Places to eat out in Delhi

Well, not exactly Delhi, but more the NCR region. There were 3 of us friends (from school, way back) meeting along with family. So 3 wives and 1 kid (around 1 year old). So there were a lot of things that we had to take care of because of the kid such as preferably eating in a mall, so that the kid could be entertained with a lot of hustle-bustle. In addition, at this age, the kid needs a high chair so that she can sit at the table, otherwise the mother will have to keep running around to look after the kid. And of course, on this day (Sunday), India were meeting Australia in a cricket match that had promises of turning out to be a good match.

And the final catch was that this was supposed to be a cross-state initiative. The family with the kid was coming from Gurgaon, and the other 2 sets were in Delhi and Noida. So a lot of distance involved as well.

None of this worried me. Except for the distance, everything else would be fine. So we decided that Noida would be the place of congregation. Where to eat would be the big question. Thought of plenty of places - Bamboo shoots, Yellow Chilli, Lavanya, Moti Mahal, Pizza Hut, Papa John's, Yo China, Punjabi by Nature, and then the various restaurants in Center Stage Mall - Mcdonalds, Mircheez, Barista, Cafe Coffee Day, Ruby Tuesday, Geoffreys, and then a couple more that were there. Just thinking about these made life difficult, there are so manyand it is difficult to pick one. But then after some more thinking, we zeroed onto restaurants in the mall. Further classification - which one of these would actually serve liquor (beer and some other drinks). Down to a very small number.

We decided that we would actually go there and then figure out the best bet. Assembled at the Center Stage parking in Sector 18 and went off to Ruby Tuesday. They had a high chair, non-smoking zone and a TV. But for some reason, they could not show the match. So we tried Geoffrey's, they did not have a high chair. We did a bit more climbing and there was some restaurant whose name started with 'Mamm *' something that is 2 floors above Geoffrey's. No TV, no luck. By this time, we decided that Ruby Tuesday was fine enough.

Food was not bad (although people preferring Indian foods would not find anything there), drink variety was also fine. Overall experience was pretty nice and we spent quite some time over there. However, the bill for 6 people with small amount of liquor, food came to Rs. 5000, which is fairly high.

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Same roads - 2 different days

Travelling on Delhi roads can be quite interesting many times. A few days back (the day before diwali), I had to go to Nehru Place for something related to my computer. Now, Nehru Place is around 25-30 km away from my house. I was supposed to go and be back in the afternoon, but it took something like 4 PM before I was ready to go. Mentally preparing for the traffic, I set out. Vikas Marg, Ring Road, Bhairon Road, Mathura Road, Moolchand, LSR, and finally to Nehru Place. It took around an hour which is about what I budgeted. It took me around an hour over there, so I was ready to leave by 6 PM. Looked to the road .. Gulp ! Traffic. Manfully, set out in this traffic, same route, and at no place was I actually held up in a jam. But slow traffic everywhere - Nehru Place, Sunder Nagar, LSR, Bhairon Road, Vikas Marg. It took me around 2 hours to reach back, and my feet were positively aching from all the clutch/brake/accelerator manipulations.

The next day, Diwali evening, I had to visit my aunt who lives in Greater Kailash, not very far from M-block market. The roads were empty and I reached there withing 35-40 minutes. Was quite a bit of fun, speeding down empty roads. I was not so suprised though since I see the same scene every Diwali evening. However, what impressed me then and continues to impress me is that the amount of traffic is huge, but the roads are so wide and the poor unappreciated traffic policemen are valiantly fighting to keep traffic moving, and most of the time do a fair job. I saw a scene in a local market near my house where there was no policemen and the road was not so wide, the amount of chaos that was there with respect to cars coming and going made me respect the efforts of these traffic guys even more so.

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Travelling on a wide Delhi road at night

So here I was staying late in office for some work, and then it was already 11 PM and time to go home. I work in Noida and around 15 km from my house, so I dutyfully go to the car, and after traversing Noida's internal roads, including the stretch in front of Nirula's and McDonald's where the metro construction has slowed traffic down, got onto the Noida link road to the Akshardham flyover. Till now, traffic was okay.
Once I get onto the Noida link road, at this late hour, you can positively luxuriate in the wide roads with little traffic. So down went the accelerator, and up went the speed. Just have to careful that one does not speed up too much, since there are stretches of this road that are not very well lighted up, but a speed of 80 kmph was normal. This entire stretch went by in a jiffy.
The next stretch on NH24 from the flyover till Ghazipur signal and then onto Anand Vihar ISBT is not that wide, but since traffic was low, was able to move on fast and reach home quickly.
This is one of the good parts about Delhi, the roads are so wide and well made (mostly) that when the traffic is mild, one can travel long stretches without stopping and reach destination quickly. This is one thing that I have not seen in the other big cities of India.


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Flyovers on Ring Road

Delhi has certainly changed,and mostly for the better. It is not so far back that I remember driving along Ring Road near the AIIMS stretch, and cribbing everytime I hit a red light. If you had to drive the stretch from Ashram to Dhaula Kuan before the flyover mania hit, there would be innumerable red lights and long delays, and you would be freely cursing by the time you were anywhere near Dhaula Kuan.
Now, even thought the traffic levels have increased, the rush has decreased. There is a mass of traffic that is moving like a big always moving snake, but the good point is that this traffic does not stop in jams (mostly, if you ignore the Ashram stretch). Instead, at every red light, there is a flyover that takes you over the red light and reduces the time congestion. This is one of the best initiatives of the Delhi Govt and one that has made a lot of difference to the lives of Delhiites.
If you take the example of the AIIMS flyover, until it was actually constructed and I travelled on it, I was not able to figure out how it would actually make sure that traffic could move in all directions with stopping. Now that I am able to see it actually working, there is a lot of admiration for the engineering that has gone in it.


