Some Like It Hot – upon hearing of this new Andheri eatery through a Twitter tip-off, we immediately thought of gangsters and cross dressers, seedy Chicago streets and cramped train compartments, millionaires and a cleavage showing Marilyn Monroe. That’s a lot of star power for a restaurant to live up to – and unfortunately, this one doesn’t even come close.

Plastic Paradise

Owned by the guys behind Urban Tadka, Masala Mantar and Pop Tates – Lokhandwala’s answer to Woodside Inn – Some Like It Hot is housed in the same building as Masala Mantar, with which it shares a lobby. The first thing that struck us when we got there was the overpowering scent, best described as a concentrated version of what a new car smells like. It’s no wonder, since the space is barely two weeks old and lined with lipstick red vinyl couches, with no windows to help air out. Other design elements include old Hollywood movie posters, checkered floors and a long, hot pink bar that’s oddly out of place in the quintessentially diner-like décor (think Perkins meets Cocktails & Dreams).

Sunny Side Down

The menu here is interesting, stamped with the photo of a nerdy looking guy wearing retro glasses and a demented smile. It offers the usual range of bar snacks (nachos and fries), a selection of pizza and pastas, and much to our delight - all day breakfast! 
This we dug into with gusto, ordering pancakes and scrambled eggs, chicken sausage and hash browns (you can get all these in a good value Pancake Combo). Sadly, the pancakes came with a stingy dab of maple syrup and were too sweet, the scrambled eggs bland. The chicken sausages, however, were delicious and bursting with just the right amount of flavour. 

Leaving Us Cold

Also good is the thin crust pizza – crunchy and greasy, this would be great paired with a beer at the end of a long work day. The Mexican Casserole, one of the more adventurous dishes on the menu, however, doesn’t fare so well – we loved the spicy and festive refried beans served with nachos, but the rice and assorted vegetables that accompanied these were too tangy and seemed more Chinese than Mexican. Chicken pasta in paprika sauce was passable, but nothing to write home about.

We bypassed the lacklustre desserts – parfait and Tiramisu – in favour of a brownie milkshake which was too sweet, not chocolate-y enough, and whipped up at the bar under the annoying whir of a mixer grinder. Get a kitchen, guys!

Setting the Bar

Some Like it Hot is not the place to visit if you’re looking for a great meal. But it’s a fun bar to hang at on a Tuesday night, with its inexpensive and diverse alcohol list (we even found Amstel here), sing-along music (Springsteen and U2) and hot snacks. Sometimes, that’s all you need. Like they say in the movie, nobody’s perfect, right?

Getting There: 1st Floor, Mohid Heights, Opp Mhada Lane, 4 Bungalows, Lokhandwala Road, Versova, Andheri (W), call 26396032/33 for reservations, Rs 1,000 for a meal for two without alcohol.

At Brown Paper Bag, we review restaurants anonymously and pay for our own meals.