Bottomline – Yap, can do the Jive!
If your mantra is “It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth”; Jive, with its ‘low cost’ positioning, could just be the place for that.
For all the guys out there - remember in college, when we all had that favorite watering hole where we went with our buddies, and it served us booze that was light on the pocket and also had great greasy grub to go with it? Ya, Jive kinda reminds you of that.
**Location and Parking: Jive is located right next to Sri Nidhi Sagar (landmark to tell the auto guys) on double road, near Indiranagar ESI Hospital. This is the owner, Mr Umesh’s second establishment after Tamarind in Ramamurthy Nagar. The unique (and ambitious) plan is to cater to different audiences/cultures with each floor of the 4 storied building that Jive is - the bottom floor serves folks who take their drinks standing, the first floor to the same folks who prefer sitting. The third floor is the proposed lounge (opening by Dec 12th 2014) and the fourth floor, where we went, is the pub. Each floor aspires to cater to a different type of crowd. The usp is ‘good time at value pricing’. Valet Parking facility is available but you could also park your car in the service roads nearby; though may be a tad difficult on a weekend.
**Ambiance: The ambience inside is pretty cool – you have the choice of high seats+tables that can seat 4s or if you’re in bigger groups, you could sit at the bigger tables adjoining the walls on either side. Chains curtains of steel serve as separators and a big strip of piano keys is painted just above the sofas that runs all along on either walls. The place has a huge screen in the front, an open bar at the side and what takes the cake is big guitar that adorns the center of the ceiling (looks pretty cool at night!). Of course, you won’t miss the large fonted witty quotes on the walls. Guess the theme is music. Also, they played the background music just right - enough to hold conversation yet still have the bar feeling. The choice of music was not bad either. The ladies’ loo is in the working area itself with a huge mirror while the gents’ loo is outside. The loos are clean and pretty functional. The service is also not bad – no complaints. For the overall Ambiance, I’d give it a 3.75 out of 5.
**Food – This is Jive’s scoring point - Jive serves some good food, and like we were informed in advance, their specialty is the tawa items. Nirmal, the promoter, informed us that the chefs have 5 star experience and yup, it shows -almost all the food hit the right culinary notes. And almost all the cocktails and mocktails were blended just right – neither too alcoholic nor too elsewise – quite remarkable cos we were a pretty large crowd and almost all of us were happy with the drinks. There are some items that were off the menu. I started with the ‘Sex on the Beach’- well blended with none of the juices overpowering and with the right hint of vodka. My friends had the Pina Colada and the ‘Snake Bite’ (shooter; off menu) – Pina Colada, the mix again perfect with the rum almost hidden behind the sweet creaminess of the coconut cream. The ‘Snake Bite’ felt a lil diluted for a shooter but still good to the taste buds.
Food started off with the veg salad – no complaints (except maybe that of it being veggie :D), and then came the yummy Aloo Cheese Kurkure (can anything with cheese ever go wrong?). Then good fortune started in the form of Chicken salad – a good nice toss of greens, a light and creamy sauce and well-cooked juicy chunks of chicken all heaped together as a gastronomically awesome starter. Then veg wonton made its crispy appearance followed by the ever charming Paneer Tikka – both winning a ‘Yay’ from my taste buds. Chicken tawa shahi roll came next – basically it’s a version of the chicken puff –except with more chicken and less puff - quite light and very crispy and so goes well with a drink. A lotta jokes were cracked on the next entrée – the Bharwan Tangri Chicken Kebab – somebody told us it reminded them of Kim Kardashian’s leg – it’s actually a huge piece of chicken leg but tucked neatly inside its meaty and well-cooked flesh is a generous helping of gorgeous keema – making the chunk even chunkier. Well, Kim, Keema or no Kim, but this was one of my favorite dishes of the day. Then came the Murg Malaai Zafraani Tikka – it’s essentially kebabs with spills of cheese over it. Next, I don’t know what the mushrooms were stuffed with but that was my favorite dish of the day. The starter session ended with the chicken wontons and a fish dish. The main course options were equally impressive – the good ‘Paneer Butter Masala’, the great ‘Chicken Biriyani’ and the Great-Good-Lord! ‘Mutton Curry’ - made it an awesome meal. We finished off the meal with a beautiful, warm Gajar ka Halwa.
So as you can see, I’m pretty much happy with the food – their tawa items were all pretty good.
** My must try’s here – the Stuffed Mushroom, Kim’s leg, the Murg Malaai Zafraani Tikka and the mutton curry. My least-liked dish was the fish dish. Drinks wise - Sex on the beach and the Orange Basil Martini were my choices. Food wise, I’d give it a 4.5.
And now comes the R-A-J recommendations:
Getting folks to Jive:
Jive is located in the connecting path of many an office goer between MG road & Indiranagar, so that’s a ready catchment area to capture. Few thoughts:
* A bunch of quirky, well-lit big sign boards (witty quotes maybe?) with directions on Cambridge road could help improve traffic to Jive. Signboards at the nearby popular roads of CMH and the 12th Main could also maybe help.
* And since we’re talking location, there are many apartment complexes and residential areas in the very near vicinity. Newspaper inserts with vouchers that can be redeemed for a dish, drink or discount can help bring people to Jive and maybe create loyalists.
Getting folks back again:
Jive should not have much problems with impressing their customers inside if they continue to maintain their impressive tasty food. Few ideas to get repeat customers:
* Women-friendly: Get women’s advice - the best bars are the ones which women approve of. So the more women-friendly the bar is, the more the crowd. So that means more of things like ladies night, discounts fr ladies, hen parties etc.
* Somehow, I don’t agree with the ‘one-building-catering-to-different-cultures’ concept -in my books, that dilutes focus. I’d recommend operating the bottom two floors in another building away from the top two so that neither can influence the other.
* Have a quirky loo: I still remember an Indiranagar bar where the loos were naughtily differentiated by a screw for Men and a bolt for Women. Quirky loos are a very unique way to make an intimate and instant connection with customers, which later turns into buzz and word-of-mouth. Add social media to this mix and you could be looking at virality in the making. Jive can turn its functional loo into something more buzz worthy – since music is the theme, imagine havin Bangalore’s first golden saxophone shaped urinal at Jive! Or 3D flooring anyone? :D
In conclusion, Jive’s a pretty good place to go with your buds – the fud+drinx clearly the highlight.
So go ahead, do the Jive!
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