Enter Nagpur and you'll miss out on a big thing if you haven't tasted the famous Nagpurian cuisine called "Saoji".
Before i go on..let me acquaint you with a brief history about Saoji. According to my belief, Saoji is a community wherein people after a long, hard day's work would come up together to gorge upon a meal(veg/non-veg) with all the spices blended together to bring out this wonderful dish. Three things come cost-free with Saoji- "A Burning mouth, Sweat and teary eyes"
Nagpur has numerous Saoji bhojanalayas, but not all of them have female crowd, reason being male dominance in number. But hold on guys! Presenting - "Jagdish Saoji", yes! this particular bhojanalaya that I know of, has a substantial female customer base too. Why should anybody leave the chance now.
Opposite the famous lake of Nagpur - Shukravari lake a.k.a GandhiSagar lake, this bhojanalaya is open to everyone. Although, this yellow colored building isn't that pleasant to the eye, but then certain things can be overlooked for pleasing taste buds!! A big red colored light high on the building speaks of the name. So I gave it a look and entered.
The first thing that caught my eye was the red colored steel chairs and wooden table; so much choked is the big room, that there is hardly any space in-between to move freely or stretch your legs!! But I realized no one here will bother to come to my rescue; in a saoji bhojanalaya, you make your own space and sit!
Take a look around and you'll see village designs on the wall and before you can take it all in, comes the waiter "Order do!"And you'll realize there is actually just a big board which has menu to it and no menu card! Anyways, the menu has - chicken plate, mutton plate, Qeema plate, egg plate which consists of Rassa, roti, rice, onion, lemons and other dry dishes. Veg, I don't think I even saw it in the menu, I'm sorry!
In no time after I placed the order, the plate was already in front of me. I stared and stared and stared at it : Red hot spicy rassa, rotis(fulkas), onions-lemon by the side...Ready with a bite in one hand and a-must-handkerchief in the other hand, off you go and comes the biggest kick of spices at the back of throat ever and you isss haaa-isss haaa, you eat a bite and can't stop having the other! You go, "Somebody, Stop me!!"
Next comes Rice,"Tarri" which is nothing but just the rassa and as what I hear about it is that the floating oil above the rassa has more spiciness to it.You sweat,you cry,you drip!!!
By the time that you are out of the place your face is red,mouth's burning and absolutely sweaty..Wish you could have just drowned into the lake that it is just in front, NO!!For a spicy-food-lover like me, it's an absolute welcoming treat for another visit. The plates may rate anywhere between Rs.110 to Rs.150 per head depending on what is selected with unlimited rassa along.
Ratings:
Food: 4/5
Rates: Average
Sweat: Free!!
Author : Rashi K
Blogs at : http://gethungrier.blogspot.com/
Photograph By : Pranay Patil
