Once upon a time, Rajdhani was synonymous for a hearty and scrumptious thali meal with unparalleled service. No longer.
We visited Rajdhani Thali at Charni Road today for a Divali lunch with our parents. We were welcomed warmly into the spacious [compared to Zaveri Bazar] interior.
We were served a chat item, some bhusa looking and tasting’sev khaman’, delicious ghugri - savoury karanjee, along with the usual chutneys and kachumber. Then came the vegetables, four in all, an undhiyo type, tendli, alu palak and cabbage. These were quite tasty. The breads offered were chapati, puri and a rotla which was a bit dried out. The chapatis were good. The mandatory Gujarati sweet dal and kadhi along with non sweet dal was also offered. These were all nondescript. Chaas accompanied the meal. A choice of plain rice or dried out masala bhat was on offer. At the very least, Rajdhani ought to offer a good quality jeera rice / pulao / khichdi / veg. biryani.
The sweets were a dried out sheera, an excessively sweet mediocre basundi and a puran poli that left much to be desired. Considering the price of the thali and that it is now Divali season, the least Rajdhani could have done would have been to offer its patrons one good quality high class mithai or sweet item, instead of three so called sweets that were of such poor quality that most would leave them untouched.
We were never offered papad although we saw it being offered to others. The service was not what one expects from a thali restaurant and we had to frequently remind the waiters to bring chapati or extra lime, onions etc.
The price of each thali is Rs 260 which is excessive considering the overall poor quality of food. Overall I would say that Rajdhani is living on its past glory, neither food, service or price warrant a second visit. In fact without a doubt it will be NEVER AGAIN.