Widest? Really?

If you have seen or been to a Dosa Plaza restaurant anywhere, you must have seen their tagline “The world’s widest menu in dosas™”.

And if you have been in Dhanbad for more than a day, you surely must have seen the restaurant Waikiki at Bank More.

How are they related, you might ask?

Well, if you have eaten at Waikiki, which by the way is an excellent up-market restaurant, you would know what the link is. Waikiki’s menu runs in pages — I would guess more than twenty pages — and it’s filled with dosas for most of it. Last I counted they had 140 different types of dosas.

And Dosa Plaza themselves claim to have 104 different types of dosas in their menu. Can they claim to have the world’s widest menu in dosas when there clearly is at least another place where you get a wider range?

Dosa Plaza’s claim also carries a ™ sign — which means that they have registered it as a trade mark. All this raised a few questions for me:

1. Can one trade mark a phrase, which is a claim?
2. While registering a claim as a trade mark, do the authorities check the validity of the claim?
3. Is it ethical for Dosa Plaza to make such a claim, AND trade mark it, when it is clearly false?
4. If Waikiki now decides to contest that claim and wants to trade mark this claim themselves, will they be able to?

Any trade mark lawyers/experts here?

Idli anyone?

Yesterday was another day of gastronomic exploration for me.

My friends took me to a place called Simply Idlicious in Aundh. This is another small but tasty place, where you get good authentic ethnic food for cheap. Idlis, dosas, set dosas, curd-rice were the more mainstream south Indian dishes that you can get there. Scratch beneath the surface and there is a good range. Even the coffee tasted like authentic south Indian ‘kaapi’. Though I did not like the idli (but my friends swear by it, calling even Vaishali’s idlis useless in comparison), the rest of the dishes were yummy. Do give it a try if you are in the neighbourhood.

It is located behind the Cafe Coffee Day in Aundh, the one opposite Shivsagar.

Bong food next

After the homesick Biharis, it’s the turn of Bengalis.

Just behind the Sweet Chariot off Ferguson College Road is a small quaint eatery called Bay of Bengal. It is not an airconditioned fancy place, but it serves amazing Bengali food, right from veg shukto to Ilish maachh preparations. And it is not too expensive either — I had actually thought I could order the entire menu and still not overshoot my daily budget!

And the ambience is quite like a small Calcutta joint.

Litti chokha!

Are you a Bihari in Pune who is feeling homesick? Or are you a non-Bihari who wonders what delicacies Biharis have to flaunt? If either is the case the place to go is Anandnagar on Paud Road, Kothrud.

Over here in a shop called Litti Chokha you get awesome litti chokha. I just finished a plate and a half myself!

Here’s a picture to show you what it looks like: