THODA AUR LIJIYE

In the over 20 years of my dining out experience, I have been to several restaurants, hotels, pubs, bars, dhabas etc. and have savoured an array of dishes right from Shrimp Scampi at the Grand Hyatt in Macau to steamed momos from a handcart in Lansdowne, Uttarakhand.

Having your meal and then settling the bill is the usual way restaurants around the world operate. So, satisfying the customers naturally becomes important because the payments are yet to be made. Moreover, the waiters would also get fat tips if they please the diner especially if he is in high spirits (pun intended).

But, last week I visited the epitome of all restaurants serving south Indian food in Delhi—The Andhra Bhawan Canteen on Jai Singh Road near India Gate.

The Thali system with eat-as-much-as-you-can system prevails here. One has to pay in advance and after handing over the slip to the waiters, the food arrives within minutes.

A non-vegetarian which I had for dinner consisted of a portion of daal, curry subzi, dry subzi, chutney, curd, papad, rasam, sambhar, boiled rice, rotis, dessert and a dry mutton dish. (you can also have it in gravy)

The food was awesome as was the service and it is the latter that took me by surprise. First of all the bill had already been paid and so the waiters did not have any chance to get a tip. Despite this, the affection and care with which the diners were being served had to be seen to be believed.

Already impressed, my ‘love at first bite’ with the place reached new heights when a waiter came up to me with some rice for a third filling. But I politely refused. To my surprise he insisted that I had some more rice and even got some curry of the mutton dish which I had not even ordered for free.

"Thoda aur lijiye..." (Have some more) he said and that gesture of hospitality made me feel completely at home. More so because I was not dining at a place where at the end of the dinner I would have to shell out a couple of thousand rupees.

Here, things appeared exactly the way they were- simple and honest.

There were no hidden perks in terms of a tip which he would get or plain flattery forcing me to visit again as thousands swear by the place and its food. It does not need to go out of its way to bring back customers.

The canteen is a perfect example of humbleness in greatness.