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I am happy to report that the city's premier thali restaurant, Purohit's at Churchgate, after more than two years' closure for renovation, has reopened. And the thali is as good and as sumptuous as it always was.

It is the Gujarati thali, which according to me is the best, khata dhoklas, ras walla batatas, aam ras, dahi kadhi and bhaat, dal and bhaat, the dal with a touch of sugar in it, and chunda, the sweet mango achar.

There are just two types of thalis, the daily thali costing Rs.130, and the Sunday thali, costing Rs.150. They are available lunch and dinner, and you can eat till you are full. Service is unlimited and the waiters will in fact insist on serving you extra helpings. However, the food is not heavy, and it is not oily.

You do not have to worry about your weight. They had in fact put a weighing machine at the entrance to the old restaurant. The renovated restaurant does not have it. There are a couple of other things also that the renovated restaurant seems to have discarded. But on the whole it is an improvement on the old.

The paanwalla is still at the entrance, he has been provided a proper stand now. Before him, I understand, his father was there. I don't eat paan, but those who eat, rate him very high. In the night, people travel from distant parts of the town to eat his paan.

Inside, the whole place is air-conditioned, not just the mezzanine, and there is a nice clean look about the place, the old clutter of heavy furniture has gone. The large windows look out on the street, the waiters and table captains are smartly dressed, and a pleasant aroma of tur dal being tampered with hing hangs in the air.

I got one whiff of that vaghar and I knew I was at Purohit, new or old. And I naturally ordered a thali. There is a large a la carte section also, but I suggest you skip it. It mainly comprises Punjabi vegetarian dishes: methi malai mutter, paneer makhani, alo patta gobi.

Lesson No. 1: You don't go to Purohit to eat Punjabi vegetarian.

The service was fast and efficient. A stainless steel thali, bright enough to admire my face in it, with six vatis, also of the same stainless steel, and two spoons, arrived. Followed by a glass of butter milk and a bowl of aam ras.

I had a choice, aam ras or rosgolla, I selected aam ras. The Gujaratis eat their sweets first, then the rest of the food, you know that. Though Mr. Harish Purohit, one of the three brothers looking after the place (the other two are Deepak and Chetan), says, they do not begin with the sweets, though they eat it with the food, not as a dessert.

The service continued, buttermilk, then the farsans, paneer dhoklas, almost like khatta dhoklas, and small mouthfuls of cocktail samosas. I must mention the dhokla in a little more detail, the batter of besan and dahi is allowed to ferment overnight, making it slightly sour, a thin slice of paneer is put in the centre, and some kothmir chutney, then the thing is steamed and a crust of til put on top.

You bite through, not across, to get the full flavour. The samosas had fillings of potatoes and green peas. The farsans, like most things in the thali, change daily, please note. Other days you may have cutlets, pattice, kachori with corn and mung dal fillings.

To return to the main thali, there were three vegetables. I had ras walla batata, sing pitta, which was drumsticks in a besan gravy, and shredded cabbage with green peas. And for pulse, the Gujarati kathod, there was chowli, nice and wet and a little spiced with hing.

There was a choice of puris and chapatis, and also of chapatis that were glistening with ghee and chapatis that were dry (yes, I had them with ghee). And there was a choice of kadhis, a sweet Gujarati kadhi, and a more masala regular kadhi. The dal was also sweet, it had jaggery steeped in it.

Lesson No.2: jaggery for the dal, sugar for the kadhi. the dal also had peanuts and cashew nuts in it, bits and fragments of it, not at all obtrusive and rather interesting, I thought, plus round bor mirchis, and a vaghar of rye and curry patta.

The rice that came with the dal and the kadhi was steamed, and the waiter very kindly added a teaspoon of ghee to it. Some of the Gujarati customers also put ghee in the mango juice. I don't. But then I am not Gujarati, and, even if I was, I would not. That, I think, ended my thali, except for the papad.

This is the regular thali, Rs.120, everything is unlimited, except the sweet. The Sunday thali, Rs.150, has two sweets, and they are unlimited, plus jal jeera, probably to digest the two unlimited sweets.

Under the thali section in the menu, their is a small note: Thali meant for one person only. And it is a lovely thali, as good as the original served in the 1920s, though a trifle more expensive than what it may have been then.

Harish Purohit showed me an advertisement that appeared in the Bombay Samachar on February 4, 1928. It invited Hindu bhais to the up-to-date Purohit restaurant for dal bhaat and shaak plate. Plus puri, papad, rotli, rotla, chutney, athanu, dahi, chaas at 3 annas (19 paise). Proprietor Harjivandas Ramji Purohit, alias Bhimbhai.

Haridas Purohit, the grandfather of the present Purohits, had started his thali restaurant at Bori Bunder, in the Globe Insurance Building. The exact date is not known, but it must be around 1925. In 1939, he came to Churchgate, where the Brabourne Stadium was being erected.

People though he was being foolish, Churchgate was almost back of the beyond, there was nothing there except the sea, he would get no customers. But Mr. Purohit thought, once the stadium was ready, people would come to it to watch cricket and eat thali at his restaurant. He was right.

In 1948, I went to the stadium to see John Goddard's West Indies play Combined Indian Universities in the opening game of their India tour. Polly Umrigar had been selected for the universities. At lunchtime, I almost went across to Purohit's for a thali. If I did not, it was because I could not afford it.

- By BusyBee
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