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Red soft Rajasthan!

I have a friend who is from Rajasthan. When he got married in Jaipur several years ago, I refused to go with the groom’s party. The reason I gave was simple: the groom was a vegetarian, and I wasn’t going to travel all that distance for a vegetarian Rajasthani meal. After all these years, I think it’s time for the truth to be out — I actually love Rajasthani vegetarian food.

I didn’t go for the wedding because I was feeling lazy, but when it comes to the food of the state, I am all for it. There are only a few Rajasthani restaurants in Delhi. There is one in Karol Bagh, about which I have written. Then some days ago a friend told me that a new restaurant had opened in Bikaner House. This is at the end of Pandara Road, facing the Children’s Park.

The restaurant is called Café Bikaner — and it describes itself as a fine dining multi cuisine restaurant. I am not very fond of multi-cuisine restaurants, because I feel in trying to please everybody, they end up pleasing not too many people. But I was happy to know that Café Bikaner had some Rajasthani dishes on its menu. So I went there one rainy afternoon, and asked for a plate of laal maas, peeli daal and gattey ki sabzi — all favourite dishes of mine.

The prices are a bit steep, almost like those at the Pandara Road market restaurants. The mutton dish, for instance, was for Rs.225 and gattey for Rs.135. The daal came for Rs.140, before taxes. But the interesting thing is that there is a separate cafeteria in Bikaner House where the rates are much cheaper. You get a Bikaner special vegetarian thali for Rs.130 and a non-veg thali, with a portion of lal maas, for Rs.150, at the cafeteria. Of course, the cafeteria is not air-conditioned — and you have to stand and eat.

Café Bikaner, on the other hand, is cool, and it’s a nice little restaurant with comfortable chairs. Both the laal maas and gattey came in a similar thick red gravy. I thought the tomatoes were a bit undone, but the food was not spicy, and the gatteys — which are steamed pieces of besan — were soft. The laal maas that I cook at home has a lot more chillies in it.

This one, in fact, was not hot at all, which was a good thing because when I am eating out, I don’t like my food to be doused with chillies. The daal was a bit of a disaster. It had a smell that I couldn’t quite place. So I left that alone, and concentrated on the meat, gattey and tandoori rotis.

My meal wasn’t bad, but I am not sure if I’ll go back there. The usual dishes are all there, from tandoori chicken and kadhai chicken to saag gosht and mattar paneer.

If I want that kind of food in the neighbourhood, I’d rather go to my old favourite, Gulati’s. I wish Café Bikaner had stuck to Rajasthani cuisine. It would have been different from all the other eateries around. But I suppose when it comes to Rajasthani food, I am a bit jinxed. In hindsight, I should have attended my friend’s wedding.

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