Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba in Ambala - the epitome of greed, discourteousness and is not recommended at all
The Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba in Ambala is a place where they serve greed with a lot of dis-courteousness. While returning back from my home town after a memorable Diwali, we decided to have a 'memorable lunch' at Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba in Ambala and the greedy guys made it memorable for all the wrong reasons.
We went there to enjoy food, and with 100s of similarly named dhabas in Ambala we put our trust on the popular NDTV Good Times show and their stamp this particular Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba had put on its hoardings. But they disappointed us to no end.
This is how our experience goes. A guy came to take our order, and we ordered three dishes and roti for all. We were carrying a few Diwali snacks from home and thought we'll eat them with our lunch. To this the guy said that they don't allow outside food and we joked that it was 'home cooked' and not from 'outside.' Anyhow, we decided that we'll eat these snacks in the cars and have only proper lunch which we had already ordered from the Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba.
But that was not to be. In 2 mins their manager came and asked us to place our order. Assuming that he honestly wanted to take the order as the waiter may have missed what we had ordered or maybe the manager didn't know we had already placed the order and wanted to give best service (not knowing his real intentions, how sad I feel now) or whatever, we again placed the order. And before repeating the order I did tell him that your waiter had already taken the order and should I place it again. The manger said yes and I very innocently repeated the order.
Now this gentleman manager told us that we should order one more dish as due to the quantity they serve 3 dishes will not be sufficient. We told him that we'll order more if we feel like. But the manager persisted and we told him that how would he know how much each of us eats and may be 3 was good for us. After this the truth came out in open. The manager said that they had a policy that each person must order a separate dish and there is no sharing. In other words, if you are 5 people eating together, you have to order 5 dishes, and your can't share. We are like, are you kidding us? Also, this also didn't make sense as we were 6 adults and one kid - I don't know what math he was doing in his head as one more dish would have meant 4 dishes for 6 poeple, not exactly as per their policy.
Anyhow, I mean how weird is that? I have been to my share of restaurants and that includes road side redhiwalas to fine dining restaurants and there are no sharing of food rules if you are eating buffet or thali, etc. But this was a-la-carte for crying out loud. Needless to say we got his real meaning, the Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba's real motto was making money only and at any cost, even being totally weird and stupid, period. And this manager actually wanted us to either get the hell out of there or order as per their 'policy' - a fact the initial waiter had failed to mention and in fact had never been shared with any of us who had had lunch there in the past. Why he brought it up this time should have some reason behind it for sure.
Well, next we asked him to at least show us where the rule is written as it was not there on the menu given to us. The confident manager took us outside and proudly showed us the signboard (I have attached a pic of the same here). This was a shocker, a-la-carte and no sharing. This one is something the NDTV Good Times guys missed, in fact this one is for Limca Book of Records or may be Ripley's Believe it or not. And mind you, the policy is invoked under 'special circumstances' only - like ours today.
Anyhow, after it left a really bad taste in our mouths, we decided to spend our money where we can also get some respect and basic courtesy which I believe is the least you can expect. And our much looked-forward-to trip to Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba in Ambala turned out to be a big thud and a real disappointment.
Whether I'll ever go there again, of course that's out of question. Whether you should go there, well you know the best for yourself. May be you can go there when you are really hungry so that you can do full justice to their one dish-per person rule.
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Response from NDTV Goodtimes
I shared this post on NDTV Goodtimes Facebook page and following is their response..
We went there to enjoy food, and with 100s of similarly named dhabas in Ambala we put our trust on the popular NDTV Good Times show and their stamp this particular Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba had put on its hoardings. But they disappointed us to no end.
This is how our experience goes. A guy came to take our order, and we ordered three dishes and roti for all. We were carrying a few Diwali snacks from home and thought we'll eat them with our lunch. To this the guy said that they don't allow outside food and we joked that it was 'home cooked' and not from 'outside.' Anyhow, we decided that we'll eat these snacks in the cars and have only proper lunch which we had already ordered from the Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba.
But that was not to be. In 2 mins their manager came and asked us to place our order. Assuming that he honestly wanted to take the order as the waiter may have missed what we had ordered or maybe the manager didn't know we had already placed the order and wanted to give best service (not knowing his real intentions, how sad I feel now) or whatever, we again placed the order. And before repeating the order I did tell him that your waiter had already taken the order and should I place it again. The manger said yes and I very innocently repeated the order.
Now this gentleman manager told us that we should order one more dish as due to the quantity they serve 3 dishes will not be sufficient. We told him that we'll order more if we feel like. But the manager persisted and we told him that how would he know how much each of us eats and may be 3 was good for us. After this the truth came out in open. The manager said that they had a policy that each person must order a separate dish and there is no sharing. In other words, if you are 5 people eating together, you have to order 5 dishes, and your can't share. We are like, are you kidding us? Also, this also didn't make sense as we were 6 adults and one kid - I don't know what math he was doing in his head as one more dish would have meant 4 dishes for 6 poeple, not exactly as per their policy.
Anyhow, I mean how weird is that? I have been to my share of restaurants and that includes road side redhiwalas to fine dining restaurants and there are no sharing of food rules if you are eating buffet or thali, etc. But this was a-la-carte for crying out loud. Needless to say we got his real meaning, the Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba's real motto was making money only and at any cost, even being totally weird and stupid, period. And this manager actually wanted us to either get the hell out of there or order as per their 'policy' - a fact the initial waiter had failed to mention and in fact had never been shared with any of us who had had lunch there in the past. Why he brought it up this time should have some reason behind it for sure.
Well, next we asked him to at least show us where the rule is written as it was not there on the menu given to us. The confident manager took us outside and proudly showed us the signboard (I have attached a pic of the same here). This was a shocker, a-la-carte and no sharing. This one is something the NDTV Good Times guys missed, in fact this one is for Limca Book of Records or may be Ripley's Believe it or not. And mind you, the policy is invoked under 'special circumstances' only - like ours today.
Anyhow, after it left a really bad taste in our mouths, we decided to spend our money where we can also get some respect and basic courtesy which I believe is the least you can expect. And our much looked-forward-to trip to Puran Singh Ka Mashoor Vishal Dhaba in Ambala turned out to be a big thud and a real disappointment.
Whether I'll ever go there again, of course that's out of question. Whether you should go there, well you know the best for yourself. May be you can go there when you are really hungry so that you can do full justice to their one dish-per person rule.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Response from NDTV Goodtimes
I shared this post on NDTV Goodtimes Facebook page and following is their response..
i once had a same experience with the verdict of NDTV's Rocky and mayur show.i went to shimla's mall road n then i remembered a restaurant and it's famous dish shown in THE series,so i ordered it n it was horrible,though prices were fine by me but according to tongue it was not up to the expectation.
ReplyDeleteI think that's the case with these shows so many times Shuvendu. And you are more disappointed when you put your trust in them, take their advice and end up wasting money and have a bad experience..
ReplyDelete