Eat lots and pay less with a thali!

Do you know which cuisine is the most diverse? It’s Indian vegetarian food. It’s laden with exotic spices and flavours- spicy, sweet, tangy, salty, oily- it has got everything and more. Exquisitely cooked non vegetarian dishes don’t even come close to these mouth watering vegetarian dishes.

Indian vegetarian cuisine is extremely diverse. You have flavours from all parts of the country- the north, with its vibrancy, the south, with its subtle yet powerful taste; the west, with its explosion of unique flavours, and the east, with its richness. What is really amazing is how with each meal you can experience, however little that experience is, the culture of the state from where that cuisine comes from. However, I can promise you, even if you tried something new for every meal, you wouldn’t be able to get a taste of everything. So the best way to get all the delicious flavours is by eating a thali.

A thali is nothing more than an assortment of different food items. The concept is very similar to that of the Western platter. The idea is to have a little bit of everything in order to get a much wider taste. This is also an extremely inexpensive choice. You’d think you’ll spend more for eating a lot more, but that isn’t true. Most vegetarian thali’s cost for anything between Rs 30-60. Of course, if you decide to eat at a high-end restaurant, then you will end up paying a lot more.

The four most popular thali’s are north Indian, south Indian, Gujarati and Rajasthani. Each platter comes with a little bit of rice, a roti, two vegetable dishes, two dal dishes, a little curd perhaps, some pickle and to top the meal off and make it really perfect, a sweet dish. The items in each of the thali's are different from each other and hail from the region they are unique to. 

Rajdhani, a popular Rajasthani restaurant, serves only Rajasthani thali’s. There are huge steel plates with a number of small bowls for your vegetable dishes, dal, curd and sweet dish. The servers keep filling your plates with dishes that you like the most. The restaurant is always buzzing with a maddening crowd. It’s the first time that a restaurant ever decided to sell high end thali’s, and that concept caught on so brilliantly. Of course, it was just an even better experience knowing that the food was to absolutely die for!

Each platter is presented in a different way. For instance, south Indian thali’s are presented on banana leaves as compared to the regular steel plates that are used to serve the meal. You can find these thali’s at easily at almost every local restaurant. Even college canteens offer this.

Indian vegetarian food alone is a lot to eat. There are so many different kinds of dishes and food items to try out. While a thali may not be enough to try out the varied cuisine, it definitely is an extremely effective way of getting a taste of everything that you could possibly want to try eating!