It’s the season for mango in all its varieties — as a veggie, a shake, a sweet dish, a chutney and the refreshing aam panaa. MEENAKSHI RAO tastes the variety on a thali at the Rajdhani restaurant
On one scale, it is a mind-boggling operation. Imagine transporting 200 kg of frozen aam ras all the way from Mumbai to Delhi every alternate day and then too fighting a shortfall! That’s just the transport part of it. The process of getting this dish together is quite an expert drive. First, they choose the right haphoos mango (traditional name for world-famous alphonso) to pick from orchards in Maharashtra. Then comes the squeezing, churning and sieving process under the wings of expert corporate maharajs brought in from the villages of Rajasthan. “You need to soak this very delicate mango for just the right amount of hours so that it does not become soggy,” maharaj (read chef) Nithiram, hailing all the way from Pali in Rajasthan, tells you.
He is a man of few words and gets nervous with anything that is not cooking in his kitchen — like questions on why the mango srikhand is missing. The manager tells you it is reserved for Tuesdays and you are in on a Friday. The mango menu rotates daily but is the rage for the season.
If you are to believe the managers of Rajdhani restaurant, a Rajasthani and Gujarati vegetarian thali chain boasting of a top slot in this segment, then this two-month seasonal dish always falls short! The Gujaratis in Bangalore, for example, pay for the entire thali but call only for poori and aam ras. “Fifteen to 20 katories of aam ras per person is regular,” the manager says.
The way they serve you this butter smooth aam ras — after much of your food is over and your stomach full — proves them right. There are mango festivals a dime a dozen in this season but Rajdhani has done well in customising its platter under “intense research and innovation”. To their credit, despite this innovation, the traditional food has not become a casualty. Dip into their khatti-meethi aam ki launji and you will know how food from rural India can look down on innovation.
The mango lassi, again with alphonsos on the churn and just the right dash of curd to not make it overwhelmingly a dairy product, tastes different. The aam panaa though is too sweet to be really happening. However, the rest of the platter makes up for such side snags, what with kairi-moong dal bhajiya and kachha mango pulao capturing your spoon instantly.
Rajdhani, which has outlets across nine cities and has shown a vertical growth in the vegetarian thali sector, started off as a small restaurant at Crawford Market in Mumbai to basically cater to the Marwari and Gujju population. That was 50 years ago. Today, the Mira Group which owns this restaurant, has expanded into holding the franchise of Mad Over Donuts, Manchester United cafes, the Masala library, Rasovara (the upscale version of Rajdhani) and the ping pong dimsum brand for which the family scion Gaurav Goenka, a foodie himself, is currently on a training programme in london.
He must be proud that his thali chain serves 27,000 dishes through 72 rotating menus in one season, mangoes included.