The Dhaba @ Besant Nagar: Hopeless

One of my friend, Kiran had come to India (from the US) for 2 weeks vacation. Sriram (friend), Kiran and I met at Besant Nagar beach at 6PM. After 1.5 hours of chatting, we were hungry. There are many good hotels to dine in Bessie, but my good Indian friend recommended this hotel – The Dhaba. This hotel is present near Cozee Corner.

Clock read 7.30 PM.

Three of us entered the hotel. There were 4 tables, all were occupied by couples. Nice, this must be a romantic place, I thought. Waiter signaled his hand and guided us to a table in another section of the hotel. In this section also, there were 4 tables only. This is the hotel’s capacity. Packed our ass comfortably on the chair. We ordered for Starters,

• Hot and sour veg soup (one by two)
• Golden Aloo Fry
• Gobi Fry
• Murgh Malai Kebab

Waiter: Anything to drink?

KP: Do you have Mango juice?

Waiter: We have Mango Nana

KP: What is Mango Nana? Do you have Mango juice?

Waiter: Yes, we have Mango Nana.

KP: (Ok, this guy is deaf) Bring me a Mango Nana or whatever.

‘Starters’ order was complete (we thought so). We were chit-chatting for 15 minutes. It was 7.45 PM. We lost patience and called the waiter. A new guy attended our desk, took all the starters orders again. Now, that's a negative sign for the hotel. Another 15 minutes passed. It was 8 PM. We really don’t know what these guys were doing inside the kitchen (if at all there is one). Don’t know whether they went out in search for a hen to prepare the Murgh Malai Kabab. At 8.05 PM, the starters arrived.

On seeing the hot and sour soup, we were literally hot and sour. The soup was mere color powder sprinkled on hot water, with some raw tomatoes here and there. Yes, it was like that. None of us liked it. Sriram finished his soup (so-called) in 1 minute; Kiran took 10 minutes to gulp it, don’t know what he enjoyed by keeping that hot water infront of him for 10 minutes. We thought, soup was a clear failure. What’s next. Its Gobi Fry, but they didn’t fry it. That’s amazing. They should have named it “Raw-Gobi No-Fry”. It was a Gobi vada. We removed the outer flour layer and had a look at the Gobi inside, it was Reliance Fresh. The Gobi was green, raw, fresh and smiling at us “You losers, you lost your 2nd wicket”. Ok, fine. What’s the 3rd wicket. Its the waiter’s special “Mango Nana”. I am still not sure what ‘Nana’ is. The Mango Nana was green in color. This time a green colored powder with ice-water and Jal Jeera. I was baffled, why it was named “Mango”. 3rd wicket down. The 4th one was Murgh Malai Kebab. I don’t think the person who cooked this Kebab had a tongue. There was no taste at all. No, no and no. I had to eat 6 pieces of tasteless chicken. I felt very bad than that hen (only if its cooked, it can be called chicken) on the plate. 4th wicket is totally useless. Golden duck.

Clock read 8.20 PM.

“Waiter sir, where is the Golden Aloo Fry that we ordered in starters”. This time an another waiter attended us.

“Oh you ordered for it? ok, I will take the order”. This was the 3rd waiter we saw.

Spellbound, all three of us. It was served after 20 minutes, it was good.

We ordered for the main course to a person “A”. Then we again called the waiter “B”, “C” and “D” and informed the same main course order to them. I called a waiter and told the order again by holding his hand. Sriram was in splits when I did that. At 8.30 PM, Sriram called a waiter and told him that we ordered main course and we are waiting for it. The waiter’s reply was “Oh, ok” and he walked straight to the next table and took their order. It looked like as if we were giving him a status update on our order. At 8.45PM, the main course was served. After eating the unhealthy starters (it should have been called as ‘finishers’), we didn’t feel like proceeding with the main course. We just tasted them and majority was wasted :(

In the mean time, we ordered 2 Jal Jeera Paani and 1 Lemon Juice. As usual, we repeated the same order to three people and finally we got it. Jal Jeera Paani and Lemom Juice were the good items in this hotel.

9.15 PM.

“Bill please”. Bill came to our table in 1 minute, we asked for the bill only once.

For the thumbs-down food, Kiran paid Rs. 850/- Our plan was to keep at least Rs. 50/- as tips, but after the mind blowing experience at the hotel, we were sad to keep even 10 rupees. We thought only we had a bad experience. But, that was not true. The table next to us was occupied by a family (2 adults, 2 kids). The family man didn’t even have a smile for the entire 2 hours and his eyes were always searching for some waiter to attend him.

So, the conclusion is:

• If you want to be literally ragged by a group of people, goto this hotel.
• If you want your adrenalin secretion process to speed up, this hotel will definitely be a catalyst.
• If you are a interviewer and you want to conduct stress interview, don’t worry. Ask the interviewee to dine at this hotel. If he comes out happy, you can definitely recruit him.
• If you want to sit in AC for more than 3 hours, walk into this hotel in the morning and order for only one dish and keep quiet. Best case, your order will be served in 2-3 hours. Worst case, your order will not be served at all till they close the hotel at night. Even at 10PM, don’t be surprised if the waiter says “Oh ok, you placed the order is it, I will bring it”. Enjoy the AC and beat the heat.
• If you want to improve your communication and public speaking skills, goto this hotel. Because, you will have to keep on talking about the orders to many different people and you should also use your body language to make them understand your order. In my case, I should have made some jargon to inform the waiter that I need a “Mango” and not a green colored liquid called “Mango Nana”. Sometimes you have to get up and shout in front of everybody, that’s public speaking.
• If you want to follow strict diet by eating only raw vegetables, needless to say, enter this hotel and order for any dish, it will be served raw.