Raj Rasoi pe humara Raj

Regretfully one thing that we Pakistanis did not bring with us from India is their ‘Thali’. Had we done that we’d be eating vegetables, daal, salads, chutneys, papads, rotis, chawal and sweets all together synchronized perfectly into a beautiful healthy meal.

I’ve tried a range of thalis from Rajasthani to Gujrati to South Indian, and the rare Non-Vegetarian and have occasional cravings for food like that. No matter how many times I’ve visited buffets a Thali brings an altogether different experience that cannot be replaced by any 5 star buffets.

It took ages to finally be able to experience that fun in Karachi. I got a marketing email last year about ‘Raj Rasoi’ the thali restaurant in Karachi. And since then it certainly has been on my list of ‘places to visit’.

Unfortunately, the chance only came this year. A colleague of mine visited the place and came back with a special recommendation and insisted we all go there for lunch someday. Which we did, and do my surprise the experience was even better than I had anticipated. Part of the fun was my company the rest of it was what the restaurant had to offer.

Friday lunch hour is the longest (one hour) though not really for us but nonetheless it is the longest break we have all week officially and chose this day to be the day we go and expand our office parties to outdoor venues. Of course we were planning on this for almost a week and excitedly made a reservation for 12:45 pm for that afternoon.

We were quite amazed with the ambiance of the restaurant that hosted colors of Rajasthan, the attendants wore the traditional outfits and were warm, welcoming and courteous.

The lunch service started with a warm hand wash, while we still couldn’t stop touching and looking at things as if we’d seen them for the first time in our lives; we were served with the salads and chutneys and the pickles. The next item that walked to our tables were the starts the Dhokla and the papad and something else that looked like a ‘United King – Chicken Samosa’  and had actual potato samosa filling only it was called something else and I can’t recall its Rajisthani name. anyways I ate away with everything though the world-famous-thanks-to-Star-Plus-ki-Tulsi-and-three-idiots-ka rancho ‘Dhokla’ wasn’t my favorite I did enjoy it with the lehsan (garlic) ki Chutney.

The main course was more interesting than the previous round of appetizers; on the menu that day were two vegetable items, the Green Gujrat and Aalo do piyaza, amongst these two the Green Gujrat was my favorite. Then we had one daal, one Kadi the only kind I’ve ever enjoyed, there was Paneer kofta (too dry for my taste) which was compensated with the wonder and awesomeness of the shakahari qeema (vegetarian mince) and then there was the chicken the Rajvadia Chicken or I think that’s what it was called, our choices to eat all this amazing stuff was Chapatti, Puri and Rice. To end this eating spree we were topped with the most unusual dessert, a garlic kheer which was an outstanding dish, you could barely tell the taste of the garlic and couldn’t imagine if your dessert could actually have something like garlic in it. Lastly we were served with masala chai and thankfully so coz after that much amount of food in our tummies I think keeping our eyes open for work was a tough job.

We ended the afternoon with a bunch of cheeky photographs and were kindly handed the correct props for that.

We did have a wonderful afternoon and I did go back again for another family evening. I do want to go back there again and again coz the food’s amazing, the ambiance is lovely, the service is warm and I feel like the only guest there when I sit and eat. I am however waiting for the right company for my next visit… who’s interested?