It’s not every day that you have your
worst eating out experience ever. Mine happened yesterday.
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| In It's better Days |
So
often when you have dined out a place, you anticipate the meal experience and
get excited just thinking about it. So we entered Culture Gully the kind
of food Space I NOW DREAD a tourist
might stumble into, so offensive is its representation of India’s dining scene.
For starters it was a bit too dark and I could see many lovelorn couples who probably
mistook this for a hideaway for romance. Then I noticed that most of the places
that did service had actually shut shop, Kerela and Chennai ( I am only talking of South India here) and it was more
like a food court where you could order in expensive food. Anyways, now that we
were here and in the mood for Dosas, settled in at ‘Karnataka’ where after a
special request to keep the oil slightly less; My Utthapam looked as if it had
spent time in the fryer rather than the griddle but stopped short of becoming
fried Malabar Parantha. It lived in a greasy no-man’s land — and no man I know
would love it. So of Course, I politely told the Chef to do it again….He
blatantly refused, giving me a look that, ‘Why do customers even come here,
when it’s my rest time’!! On my insistence he finally made it again but refused
to give me fresh hot sambar which had gone rather cold by then. After finally
making him understand my point of view, I sat down to eat. Trust me I can do a
good job of eating because I know what it takes to make food. I can even clear
the plate of food I find distinctly lacking. But this was uneatable. It was
like the Rohypnol of the basic Dosa/Utthapam/Idli a dish with the latent to smack
you into a coma!
I
go to the Mumbai counter next and try to order myself some ‘Dahi Puri’….trust
me it was a Herculean task as the order taker Jerry could not understand Hindi
at all, nor English very properly
ME: How long will it take to get the Dahi puri? (In Hindi)
HE: Yes Dahi Puri and?
ME: How long will it take to get the Dahi puri? (In English?)
HE: Yes Dahi Puri and?
ME: Forget it, how big is the water bottle? (In Hindi and English)
HE: 40 Rs
I
finally give up and order Dahi Puri and water (after conveying it through one
of the cooks in the background) as they have no other drink available except
water and Coca Cola.
If
you are thinking of venturing into Culture Gully anyway and ordering something
relatively simple and straightforward, like a Dahi Puri; It was the most unpalatable thing I have tasted in some years, provoking from my dining companions a string
of diatribe that cannot be printed in a people newspaper.
The
‘Bhapa Dahi’ has a slight chemical taste that I was grateful for because it inclined
to keep my own sweet intake to near-mormon levels! And trust me when we got out
of this so called ‘Culture Gully’…it felt more like getting out of hiding in bunkers
as if a World War was taking place outside!
In
fact, when thinking ‘where should we eat tonight’, the reminiscence of your
last meal is perhaps the first thing that comes to mind, and has you quickly
moving on to the next suggestion! This place just lost a great customer and
will never know why!! But I do have a
question for them, When you hung that sign by the entrance that says, ‘KINGDOM
OF DREAMS’, were you just messing with our MINDS?
P.S
I did not take any pictures…and am sure you will thank me for that!!
