Maharaja Bhog- A Royal Experience

Eating at this restaurant, in Houston, Texas, America, brought back memories of eating authentic vegetarian dinners in Indian Hindu weddings where the hosts reflect their Indian hospitality and keep serving us with the wide variety of food options with the philosophy-“Atithi Devo Bhavah”- where a guest is equated to God, hence has to be served! Interestingly Maharaja bhog’s website quotes it too as their value.

The royal experience at Maharaja Bhog starts with your hands getting washed by the waitress in brass bowl while she is pouring the water from the brass decanter right at the table you are seated. This is how the royalty were served in ancient times when maharajas/kings and queens ruled in India.

Though the restaurant is in a strip mall with other shops and restaurants, once you enter inside, the ambience is posh with modern chandeliers and good seating furniture, a wall showcasing large spice décor, granite table tops laid out with shiny stainless steel ‘Thali’ platters with small bowls.

When you are ready to eat you are served in your Thali with wide assortment of curries, appetizers, flat bread or roti or Puri’s, Chanch/ buttermilk drink, rice dishes and desserts. The Bhog’s menu of vegetarian dishes changes daily with a couple of regular staples. The cuisine is mostly from the north western states of India- Gujrat, Rajasthan and Maharastra.

Our dinner started with a glass of refreshing ‘Chanch’ –buttermilk, with a serving of appetizers ‘Sangam Dhokla’, a two tiered white and yellow Dhokla/ lentil steamed cake and ‘Bhakar Vadi’/ a deep fried savory pinwheel snack with sides of chutneys and pickles.

This was followed by serving us the dish of the day in the middle bowl- ‘Dal Dhokli’ which is basically spicy flour pasta dumplings simmered in lentils dal. In the side bowls and on the big platter we were served many curries which spanned from delicious to little bland. The ‘Mixed Vegetable and Paneer curry’ was very delicious; ‘Valor Muthiya’; a Valor Beans (flat broad green beans) curry with fenugreek dumplings and Allu Zeera/Cumin spiced potatoes were fine; I also enjoyed the ‘sweet dal’ which is very unique to this regional cuisine; a ‘spicy dal’ and ‘kadhi/ yogurt lentil curry’ were on the blander side; there was also a scoop of fresh Moong sprouts served on the plate. To eat with these curries, we were served freshly rolled flat breads of roti- a wheat flour tortilla, and green Millet Flour flat bread/ Bajra Roti, Millet being a popular grain in this regional cuisine.

The delicious desserts of ‘Moong dal halwa’/ split moong lentils pudding and ‘Rasmalai’ -steamed cheese balls in sweet cream, were served earlier along with dinner since in this regional states desserts like halwas are eaten with dinner and not after end of dinner. Interestingly we were also served some sweet Jaggery/ unrefined cane sugar to eat along with our flat bread.

When the steamed rice and the Khichdi/ lentil rice was served, we were offered to drizzle it with ghee/clarified butter to accentuate the flavors, though the khichdi was pretty bland. On the side with the curries we were also served papad churi/ crumbled papads / crumbled lentil crisps. As against the south Indians, the north Indian regions of Rajasthan and Gujrat prefer to eat their papads/papapdams/lentil crisps after crumbling it and flavoring it with more spices and serving it as ‘papad churi’.

With all this variety of dishes, we could also ofcourse take seconds and third servings if desired by requesting the waitresses to serve more. This concept of unlimited servings is similar to buffet style of unlimited refills yet causes much less wastage of food and limits undesirable and extra heaping of food which happens in buffet style restaurants to save a trip from table to buffet area. Hence the concept not only avoids food wastage left over on plates, it may also be cost effective for the restaurant.

Though this concept of service makes you feel served and avoids wastage of food, it may also have its disadvantages in peak hours. We had dined at this place in a weekday evening, hence there was a lesser crowd and limited guests who got good attentive service. Our local cousin who accompanied us and has dined here before on weekends has found the service gets slower in peak time with large crowds and stretches the dining process.

If you desire to know the items on the menu of the day, it was displayed on the wall ipads in the booth area, but if you are sitting in the center tables, you can consult with the friendly Houston restaurant owner Mr Bhagwaan who gives you a copy of the menu of the day.

The dining etiquette involves some use of hands for eating the flat bread/roti with curries though the rice and dessert can be eaten with the spoons provided. At the end of the meal you are again offered to rinse hands in the bowl with the help of the water from the brass decanter.

The royal service also comes with a price, since the restaurant is more expensive than other vegetarian restaurants having Thalli meals, but of course they do offer premium experience, nice ambience and variety of dishes.

Lastly will have to say, it was a unique and interesting dining experience with different regional Indian cuisine and flavors and of course getting royally served!

Cuisine: Indian –Rajasthani & Gujrati
Rating: ****
Price Range: $$-Expensive
Website: http://www.maharajabhog.com/
Location: 8338 Southwest Freeway, Houston, TX 77074; 713-771-2464

Dishes Reviewed:
 Sangam Dhokla- a two tiered white and yellow dhokla/ lentil steamed cake
 Bhakar Vadi- a deep fried savory pinwheel snack
 Dal Dhokli- spicy flour pasta dumplings simmered in lentils dal.
 Chanch –Buttermilk
 Valor Muthiya- a Valor Beans(flat broad green beans) curry with fenugreek dumplings
 Allu Zeera/Cumin spiced potatoes
 Sweet Dal
 Spicy Dal
 Rajasthani Kadhi
 Moong sprouts
 Papad churi
 Roti- a wheat flour tortilla
 Bajra Roti- Green Millet Flour flat bread
 Moong dal halwa- split moong lentils pudding
 Rasmalai -Steamed cheese balls in sweet cream