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Changing face of Connaught Place

The Metro has really turned CP into a different shopping center. The skyline and the structure looks the same, but the content has really changed. It used to be a dreary place. I remember going to CP say around 5 years back, and it seemed to be close to a dead and decaying place. Half the shops would be closed, the place was dirty and the inside road reeked of urine. Eating places and restaurants were not so many, and the only ones that were famous were Nirula's and a few assorted one. The cinema halls were decaying, and if you were going with family, you would most likely not go.
Now it is a totally different place. If you really want to see what today's CP looks like, the best place to see it is from a helicopter, but since that is not so likely, another place to get a good view is to get it from the Parikrama restaurant. This is the revolving restaurant on KG Gandhi Marg (formely Curzon Road). From here, you get a view of CP with an excellent view of the central park.
There has been a resurgence, with a lot more shopping experiences and good restaurants. The presence of multiplexes (reformation of existing decaying halls into multiplexes) has made going to CP a family / friend experience worth doing. The inner circle looks much more cleaner now, and the Metro experience has been a good one for CP. The central park promises to give a much cleaner and beautiful central park, and the need for vehicular transportation has been reduced to a much greater need with the Metro running through CP. This resurgence started happening before the Metro came, but has accelerated after the Metro marked its presence in CP.


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Is Delhi becoming more happening ?

This is not something that most people will agree with so readily. Delhi after all is supposed to be a dead city after around 8 PM, with most markets and shops tending to move towards getting closed. There is not supposed to be much life outside after this time.
Somehow, all this seems to be ringing false nowadays. Market based shops still get closed, but the number of eating joints has increased, and these remain open for much longer. Further, with the number of malls open increasing at a fast pace, there is a much longer time for which there is activity in the city. People actually venture out at 9 PM to get dinner and catch a movie.
I remember a few years back about the amount of traffic at 10 PM. It was very low, you could occasionally witness the random vehicle moving about at high speed. This is no longer the case, there is a pretty high amount of traffic at even this late hour. The traffic levels go down much later now, near midnight. At 10 PM, on major roads, there is still a good chance that you will encounter slow moving traffic.
I assume eventually the advent of more means of entertainment later at night, more inclination to spend later time out and increased salary levels will slowly turn Delhi into a city that remains alive much later. And I am not even talking about the major happening places such as Elevate, but all over the city.


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Delhi Metro - A class apart

Right now, Delhi Metro has started causing immense problems in life; digging up Vikas Marg is in progress, and for those folks for whom Vikas Marg is a daily up-and-down road, the increased traffic congestion is problematic. Well, they always say that for getting something good, you have to sacrifice something.
There is plenty of good in the Delhi Metro project, as can be evidenced by the peak time traffic passenger congestion. http://www.delhimetrorail.com/commuters/route_map.html
The first I travelled in it as a joy ride was a couple of years back, and it felt incredible. Right now, the most important stretch that I can see in terms of getting people to see the advantages is the stretch from CP to Kashmere Gate. This passes through some of the most congested parts of Delhi at a good fast speed, the same stretch would take so much more time when travelling on the road.
I got a true measure of the convenience when I had to drop someone off at New Delhi Railway Station and then had to go to CP for some shopping. Once I dropped the person off at the Railway station, I realized that it makes more sense to take the Metro to CP and back, no worried about parking and much faster. So I did that, and could not stop admiring my decision for some hours. I also used the machine installed at CP to get my return ticket, and as far as I could see, I was the only person who did that. A couple of persons looked at me with surprise and some admiration, and that really felt good, although I did nothing special.


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New restaurant in East Delhi

Today I was debating whether to eat at home or go out. After some discussion with my wife, we finally settled on eating out. Now the simple question over, the more difficult question as to where to eat. After around 15 minutes of discussion, we thought we will go to PSK in Laxmi Nagar. It has an Indian and Chinese restaurant, so seemed like a done deal.
When we reached close to PSK, saw the newly opened V3 mall just next to PSK with the Moti Mahal restaurant ad shining brightly. As we went in, there seemed an interesting line of tables in a semi-open type of situation right on the first floor just opposite Moti Mahal. So the third choice proved the one where we would go to.
It seemed fairly crowded, with just one table right next to the door free. So sat down and waited to see what was the kind of risk we were taking. The waiter did not take too long in coming and the menu seemed full of a lot of things.First shock, there were around 10 separate entries on things to drink, but since this place had opened just yesterday, you could have had either cold drink or water, nothing else. Seemed a bit strange, if you opened a new restaurant, one would have expected these sort of things to be ready.
Well, we ordered 3 different kind of parathas, second shock. Other than pickle and onions, they do not give anything with the parathas. Different from the other places that give some small dish and curd, so that each paratha seems like a complete meal. The impression one gets from just giving parathas is that this is a real cost saving place out to extract everything that you have.
Parathas were okay, a bit oily (but that is par for the course). They obviously need a bit more training, as they did not give any kind of tissue or cloth, only when I asked near the end of the meal, did they give us something. Saving grace was when towards the end of the meal, a lady (maybe owner / manager) came and asked us for feedback with a pleasant face. Net net, people can come there and enjoy, but they need to pull up their socks and taste if they want poeple to start recommeding it.


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