Today I and Ekta decided to visit TJ’s Brew Works, in Amanora. The experience moved us so much that I have been forced to write a review of the place, something which I always reserve for the special ones.

TJ’s Brew Works is a microbrewary in the East Block of Amanora Town Center, Hadapsar Pune. It happens to be the second microbrewary in the town after the famous Doolaly but is much more accessible than the former. Being inside a mall, a visit to this place can be coupled with a lot of other activities. So after spending sometime in the mall as we usually do, we arrived at TJ’s on the time for which we had booked our table and were promptly shown inside.

Ambience

The ambience of the place is quite good, with a mix of indoor and outdoor sitting. The decor is tasteful and the shiny vats, bronze taps and the impressive bar counter create a pleasant impression in your mind. The music was not loud, may be because the IPL was going on and people were glued to the TV screens.

Food and Drinks

Only two menus were kept at the table, one was the beer menu and other a one pager with starters, something of a Chef’s special. However, the items mentioned in this menu seemed prohibitively costly to us. When we asked whether this was all for the food menu, for the second time, the waiter brought a ‘proper’ food menu after about half an hour. Are they trying to sell their pricier dishes by not showing the complete menu to the guests ? Anyway, by this time we were disinterested in what it had to offer. The waiter promptly took away the menu, it seemed that the menu was in short supply. Of the total of six beer the place has, two (the famous Devil’s Dark and Blonde) were not available. So we settled for Devil’s Dark BC and Premium.

Devil’s Dark BC was quite good, strong and with a distinct taste of barley, a pleasant one. What we ordered as munchers were potato wedges with melted cheese and two drinks.However, the portion size of the food was awfully small, for a dish of Rs 180, the number of potato wedges in the plate did not reach double digits; they can try giving us smaller plates next time to make the inadequacy. The salt was less in the wedges and we asked the waiters for some extra salt. Well, it never arrived.

Service

More than the food, it is the quality of service which sets a restaurant apart. This was something we found seriously lacking in TJ’s Brew Works. The food menu came very late, the salt did not come at all. By this time we were quite not in a mood to spend any more time and asked for the bill. However, the waiter just put the bill on the table and disappeared behind the bar for well over 10 minutes, in fact he did not come even when we gestured him to. Finally we went to the billing desk asked them to settle the bills. Whether the staff was haughty or just indifferent was hard to find out. However, one thing was certain, we were not coming back again.

Did not bother to take any photographs.

Information

Address: East Block, Amanora Town Centre, Hadapsar, Near Magarpatta City, Hadapsar, Pune

Cuisine: Pub, Continental, American, European

Timings: 12 Noon to 11:30 PM

Photo-courtesy: Internet