Random Ramblings

I participated in a play during college days called Parda (curtain). It was a beautiful story about a royal family becoming poor but their izzat (honour) was safe behind a Parda. Curtains don't only save people honour they make a home look much much better than it looked earlier. I learnt that yesterday :-)

In recent past I have gone to Not Just Paranthas, Rajouri Garden twice. I love their Lassi and their Chur Chur Paranthas are a welcome treat for my tastebuds. I didn't like their pocket paranthas, primarily because they don't look or taste like paranthas ;-)

I also went to Pind Baluchi, Raja Garden and the restaurant continues to serve good food at affordable rates.

The best find this week was Wave Cinemas, Raja Garden. Comfortable seats, good ambience and cheaper rates than PVRs in Gurgaon and proximity to Dwarka will make me frequent visitor to these halls.

We saw Laaga Chunri Mein Daag and Bhool Bulaiya and I can't understand why LCMD had nearly empty halls. It is a well made movie with good performances. I agree that the end was a bit too filmy but apart from that the movie was a superhit material.

I was looking forward to visit Agra today, but my plans were thwarted by butterfly effect from a traffic jam in Vashi.

We had dinner at Pind Baluchi, Lajpat Nagar. Experience at this branch of the restaurant chain was not as good as it has been in Rajouri Garden branch.

The restaurant is divided in two sections, one is the main hall and another is an annex with 6-7 tables. Ambience in the hall was probably good but the night sky emulation in the annex (where we sat) was definitely not good. The roof was too low to make it likable.

Food (Laccha parantha, Naan and Paneer Butter Masala) was tasty and it was probably our cheapest dinner (for 170/-) so far. The service was really poor. The waiter did not serve the dish, we had to request them to serve the dish we ordered. Spoons were missing until we asked for spoon after dishes were served. An order of 1+1 laccha parantha was heard as 2 laccha parantha, one needs very creative mind and a defective hearing to achieve the feat of hearing 1+1 as 2 :-)

Water in finger bowl was too hot. I wouldn't say you should avoid the restaurant because I guess it was just one erratic waiter's mistakes that we witnessed.

My ratings for Pind Baluchi, Lajpat Nagar

Food: * * * 1/2
Service: *
Music: * *
Ambience: * *

We revisited Pind Baluchi in Raja Garden. This time we sat on the first floor. They told us that the restaurant will soon add another floor.

The first floor was made to look like a cave. They had used fibre to make the walls and made the room look like a rocky cave. The uneven rocks/fibre was not a good support for the back and they should probably think of putting sofas with comfortable backs instead.

This time also the waiters were wearing traditional punjabi dress and the sat-sri-akal at the entrance was well received. Delhi has huge punjabi influence and in recent past I have gone to a lot of Punjabi theme restaurant and I have found every one of them to be good.

We ordered Sweet Lassi and it was promptly served in a kulhad. For main course we ordered a butter naan, a roomali roti and paneer butter masala. A note for vegetarians: Pind Baluchi uses egg in their naan but roomali roti is free of egg. The service here was excellent and rather exceptionally quick. We finished dinner very quickly.

I guess some famous Pune restaurant like Shiv Sagar and Vaishali can learn some lessons from Pind Baluchi in how to serve the food quickly. I was happy to see a below 200 Rs. bill which included service charges. I highly recommend the place for everyone.

We went to Raja Garden on Friday and decided that we would go to this side more often now. Every time we want to watch a movie, we either drive to Gurgaon or towards south delhi Raja Garden has some good malls and a few popular restaurants too.

We went to Pind Baluchi for dinner. Its impressive facade made me think this would be a costly afair, but we wanted to celebrate :-) The ambience was good, a model well in the middle of the restaurant, a tree, broken brick walls and dim light with wall painting.

The waiters were wearing traditional punjabi kurta and dhoti and food was awesome. The cooking was super fast and service impressive. On top of this Pind Baluchi is one of the cheapest restaurants I have mentioned in this blog so far. They have brances all over NCR and we plan to visit more of their branches soon.

Overall ratings:

Food: * * * *
Ambience: * * * *
Service: * * * *Music: * * * (Punjabi folk songs, but the volume was too low)

Coming up ghar ki murgi daal barabar reivew for Mangal Ratan Restaurant and Taj Mahal and Agra trip.