Feb 21, 2005 03:02 PM
11437 Views
(Updated Feb 21, 2005 03:08 PM)
Some things in life never change, for everything else there is self-experience which is the best experience. For all these years, the spirit of mankind that cherished inside me believed that Big is Beautiful. I was in love with all the biggest things that I'd seen,witnessed or even heard of. I adored Kutub Minar, World Trade Centre, Dharavi Slums, Shilpa Shirodkar, Titanic, Boeing planes as big was always beautiful for me....
But something happened with me a few days back made me change my baseline of Big is beautiful from Big is not always beautiful...Read on
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Another Gujju Thali Review from me ... Gosh... This person eats like anything
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The Tip-Top Mithai Shop as well as their Thali Restaurant situated at two places in Thane city are always filling up the suburban circulation of Times of India with their regular advertisements. In fact, a friend of mine who works for the publication has secretly admitted that now-a-days people are so addicted to reading the Tip Top Thali advertisements in the newspaper that Times pays them for advertising...(Am I sounding like the BREAKING NEWS reporter... Please understand my situation...I just now seen one breaking news like ''Sania Mirza to be India's biggest sensation'' ... Sensation in tennis or in Movies ???)
With much fanfare, the management of Tip-Top thali opened their Tip-Top Thali Restaurant at Tip-Top Plaza (This is what I call business diversification and proper business mix with revenue coming from mithai, thali and real estate !). The place situated close to the Mulund Check Naka on LBS Road was advertised with a Central theme of Grand thali !
The advertisements and all the other hoardings put up by them promised 6 types of Welcome Drinks,6 type of starters, 6 types of farsans, 6 types of sabzis, unlimited three sweet varieties and usual fanfare included in gujju thali a a price of Rs. 150....
This building where this thali restaurant is placed is neatly done and the their staff make you feel the warmth of their hospitality when u let them know about ur plans to dine at thali restaurant. A person to escort to elevators, the lift-man are well mannered, well-dressed and well-trained ! Big is beautiful !
Ambience:This place is neatly decorated and gives us a Prasanna feeling. The sankheda furniture is all set in a nice manner to take care of all types of groups. The thali hall is big and here big is beautiful again !
When big is not beautiful ...In typical style, the waiters up there place the large thali dish before you containing several katoris and a few glasses outside the thali.
The prompt people start filling the plate with items like chutneys, small items of farsans...Big menu starts to look tempting ...
Now the welcome drinks comeand suddenly my previous-review avtaar of Illusions and Realities starts to surface. To my reality, the illusion of having six welcome drinks result in finding out glasses filled with Cola, seven up, mangola, fanta, kala-khatta shrabat and some local digestive drink... The food optimist in me grabs the local digestive drink and look out for six items of farsans...
The six items of farsans turn out to be items like two types of dhoklas, one kachori, one samosa and two pakodas ! The reality and illusion surfaces again. I rewind back my memories to Rasoi review and find I'd the same team relishing in my thali...so whats the deal about this six number... Big still seems to be beautifu...
The sixer of sabzis arrive and the same fight surfaces again making me counting the dal and kadhi as items of sabzi...I replay all the steps to Rasio review only to find out I'd found the same on my plate up there too... Big now seems to be somewhat hazy...
It appears further hazy when I found that the guju thalis that taste great when their items are served are piping hot, are cold and some are stale...But still the food optimist has not given up...
I await for the pie of sweets .. and to my sheer disgust I found the same sweets served to me in Rasoi adoring my plate but in unlimited quantity... I realised at that point my capacity or human capacity to eat only 4-5 rasgulla at a time...Its like u want to have an affair with all the beautiful girls in your college but u manage to get only one... In fact, the spoon with which the gajar ka halwa was being served would soon qualify to be the smallest spoon ever used by the mankind !
Why big is not always beautiful at tip-top Thali: The foodies like me look for quality food and sometimes irrespective of price paid. This place cut me by the rates that are above average and served me with the same items that I'd a few days back at a nearby place at half the prices.
Secondly, the quality of the food items that I expected to be good turned out to be exceptionally below average. Ever imagined having a cold sabzi ....
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I concluded big is not always beautiful :And immediately I remembered Guddi Maruti who is the fattest ever female happened to bollywood is not beautiful...(Although she looks cute) ...
My memories flashed thru ages and remembered the rakshas in Ramayana and Mahabharata having huge bodies but picturised as insanely horribly looking creatures...
Finally, I had a glance at my recent credit bill and the big amount to be debited from my account is not at all looking to be beautiful ...
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After thoughts : My love for shilpa shirodkar evaporated after this experience... I've started admiring Antara Mali now... !!!
