telugu or someone throwing up really bad. Also, I learned a thing or two: creeps know no barriers. Tamil stare, Marathi stare and Bengali stare, all made me equally uncomfortable. Hurray!
We called for Old Monk and beer, because, duh! They provided us with something that tasted less like our old friend monk and more like piss. Fuck you Shankari for ruining my night. How did you mess up Old Monk? Like how?
Their bar food is pretty damn mediocre. Not the crispy chicken, not the kebabs, nothing makes your tongue sizzle. Paneer tasted dull as hell, but I think it’s just a bad phase for Paneer (amirite?). Not one thing in the menu was worth 200+ and all of them were priced at 200+. Tragic!
We called for peanuts, which came in a plastic packet. BC, if I wanted a 5 rupee peanut packet, I can get that at Chowpatti. Fucking bring me my chakna on a plate. Respect it, god damn it!
Okay, one positive factor was that they take cards. Thanks for making me not spend my ‘hard earned at the ATM’ money. Otherwise, bruh, this place is a stain on the legacy of shady bars. And not the good kind.
Where? Kappaswadi, Juhu Versova Link Road, Andheri West
