Mame da Dhaba (U 1/1, DLF Phase 3, Gurgaon)

In a nutshell:

Some Super YUMM, someYUMM & some not so YUMM Vegetarian Punjabi Dhaba food in Gurgaon at unbelievable prices, with the owner & his family at the shop floor at all times to attend to customers.

Long shot of Mame da Dhaba - the front side is the dining room & the hind side is the kitchen. — Long shot of Mame da Dhaba – the front side is the dining room & the hind side is the kitchen.

Address & other details: As u enter the one way road of DLF Phase 3 from beside Gateway tower (Jahajwali building), u come across a building on the left that has RBS. Take the road on the left as soon as the RBS building ends. Mame da Dhaba is just less than 50 meters into that road.

Superb Paneer Tikkas freshly tandoored & served

Meal for 2: Rs. 150 onwards

Cuisine type: vegetarian

Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:

This tiny eatery looks pretty unimpressive from outside. However, it is pretty neat & clean within. There is seating for 10 persons at any point of time – One has to share tables with strangers. Might sound odd but believe me, once the YUMM food arrives, people just stop talking & eat till they r full.

Outside, near the road there is a juice counter. The tandoor is also right beside the entrance.

Service is pretty fast. The owner is on the shop floor at all times & so is his family (most of the time). The owner supervises , takes home delivery orders on phone, manages the cash box, at times lends a hand to serving & at times to clearing plates as well. Staff members r quite good & r experts in fast service.

The owner supervising the open Kitchen – standing in the Dining Hall

The 3 page menu card has a real long list of items. I wonder how they manage it. Stock-outs however happen ‘ aaj ye item khatam ho gaya ji’.

Menu card with home delivery numbers as well

Some of the food items we had were extraordinarily good. Others were just good. One of the six dishes was suboptimal.

Detailed description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:

Continue reading “Mame da Dhaba (U 1/1, DLF Phase 3, Gurgaon)”

yummrajDecember 28, 2012June 9, 20134 Comments

Anglo Indian, bengali, Indian, snack

Food aboard AC 1st Class Duronto Train – & the travel story

Read YUMMRAJ’s latest review of AC 1st class rajdhani here: rajdhani

In a nutshell:

My first time travel in AC 1 of Duronto – turned out to b a series of Pleasant surprises. Pretty Good food, very good service & an amazing experience in a coupe of a new coach.

The story:

Duronto , like the Rajdhani trains, r full AC trains with meals included in the ticket price. Unlike Rajdhani, Duronto is a ‘no stop’ train – so it straight away stops at the final destination. We decided to travel by this train for a holiday from Delhi to Kolkata & chose AC1.

What is strange about AC1 is that even if u book way in advance, the seats / cabins r not allocated till the day of journey. We were thrilled to see us being allotted to a coupe (only two people in a cabin instead of four).

As I entered the coupe , I was pleasantly surprised. It did not quite look like Indian Railways. New coach, spic & span, pristine white walls & ceiling, a huge 4ft X 3ft mirror, a tiny mirror etc. I cud sense the room freshner as well. At times it felt like we were sitting in a mid-range hotel (of course ignoring the size of the cabin).

We were lucky to have the pantry car just next to our coach. It had transparent glass window & I peeped into it – looked as good as an open kitchen restaurant. Within I guess 10 minutes after the train started, an IRCTC representative came & welcomed us & gave us a rose & a facial wet wipe.

Within minutes of this, the pantry boy appeared with two menu cards – printed & laminated like the ones in low to mid end Restaurants. One menu card was veg Indian & nonveg Indian. The other was Veg continental & non-veg continental.

We started to read the Indian non-veg & were surprised to see ‘veg au gratin’ written in it. We were told that ‘the starters r common for Indian & continental but the main course is different’.

Detailed Description – In case u have the time to njoy reading:

Service started within 30 minutes of the start of journey. The server came in & pulled out two foldable tables from one corner of our cabin & set them up.

He served freshly made thick vegetable soup. Good to taste by Restaurant standard & awesome to taste by ‘Indian Railways standard’. Soup sticks were also given along with this – those turned out to be sub optimally crunchy. We njoyed our soup with dollops of Amul butter. Halfway thru the soup I decided to season it with black pepper – that is what turned out to b a bad decision. The pepper provided was as fine as dust & it was quite weird. Spoilt the Soup to some extent.

After a gap of almost 20 minutes, we were served starters – 2 pieces of Fish Orly & a lump of vegetable au gratin, in addition to one apple.

Vegetable au gratin turned out to b a catastrophe. It was a lump of sweet potato with cheese popping up at different spots, funny texture & really bad by Restaurant, someone’ home or train or any standard.

The fish orly was awesome to the power 10. It was deep batter fried fish that had a thin outer batter layer & a superbly juicy, soft, flaky fish fillet inside. Outstanding flavors of the fish & also the spices ……………….. Good by all standards – Restaurant, train, aeroplane, someone’s house etc.