It's hard for me to review T G I Friday’s with the same
clarity that I view other places with. There's a lot of nostalgia linked to it.
It was our go to restaurant in school and during the time when I would come
home during holidays from college and then later with work colleagues during my
tiny stint with British Airways. Granted that most of my visits to TGIF have
been to the Vasant Vihar branch in South Delhi, which might have closed down
since, I'm not sure, but their food has remained pretty much the same across various
franchises.
TGIF is a great place to drink, and since with age my drinking habits have reduced so have my visits to TGIF, and even though it's a stone throws away from where I live now in Gurgaon, I have only visited the restaurant four to five times in the last decade. However, I do like how the Gurgaon TGIF in Metropolitan Mall is housed in a separate building just next to the main building of the mall. The interiors, the furniture, the bar, the service, everything is pretty much same. If you've been to one TGIF, you've been to them all in that sense.
So, what do you look out for at TGIF? Deals... Deals on drinks to be precise and there's always something or the other that is on. If not then there's always the happy hour which is what we (my family consisting of only 4 adults this time) made use of and got us a couple of beers and a couple of Virgin Mojito's. Yeah, yeah, virgin... What ya gonna do about it then?
The Virgin Mojito was a tad disappointing as it proved to be too salty for my liking and lacked the minty sweet freshness that crave from the drink, and that's why I pretty much gulped it down in the end. The beers were run of the mill stuff nothing to really write about.
TGIF serves typical pub grub with the Tex-Mex and the Burgers and Pizzas and the platters or as I like to call it, Up-Market Fast Food. There's quite a bit of variety and most of the food has been a hit or a miss over the years. Some work, some don't. Some work when you're drunk, while others when you're sober.
The Sizzling Cottage Cheese Fajita this fine evening looked a tad drab and colourless, just like PK the movie (click for review) which we'd come out of, so the photo does a lot for it, however it tasted perfectly fine except for some rice being stuck to the bottom of the plate. Then again it is a sizzler of sorts so that's acceptable. Unfortunately the presentation was very basic, but I personally loved the colours of the fillings that were served on the side. A mix of this and that (cream, chipotle, cheese, salad leaves, onions, tomatoes etc.) the plate proved to be fresh and oozing with goodness.
As for the Vegetable Quesadilla, the roasted vegetable filling was warm the cooked to perfection having just the right taste and spices along with the crunchiness of the bread making it an above average dish.
Going back to what I said earlier, there are a lot of memories attached to T G I Friday’s in general and the food might be good or bad, it was good this time round, but I'll always end up here sometime, somehow, that much I know.
