Random Musings

I have had Thalis at a few joints, and all of them stuff you, by their super fast service and never letting any bowl in your thali stay half empty. Before you can utter “no”, they fill it up and move on. But with all that, I have gone to a few thali places and come out standing.

And today, I could not.

It was the Rajdhani thali joint, at Nirmal Lifestyle, Mulund.
(For those who have not been to Nirmal Lifestyle, I’d suggest that you must go by, and just have a look. Like a typical American mall setting, lots and lots of branded stores, restaurants, ice cream shops, huge open spaces, large supermarket- Shoprite; awesome!)

I went there today, after catching the owner, Mr. Barot, on radio yesterday. Not that he said much, but that was enough of an inspiration to make it to Rajdhani today.

There was a long queue when we reached there around 1 pm. I feared the worst – like an hour’s wait or something. But we made it to our seats in half an hour. Thanks mainly to the speed at which they get patrons to eat, and get out!

There were like 9 vatis in the thali, so I could imagine that a lot of things would be coming in. Three vegetables, kadhi, daal (yes, both!), shrikhand, sheera (both of which I did not have, being ‘off-desserts’ for now), devgadhi aam-ras, mango-panah, chhaas, rice, khichdi (yes, again both), papad, roti, phulkas, puris, rotla, dhoklas and patties. Most of the items were good, very authentic Gujarati stuff.

They set the pace with very fast serving. I know it, and tried very hard to slow things down. Also I did not have shrikhand, sheera, puris, patties. So I thought I would be fine. I thought I was keeping things under control.

Yet, by the time we were getting done, I had food upto my throat, all the way down my food pipe. There was no space to put a sip of water in!!

I was not able to get up from the chairs. After they stared at us long enough, and came and asked us 5 times whether we wanted anything (after the bill was paid up), I had to get up. Walked down and had to sit somewhere for a good 15 full minutes, before we could make our way to the car. And I had to ask my wife to drive, as I was still feeling so damn full!

Whew! That was _some_ meal.

Catch it, if you have not done it before. Don’t go on a working day, hoping to get back to work. Make sure you have time to laze out after the meal – you would need the rest!

– Sanjay