Verve

Critic´s Review

• Food: 3 / 5
• Service: 3.5 / 5
• Decor: 2 / 5

-By Deepali Gupta

The village was once about everything off-the-cuff and eclectic. Now it is suffering from a type of infiltration that is hard to curb, but very easy to malign. I have mourned this gentrification of my once sacred spot, now being crushed under high heels and fancy cars, many a times. But I am still an optimist and someone who does not mind walking up three flights of stairs (the elevator will hopefully be running soon) although I do wish said stairs weren't so dirty and stained. Once you reach up the summit, there's a huge space (by HKV standards) that is part restaurant, part bar, part dancefloor and part terrace. The sum total of these is a large spot that is a great music venue and only that. One of the few bars that religiously runs Electro Station Fridays showcasing some excellent techno among other live nights, Verve almost makes your forget Mixology 101 when you're running high on the music. The cocktail listings seem like an afterthought, but some of the concoctions themselves spell fun in a glass. Leaving aside the two hapless looking gents who took my order and were perplexed when I asked them anything about the cocktails - The Verve Special has a pleasing spiked lemonade sort of Oriental kick. The Blueberry Martini that I ordered with much delight is sweet and lethal but ho-hum, while the Purple Rain is not purple at all and is infact little more than glorified lemon water with mint. The appetizers are generous and well seasoned with the Chicken 65 being spicy good and the Crispy Fish Finger delivering on their promise with a spot-on tartar sauce. It's a classic case of so much potential, but not enough attention to detail and the tables out for a meal staring at us inquisitively coupled with the ranging decibels of the music system are off-putting. But then there's not much that the cooling village breeze and a stiff drink can't make me forget.