Restaurants and me have a very bad History together. First and foremost, I can somehow never seem to find the exact Geographical location of the restaurant as has been described by them in their advertisement or by way of word-of-mouth.
After that, I’ve never been too comfortable with the Civic sense of the staff working there. And then to top it all, I never understand their Arithmetic as to how exactly they fragment the bill into 5 different segregations which somehow just don’t add up to the total bill amount. Hence the 4 bane’s of my school life ; History, Geography, Civics and Arithmetic still continue!!
So anyway, one fine day, I get a call from a girl in our group that since she’s completed her studies and she was now going back to her hometown in Rajasthan, she wanted to give a farewell party before she left. “No problem” I said and went over so we could sort of finalize the location of where she wanted to organize her party. We discussed tentatively a lot of venues, but couldn’t come to a firm decision. Suddenly I had this wild idea of this new place called Nukkad which had just opened up. So like a foolish guy, before reconnoitering the place and “casing the joint” (pun intended), we decided (or since she was paying, should I say She decided) to hold the party there.
We were all supposed to meet there at Nukkad at 1.30 pm Indian Standard Time, so I reached there at around 1.45 only to find that the host had not yet showed up. I waited for about 10 min before she rushed inside the restaurant in a frenzy to discover that nobody except for me had arrived. A little clarification, I’ve been using the word Restaurant quite loosely, it is actually more of a Restaurant + Lounge Bar + Mini Dance Floor mixed together. So anyways, by 2 pm, everybody started showing up with their puny my-dog-ate-my-homework excuses and we all entered the place. The ground floor had a lot of small square tables with 4 upright chairs surrounding each table. So I looked around, scratching my chin wondering which fool had told me that this was supposed to be a “lounge bar”. In a confused state of mind, we inquired at the reception and found out that the ‘lounging area’ was in the basement. Okay, I said and started descending into the gloomy and dark staircase only to trip over the rutted stairs (I think they were stairs or maybe it was a dead body……).
Clambering down, I immediately pointed over to an area which had the two largest sofa’s accompanied by 2 chairs and a couple of medium sized coffee tables and tucked ourselves in. Settled in, I asked the guy sitting at the computer to tone down the volume of a Yana Gupta song so we could rest in peace. Pretty good so far, I was quite impressed by the ambience of the place. It had a nice feel to it; Solitary but at the same time not Isolated, Damp but at the same time not intoxicating, Quaint but at the same time not Quasi-comfortable. I liked it! Then came the tough part. Ordering!!!
We didn’t know what was good, so we started off with the safest bet. Masala Papad’s. Our group of 8 people ordered 4 Masala Papad’s with an intention of having the final order ready by the time the Papad’s popped up. We waited. After 45 min, I see this waiter coming over to us with 4 plates 4 steaming plates!!! I scratch my head wondering what kind of Masala Papad steams like a train engine! So a friend of mine, Shobhit quips “Naya style hoga Masala Papad’s ka re, this is an upmarket restaurant you see, tere jaise kitli-pe-baithne-wale ko nahin pata chalega ye sab. Isko ‘Sophistication’ bolte hai”. “Fair enough” I say I wait. And I watch. When the plates finally come down to eye-level, I notice that they don’t contain Masala Papad’s but rather Masala Pau’s a.k.a Bhaji Pau style.
Wagging a finger, I politely call the waiter over and say “Boss, humne to 4 Masala papad bola tha, tum to 4 masala pau le ke aaye ho”. So that waiter was in a fix and says “arre kya Karen sir, maine to masala pau suna tha. Music itna jor se baj raha tha to mujhe thik se sunai nahin diya. Main kya karun!!!”. So I said “bhai mere, to usme main kya karun???? Meri thodi na galti hai”. But then we thought that they waiter would have to pay for this mistake from his own pocket, so we took 2 Masala Pau’s from him. They turned out to be quite good, so we took the 3rd one from him too. The waiter pushing his luck came up to me and said “saab, achha hai na??? tasty ekdum!! ye 4th wala bhi le lo na”. I tried to remember a hindi ka muhawra which went like this “logon ko ungli do to woh pura ka pura haath kheench lete hai”, but I couldn’t remember it at that time (not even now I’m afraid).
Still…..humare bhooke-pyaase log, not content after 3 Masala Pau’s ordered Chineese, Mexican and God-only-knows-what-else and then only after eating like gluttons for 2 hours decided that “haan, abhi kuchh pet mai gira ho aisa lagta hai”. Khana-pina over, we decided to shake a leg at the little Disco-floor alongside. The guy at the computer AGAIN put on the same Yana Gupta song which had the words “babuji-babuji” in it and played it 3 times in a straight-sequence after which we got exasperated and hijacked his computer from him and chose Rang De Basanti and Jannat songs to dance to. After digesting some of the food eaten, by dancing around on the little dance floor, we decide that we still needed more food and drink. My bhooke-pyaase friends so decided to order some food again. As soon as we start to order, the same hearing-disabled waiter again ambles up to me and says “sir, chautha wala Masala Pau bhi le lo na….. Achha hai.”
We didnt obviously, because it had been sitting right there in that room getting cold since the past 2 hours and we were starting to get tired of the waiter continually pushing and prodding us to accept his bhula-bhatka-hua-4tha-Masala-Pau. Finally after the 2nd round of food and drinks we asked for the final bill. The bill (when it finally arrived), we saw, had 2 mistakes, a Pulao which we had not ordered (maybe an innocent mistake), and the elusive 4th Masala Pau. Some of us wanted to confront the waiter but most of my friends decided that it would be more prudent to just walk out of that door after paying the bill but without leaving a tip!!!! The waiter would understand the unsaid. He did I guess, because the last sight I saw of him while ascending the stairs (carefully) was him standing around the kitchen door with a forlorn look in his eyes while holding up the plate containing his frozen-in-the-A.C 4th Masala Pau and thinking “isko khaun ya phir kisi ko reheat karke khila dun?”
(Time to end this, MS word limit coming up) Still on the whole, Nukkad was a good experience. An experience worth cherishing because it bought back a lot of fun memories and gave us a chance to be around with the people we love while at the same time giving us valuable insights and practical teachings regarding the type of people we would meet in the future. People to whom if you give in once, they would demand everything you own including the ‘kitchen sink’. (Pun intended)