Auto seats in Nautanki Gali
I visited Nautanki Gali last weekend and it seemed like the entire of Hitech City decided to land up! From the geeky couples to firangs in coat and pant!
Oh before that first things first:
Being a quizzer I cannot avoid givi
ng you some 'funda'*. My friend Renuka Shenoy put a question in a SpEnt quiz she did ages ago and its still fresh in my mind: This folk dramatic art form takes its name from a musical play about a princess who weighs as much as Nine Silver Coins. Oh and her second name happened to be Shehzadi. Which one?
The answer of course is Nautanki!!
*Funda: Arbit quiz trivia which quizzers think is very cool and normal people don't give a damn about
Ah so coming back to the the restaurant itself: It had the feel and atmosphere as one of those folksy-dhabas. The puppeteers belted out a funky version of 'Yamla Pagla Deewana' as the Sunny-paaji puppet danced away, performing some cool moves Nearly Headless Nick would have been proud of.
The walls and interiors had painstakingly been painted with posters of younder (just wanted to use that phrase), billboards and signs which had intentionally been misspelt to give us a laugh. These included some HIV warnings for truck drives, ads for Lux Cozi banian and Shotgun Sinha's "khamosssshhhh".
The waiting area's seats were a stroke of brilliance: A metal bucket with a soft cushioning on the top for a seat! Romantic seating areas included an auto where the meter wasn't running and a family table at the 'saloon' where you could apparently get a muchroom cut for 20 bucks!
After waiting for about half an hour we got our seats for the Rs.315 (including tax) buffet. We started off having the chats and Indian Beverages: on the menu was Kachori Chat, Papdi Chat, Jaljeera, Masala Chaas and a pineapple drink which didn't belong there and tasted awful. Everything else was pretty good.
We then went on to have some steamed momos with two different types of spicy accompaniments. (I've surely had better in Popsies in Bangalore). The random chicken dishes and the veg. kababs don't deserve a mention. Heck since I've mentioned it I might as well say they were below ordinary.
The veg and non veg salads were kept side by side: #MahaEpicFail. The main course was confused. They had the run of the mill Biriyani (welcome to Hyderabad where Biriyani is as important in a meal as water. Really!!...). Some ok paneer dishes and a pizza with (stale) Zucchini: a toping I never have and never will try as a pizza topping- its just freakin wrong! Everything else you would expect in a normal buffet was there: the usual rice items, dhals, a live dosa and phulka/roti counter... U know the jazz.
The only thing I thoroughly enjoyed in the meal was the Gajar Ka Halwa. My partner in crime MJ seemed to think so as well.
I have to mention how annoying the buggers at the dessert counter were dumping as much ice cream as humanly possible and topping it up with mint sauce and everything else they could find. Not cool!
The Rasmalai seemed to be more of a pansy-pink rasgulla: somebody needs to give these Ohris guys a 'How to name a dish 101'. While Dhruva endured the pain and still swiped it off. He deserves applause for that.
In the end I felt cheated that I had gotten a hotch potch of a meal, but I guess its ok to say its worth that one visit, though I'd pick galli khaana ANYDAY over this Nautanki Gali !
Ambiance: 8/10
Food: 5/10
Service: 10/10 (self service)
Here's the link to the Official Website
Here's the Map to the place
