Veggie Vunderland

Here’s yet another option for the burgeoning vegetarian lot in the city
It’s the latest fad amongst the Babalog. After all, what do you do when you’ve got it all — the moolah, the Mercedes, the finest education that Singapore can give and a stint in some obscure university in the Mid-West of the US of A, the best-bred chicks, the ones that tote a Birkin bag?
“It’s so easy yaar, let’s just open a restaurant,” they say over a glass of single malt after a game of snooker, or is it still called billiards in some circles.
And would you believe it; that’s what Gen Now is doing all over the Indian sub-continent. Young men with money are seriously investing in the high-end of the food chain, creating restaurants that are lovingly crafted by designers, lighting and music technicians, PR personnel and their own set of discerning friends who will proclaim the place an absolute, smashing success — for six months.
It’s difficult to say whether the newly-opened all vegetarian restaurant, La Shaakahari, with a menu that wraps itself around the world as easily as you can say ‘tortilla’, was inspired by just such a scenario. It was still so new when we went for lunch; the owners who had lit an elaborately-decorated Ganesh at the entrance had forgotten to pick up the packet, giant size of course, of rose-scented agarbathies and strewn it on the road. The waiters were as fresh and raw as the onions that appeared on our special kebab platter. But there were nice touches — a charmingly printed menu for instance that promised ‘fillows of pastry’ stuffed with mushrooms and chunks of paneer that had been marinated in ‘royal cardamom’.
La Shaakahari is nothing if not ambitious. It follows the rule that add cheese in sufficient quantities to any combination of veggies and you will definitely draw in your dal-roti crowd. Certainly, the ladies of leisure who like to spend their afternoons in group therapy eating at the latest places had already occupied a part of the restaurant and were actually playing tambola in one corner of the restaurant. Did we mention that it’s brilliantly situated, in the middle of the busy Pycrofts Garden Road and has an airy looking window wall that allows you to gaze at the tree-lined avenue outside?
My companion went the Conti way and ordered a corn and spinach bake. It was creamy and luscious, but more soup than bake and when we requested some bread, the kind young onion brought us five tiny bread sticks arranged like the spokes of a wheel. Well.
My kebab platter was certainly as special as the menu promised but the pudina paratha lacked, the flaky quality one associates with the item, even if they had sprinkled it liberally with ghee. There are little icons of olive oil against various dishes on the menu, should you prefer yours to be doused with oil.
Where they failed utterly, however, was in the zafrani phirni, meaning a rich, creamy dessert flavoured with saffron. Mine came sloppily served in an oval ceramic boat, grainy and far too sweet to have that delicate milky richness that one dreams of when dipping a spoon into a perfectly-made phirni.
Phir-bi, it is still early days, maybe the Babalog will eventually grow up and serve a perfect phirni.
La Shaakahari
20 Pycrofts Road, Chennai 600020. Tel: 28263000 Open from: 11 am to 11 pm Alcohol not served; credit cards accepted Meal for two: Rs 800
RATING: Food: 2 Service: 3 Décor: 3 (5) Excellent (4) Very good (3) Good (2) Average (1) Poor