Dec 03, 2007 08:59 PM
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When food melts in your mouth and you come out satiated - you go burrp and manage a litlle jig by flinging your arms out and going Oye Balle Balle !
Thats what a dinner at 'Chenab' made me do. One look at the place and I thought they are only out to take me for a ride. Overstuffed, over staffed - over booked and pot bellied families with bungee jumping kids almost made me walk out of this place.
But my friends who took me here ( even they were visiting for the first time) were too tired after a long drive on the Expressway returning back from a DIWALI break. And were in no mood to try searching for a better option.
Are we glad we stayed. The initial salads were a delight. Have you had a 'Kachalu' salad marinated in 'amchoor' and served with slivers of onion and spiked with tiny sharply hot green chillies ? Heavenly - and wakes you up from your stupor and prepares you for whats coming up.
We let the staff choose for us - and they laid out their best for us. The chicken was succulent and so was the paneer. The vegetables were well done and very fresh and retaining their originality - not mashed into the gravy.
The Dal Makhani was a royal treat and an authentic Punjabi slow cooked delicacy. The Yellow Dal tadka was piping hot and the tadka was the sputtering type that makes for a gastronomic flavour that can only be experienced and not described.
The 'kadak' tandoori rotis were crisp and the 'kulchas' were mouthwatering melt in the mouth types. You have to try the 'Kulchas' because these were the only ones this side of the North West Frontier Province that makes the grade. ( Dara da Dhaba at Dahisar comes a close second ) Missirotis were also quite a mouthful. The accompaniments are what really makes the entire exercise a treat for hungry stomachs.
The true blue Punjabi hospitality warms the very cockles of your heart. And order the 'LASSI' only if you can down a thick creamy slush of frothy white curdly tanker of a copper Glass (huge by Bombay's standards) and remember the old adage - Do not Drink LASSI and drive- You are bound to fall asleep on the steering wheel. Lassis have that effect.
Alcohol is available but sadly none of my tribe drink. Yes we are the rare 'Sardarjis that do not drink alcohol.
After such heady food, we just paid the bill ( roughly about a thousand for a family of 4) and trudged our 'expanding WASTE-Lines' out of this joint with a huge belch and lots of back slapping after a sumptous meal and a good holiday.
Check this place out on an empty stomach.
Regards
Raja
