May 24, 2005 04:59 PM
5330 Views
(Updated May 24, 2005 05:02 PM)
The first time I went to Malvan was about 7 years back. My wife and I wanted to order, but the menu was in Marathi. Naturally we asked for a menu in English. This proved to be a big problem.
After searching high and low, the waiter finally came back, grudgingly, with an English menu. We ordered the food, which turned out to be GREAT.
Then came the bill. The amount was vastly different from what we had mentally calculated. We asked for the menu once again to check, and noticed quite a few discrepancies in the bill. When we pointed this out to the manager, he calmly told us that this was NATURAL, since we had looked at the English menu!! According to him, the Marathi menu had the correct prices and descriptions. The English menu was only for understanding what was available, not for checking the prices, ( despite the fact that prices were clearly mentioned) explained the manager.
Luckily, the prices are affordable and we were saved from a very big embarassment.
The second time I went to this place to take home some food. Again I was presented with a Marathi menu. On asking for an English menu, the waiters and the manager, glared at me menacingly, and ''ordered'' me to learn Marathi if I wanted to eat here. Being truly hungry, and not for vegetables, I was forced to order from the marathi menu, with ''help'' from the waiters who kept speaking in Marathi and seemed to be constantly making fun of me. I wondered if they were conspiring against me.
When I reached home and opened the food packets, My wife and I were shocked to see what looked like leftovers! I am not joking! The chicken contained ONLY bones, with NO flesh. All traces of meat seemed to have vanished. The less said about the fish, the better.
After this experience, My wife and I decided that we would never eat in this place again. I also decided NEVER to even try to learn Marathi.
However, Thane has so little to offer when it comes to non vegetarian food that, I actually went back to this place this year. The marathi menu is still forced down our throats, even though the population of Thane is now changing. But I did see one significant change - there were a few English menus available, and the waiters were actually helpful. So every once in a while, when I am fed up of the vada pav kendras and the highly priced udipi fare in Thane, and my soul just cries out for some flesh, I land up there.
