The Monsoon Meal

It was a wonderful evening of July last year in Delhi. The weather gods were in best of their moods. Mild cold breeze was blowing hinting to rains in some nearby region even as sky over our head was full of dark clouds. Coincidently it was a Sunday and sitting at home on such an awesome day would have been quite foolish. So we decided to go on a long drive to enjoy the winds and weather.

Soon enough all four of us (Me and my three other flat mates) hopped in to the car and started our journey.  After a little deliberation on our route and destination we finally settled for moving towards karnal highway. What worked in favor of this choice were the facts that it was a good 70kms from our place hence fitting in for our long drive motive, plus that road was home to some of the best Dhaba’s that I had ever been too.

While we were on our way the downpour started and soon enough we were forced to crawl amidst heavy rain and a heavier traffic. Indeed some FM channel was playing a collection of choicest rain songs and we were much indulged in enjoying the weather and mood to care least of other trivial issues.

Finally after a two hour long drive we crossed Delhi border & entered Haryana and reached to one of our favorite eating joint on this highway. It was raining here as well. We quickly moved out of our vehicle and entered to the Dhaba. As soon as we settled down we ordered two plates of alllo-pyaaz parantha (An Indian bread stuffed with spiced and crushed potato-onion mixture) a plate of Gobhi parantha( Cabbage stuffed bread) and another one of Matar parantha (Green peas stuffed bread) along with four cups of tea.

The eatery was wide open in front side and it was raining all around, the smell of recent downpour from wet earth was filling the whole atmosphere with a divine aroma and refreshing winds were bringing-in small showers of rain droplets to our table and soon we had our order on our tables in such a delightful sitting.

All the hot parantha’s had scoops of country-made butter placed graciously over them which was slowly melting and spreading all across it. Tea was served in earthen pots having a distinctive aroma of their own. It was hard even to wait till the waiter was placing everything on the table. As soon as he was done I literally banged in to my food and tore the first bite of the delicious looking parantha. Ignoring my gut feeling of staying away from too much of butter I emerged that bite in to the pool of glooming white molten butter and finally surrendered it in to my anxiously waiting mouth. The taste was too heavenly to put it in to words. The perfect ensemble of fried onions and boiled potatoes spiced with chosen flavor’s and delicately stuffed in wheat flour to get shallow fried in pure ghee. What came out from the whole exercise was every much worth of all the efforts that may have gone in its preparation.

Thereby I took the first sip of my cardamom tea from the earthen pot. Needless to say nothing could beat such a flawless combination that too in so much suitable weather. More and more parnatha’s of varied stuff combinations kept on coming and we were all eating like we hadn't seen food from ages. After almost fourteen of these stuffed parantha’s and eight cups of tea, it was time for the sweet dish.

We ordered for jalebi and rabri, my all-time favorite combination. It was delivered within minutes. Fresh and hot small crispy jalebi’s and thick cold rabri garnished with almonds and cashew was delivered separately. I took two small pieces of Jalebi in my plate, galloped them with two spoon-full of rabri and ate what only God could have made better. The sugar syrup started flowing from the crunchy jalebi right from the first bite and combined with thick delicious rabri, made for the very perfect combination that could ever be desired. I ended up eating almost eight of such pieces even after my stomach being completely filled with previously consumed paranatha’s. Actually all of us ate as much as we could accommodate. Certainly there are days when you are forced to explore the foremost boundaries of your stomach's capability.

Eating at such country side eateries is always a great experience. Though the food is most of the times quite delicious but then it’s the presentation part which needs to be worked upon and improvising which can add more flavor to the experience. Borosil Glassware’s which undoubtedly are among the best in their category would surely make for the most beautiful replacement at all such places. Besides being beautifully carved and astonishingly stylish, they are also extremely strong and very resistant to breakage making it ideal for use in public eateries.

Those heartwarming parantha’s when served on Borosil glass plates would surely have looked as delicious as they tasted. Presentation indeed is an integral part of hospitality industry and all its fragments.


(This is a competition post written for http://www.myborosil.com/
 hosted by www.indiblogger.in  )

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Author & Editor

An Engineer by qualification, a blogger by choice and an enterprenur by interest. Loves to read and write and explore new places and people.