Chef at Large

For some reason, we find ourselves visiting Gurgaon quite frequently these days. Good for me anyway - gets me closer to many more restaurants, since we seem to be running out in NOIDA. This weekend was a particularly good one. Saturday saw us at the Latitude, Sunday afternoon at Baujee ka Dhaba and Sunday evening at the Delhi Gymkhana.

Baujee Ka Dhaba is another one of those overpriced, shoddily decorated and caveman serviced joints that package bad service and shabby interiors in a ‘rustic’ package. We came here with Mimi and Sarandeep - old friends who live in Gurgaon.

Having said that, the food was good.

Now, why didn’t I like the service? All was going well, apart from the shock at seeing the prices, and we were chatting away while enjoying our Chicken Lababdar (boneless chicken simmered in a mildly spiced, almond gravy), Dhaba Meat (chunks of mutton cooked in a spicy, chunky tomato gravy) and mixed Roti basket - when a stone plopped from somewhere in the ceiling on to my plate. It wasn’t a little speck, nor was it a large rock, however, it did make quite an impact on my metal plate.

Sarandeep, for some reason decided to report this and asked to please speak with the manager. Normally, the chap would have apologised and perhaps thrown in a desert or something and that would have been the end of it. This chap however, a Mr. Rishi Kumar, in the true spirit of the Association of Clueless Restaurant Managers, decided to fight it out. To quote him, “But this happens everywhere…”. We left it at that.

Anyhow, we found the food to be quite good. The Roti basket in particular was superb. They had rotis, naans, lachha paranthas, garlic naans, stuffed naans and what have you. If you’re in the vicinity, this basket is not to be missed. The other nice part is their sweet mango pickle - do try this too.

The prices were fairly high, with nothing below INR 300 and drinks like aam-panna at 100 bucks a pop. I felt the prices of the drinks were ridiculous. The food prices, considering their healthy portions, average out to quite a reasonable per-head figure. For example, we were 4 adults and three children and all of us were hard-pressed to finish the food on the table. Therefore a bill of 1000 + something was quite alright.

Smoking: No | Credit Cards: Yes | Air conditioned: Yes | Falling Objects from Ceiling: Yes

- Sid