As you find a place to park your posteriors (which is difficult to being with; i.e. finding a place, not parking your posterior, that in fact is pretty simple, but then again it of course depends on individual posteriors) at the Galleria Food Court, a swarm of some 15-18 waiters descend on you, thrusting 15-18 grubby menu cards under your nose and goading on you their dishes. As you pick one card, these spiritedly competitive folks cover it with their menu cards. When menu cards shuffle afore you this way, reading is rendered difficult, peace is amiss, making a choice for a meal gets lengthy and laborious.
What would you choose? Crossaints and pattice from Breadkraft? Pizzas n pastas from Jas? Samosas from Masala Magic? Parathas from Rangi Rolls? Thaali from Rajwadi? Chinese stuff from Shaolin? Or maybe, Juice from Juicy Stuff? Ice Creams from Freshna or Baskin Robbins? Or Thai food from Oriental?
Even if you have ordered, persistent sales skills are applied with due diligence. Tenacious and plodding, most waiters still want you to read more menu cards, while a few enterprising ones whisper in your ears:-
“Sa’ab, your order from ‘Oriental’ is no good. Its not Chinese, nor is it Thai. To fool you, they employ Nepali/Assamese boys, so that you mistake them for Chinese cooks. Try our Parathas, our cook is from Bhatinda.”
The ‘Oriental’ waiter jumps into his defense, “What a liar! His cook is from Bihar, not Bhatinda. After eating his Parathas people go to lie down in the nearest hospital. And who said my cooks are Assamese? They are from China Town in Calcutta.”
“Wrong sa’ab wrong! My cook is a Bihari, who settled in Bhatinda.”
… It can go on, this show of vindictive one-upmanship. You have to politely intervene to stop it. Should you enjoy it, you can view this drama being repeated at the table right next to you.
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Welcome to The Galleria Food Court, a little row of horrors located in an aisle of the Galleria Shopping Arcade in Powai. Despite its vicinity to home, I’ve been there a number of times that can be accommodated on the fingers of one hand. We go one by one.
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My First time at The Galleria Food Court was with a friend - a Chef in a nearby glitzy hotel. May I give an unsolicited tip applicable generally in life? - “Never go eating in a restaurant with a Chef of a Five Star Hotel in any place lesser than a Five Star Hotel.”
Nothing escaped her ruthless scrutiny. Waiters, the brown plastic crockery, and finally, the food - all dismissed in disdain. Methodical criticisms effortlessly followed. Depressing a fork in some food on her plate, she snorted, “The Jal-Frezi is never prepared in this manner. The cutting, in fact, the selection of vegetables itself is wrong to begin with.”
Ruminating, thoughtfully with an investigative frown, on a morsel, she seethed, “They use the same masalas for every dish, casually giving them different names. They think I’m some %$@&^*##, or what?” (this chef has winning smiles and foul words)
Conclusion drawn:
A very confused menu. Punjabi food that wants to be Gujarati. South Indian dishes that taste inexplicably mysterious. Bambaiyya snacks are better off elsewhere. Chinese cuisine that is fit for you know whom, and the Thai food seems to come straight from Jalpaigudi.
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My second time at The Galleria Food Court was with a friend who runs a wholesale and retail business of cosmetics. May I give a second unsolicited tip in life? - “Men who run cosmetic stores tend to become extra prissy, so be careful of where you eat out with them.” (Maybe dealing with many prissy women out to buy cosmetics rubs off on them, but why am I being so conclusive?)
Sweeping a glance, he said, “I can see the place hasn’t been cleaned for weeks. I can smell vegetables putrefying. I can hear an unending clutter of cutlery. I can touch slime on these tables, and I’m not going to sit on these hard stone/wooden seats ”
Conclusion drawn:
The paan-philic populace of Bombay has a delightful habit of defiling the best of buildings and architecture. The Galleria Food Court is located in an stunning and architecturally brilliant building The Galleria Shopping Centre, that attracts a lot of Hindi movie song shoots, which architect Hafeez Contractor has modeled on the Galleria of Milan.
But we Mumbaikars hate wasting any time in adding our own indigenous touches to its beauty, by urgently chewing paan and spraying it out like fountains, giving the tasteful buff colored building some starkly contrasting deep red streaks. Succinctly, The Galleria Food Court lacks cleanliness and abounds in paan stains, among other more radical markers of filth.
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The Third time I went there with parents. A third unsolicited tip is – “One must never undertake heroic and adventurous efforts like taking your parents at a place that has been rejected by both, your chef friend and your cosmetic store-owner friend.”
Mom launched a fresh diatribe of which, due to space constraints, I shall disclose only one line “Have you seen your dirty face lately? It shows that you’ve been eating at such places!”
Conclusion drawn:
One may choose to write-off all these shortcomings with a philosophic indifference, but the sheer number of alternative places to go to (away from Powai, though) makes you want to forgo it.
I’m all for street food, though we commonly look for aspects like ‘mouthwatering taste’ and ‘mind-boggling variety’ too. Lacking here. The passable item here was ‘Gobi Parathas’. (Don’t kill yourself at the cliché, but Mom makes them better). However, reasonably quick service and ease on the pocket is found here. A complete meal per person would come to between Rs. 40 - 80/-.
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The fourth time I went to The Galleria Food Court was…
You got to be kidding, or I’ve got to be insane. There was no fourth time, as by then I had finally made up my mind to intensely dislike Galleria Food Court.
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