Oh, where have the good ol’ days of piling up your salad plate to the brim with so many options of veggies gone? They’re gone along with Just Around the Corner. Well, JATC used to be our favourite haunt for the salads so when it was closed down for’renovation’, we eagerly waited for it to reopen. It finally did as Eat Around the Corner. Unfortunately, it took me a couple of months to finally go there for my fav. salads.
First point - they don’t really care about visibility. No one could miss the bright green Just Around The Corner name. But one can easily miss EATC. In fact, my companion said, ’oh the place hasn’t opened yet I think.’ But we decided to take a chance anyway. The gate is kinda camouflaged in the wall and one can miss it easily. Then, when we entered. It looked haunted. Barring the jharna on the left and a couple of guards, the place had a deserted look. Costa Coffee was gone. The outside tables used to be buzzing but now it’s dead and we went on a Friday evening at 7 pm.
Inside was just as cadaverous and death-like decor. All white, the cool and witty posters of Brooke Shields, The Terminator, etc all gone. But then no one usually retains old furnishing so it was okay. Inside as well, there were just two tables occupied.
We walked past the food counter looking for the bountiful salad containers. But it eluded us. We couldn’t find the big soup pots and no plates either. Then an uppity, tight upper lip Indian salad server with a strange phoren accent came to our help, or so we thought. We asked him about the salads and he showed us four vegetarian neatly stashed plates - "you can choose any one of these" - one was a mix of rajam, chana and something else, and three others were some vegetables that I don’t even remember now. We were looking for something fuller. so, he said, he could serve all the four and charge for four separate side orders. One side order Rs 85! so that would be Rs 340 for an order that had less than half the veggies that JATC used to have. And, you cannot even make your own salad. The oh so propah guy will toss it for you.
EATC is just for the la di dah kinds who want to peck on the salads. All white decor and all-white uniform makes the place so morbid. It actually reminded me of a mental asylum in Hollywood flicks. Well, what the hell! It’s a neatly done place, a bit too painfully neatly done. so you can go there just for the ambiance if you dig such such places. The desserts section looked ooh la la!
I didn’t eat there. I was quite bummed out to not find the sweet li’l JATC there!