Take the right turn, into the quiet lane called Gokhale Place, just before Calcutta Club (and diagonally opposite the Nandan entrance). If you have a car, start looking for a parking place; if not, keep walking. At the junction where Gokhale Place meets Shambunath Pandit Road, look across the road, towards the right.
You just cannot miss the black-n-dark-blue entrance with the legend ‘Aqua Java’ floating beside the door. Don’t get put off by the scowl on the liveried guard’s face; enter.
And be ready to plunge into the silky coolness of Aqua Java.
This is the first authentic coffee bar of the city; and it announces its presence with attitude. From the ambience – floating sexy bluish purple lighting and colouring – to the menu (extensive, non-conformist), to the extensions (pool table and a miniscule dance floor on a different level), it wants to say “ I’m different.”
So, start looking at the coffee menu: 74 choices of coffee, from the grog to the cool mint, from the traditional java to the vanilla-whipped to the Irish cream. Pick anyone out, you can’t lose. The guys put passion and care in making their cuppa come alive. The spice and the grog were tantalizing (the flavour of cinnamon and the bite of the nutmeg), as was the mint in the java cool, evanescent as it was in the mouth. Ummmmm.
Look at what to call for to munch along. Surprise, surprise, it’s a large menu. Italian, Mexican, India, Lebanese, Chinese – each cuisine represented with a chosen few dishes: the munchy-filling kind rather than the family-dish-out-for-dinner kind. So you can swing from the nachos (with salsa sauce) to the pita bread (with humus) to the tacos to the paneer tikka. Fun to choose but, alas, cooked with the mind elsewhere (probably concentrating on getting the coffee right).
Will we come again? Yes! There are 73 coffees still to be tasted, the dance floor to be checked out, the pool table to be cool on – and to find out if the cook has started concentrating on getting the nachos right.