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Of green choices

Veggie delight Great food

As vegetarianism gains greater popularity, it is becoming a lifestyle choice that is now not difficult to exercise. While Saravana and Sagar food chains have been around for a long time, more vegetarian restaurants are dotting the city landscape. Mak ing its presence felt is Vegie India, which opened its third outlet at the upmarket Preet Vihar in east Delhi.

Catering to east Delhi residents craving for quality vegetarian food in the neighbourhood, Vegie India is the brain child of Naheed Qureshi, a young entrepreneur, who says there is greater demand for vegetarian food than ever before. Naheed explains, “The demographic profile of the area is such that most local residents hailing from Jain and other communities take only vegetarian food. Keeping their religious sensibilities in mind we even offer them food without onion or garlic.” She believes there is hardly any demand for traditional best sellers like non-vegetarian kababs or biryani in the area.

As a result, Vegie India only offers haryali kababs and vegetarian biryani, instead of the traditional non-vegetarian fare. The restaurant offers more than 60 choices in the Indian section and another 30 odd in the Chinese and Continental sections.

To begin with you can have aloo channa chaat, a combination of spicy potato and channa, or roasted, fried or masala papads. Soups are also offered, such as tomato dhaniya shorba, which is a good combination of tomato and dhaniya, giving a different but good taste. Spinach garlic shorba and cream of mushroom are also on offer.

Now coming to the main food one can order for a range of paneer dishes ranging from paneer pasanda, paneer do pyaaza, paneer lababdar and paneer roghan josh. I tried paneer pasanda, its a delicate cottage cheese stuffed with dry raisins and nuts, flavoured with an aromatic gravy. The vegetable menu also has variety, starting from diwandi handi, vegetable jalfarazi, khumb matar, mushroom hara pyaaz and rajma massala prepared with chopped vegetables.

If you are a rice lover, don’t worry there are dishes for you too starting from vegetarian biryani, matar pulao, zeera rice and steamed rice.

In between, enjoy beverages like abra ka dabra, which sounds mysterious but is something which should be tried. It’s a mixture of orange and pineapple juice with coconut cream, strawberry crush and vanilla ice cream. Nutty acrobat consists of chocolate powder, vanilla ice cream and chopped nuts. The restaurant has something for everyone. If you’re not in the mood for India food there’s always continental and Chinese as well. They even have a fair share of pizzas. For dessert, you can choose from the conventional phirni to the moong dal halwa.

The ambience of the restaurant adds to the taste of food and the gently soothing piped music further gives it a touch of romance.

Meal for two: Rs.300+Taxes

For Reservation 011-22442555, 22452555

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