A visit to Barbeque Nation

Visited the J.M. road branch in Pune for evening dinner. Surprisingly spacious, with high ceiling, indoor and outdoor seating. Outdoor is much better as it is partially covered and the food smells are dissipated by the cooling breeze. 

 The lighting is low but the seats are very comfortable and nice. A buffet-only restaurant, they have a nice concept of a live grill on the table for serving barbequed starters. Hence the name too. However the skewers were sparsely populated with pieces of few forlorn looking standard vegetables like corn, carrot, capsicum and pineapple. The non-veg ones had some chicken pieces I think.  Other starters served to us were paneer which was nice, a bland dense kebab, and fried or baked potato chips in some kind of yogurt dip.

Among the three salads, the peanut salad tasted good. The main course (veggie) had kofta, a paneer curry, some kind of daal, white rice, curd rice, and a so-called pulav. So called because it was just white rice underneath a few fried onion rings on the top. There was no chaat or any of the other goodies one expects to find on a buffet.  There was no sign of any roti/naan either. After catching hold of a passing waiter, someone brought a roti basket to our table. But none of the staff kept an eye on our table to ask us whether we needed rotis or how we should go about the main course or anything. The desserts were nothing to write about. Really. 

 
During our dinner, there was sudden cheering and much noise, the music (they have live music) was turned up, and the staff all broke into a dance, winding their way round the tables. Reminded me of the pizza hut Macarena thing long time ago. 

There was also a live counter that cooked pasta and fish (maybe other non-veg too) as per your order. The fish counter is so overwhelming and close to the pasta counter that I didn't really venture close, as I can't stand the smell of sizzle and fish. 

The food feedback from the non-veg eaters wasn't great either.

What is good: ambience, seating

What needs improvement: service, food- considering they charge handsomely.

But we still had fun because we had a good time chatting and so on. So visit BBQ Nation if you have a biggish group and are looking for relaxation. If you are looking for good food go elsewhere.