Eat at any desi restaurant lately? Then you know what I am talking about. Good food, bad ambience, even worse service.

Researchers should look at our genes and find out what the problem is. Something must have gone wrong in the last few centuries. Desi restaurants have by far the best food in the world. But for some reason no one ever bothered to pay attention to serving nicely. I can't remember a resturant I ate at where the quality of service and ambience improved without compromising the desiness of the place.

"Nice" restaurants like New York's Tabla and Washington DC's "Bombay Club" are desi only for naam ke waste. They are as desi as Honda Civic is American. Tabla is annoying. Pseudo. Did I say pseudo? I mean they are such wannabe goras. Everything is fake and phony. Come on, let's see some real authentic desi food, that's the only reason I go there. To their credit, they present and serve well, are properly managed and clean. But in the process of becoming properly managed it appears that their desiness had to be sacrificed and the food became some weird "fusion" nonsense tasting more like McDonalds than Mughlai.

I went to Delhi Darbar in Mumbai (see photo). There, my mouth is watering just thinking about the food. But guess what? Third class service, second rate ambience, poor presentation, no attention to detail.

Am I the only person who feels that way? Honestly, anyone else feel that they can't get authentic desi cuisine served nicely?