a journey to 'chambal'

yesterday being a sunday (guys, i am writing with reference to IST), it was an opportunity to break away from my dull, dreary routine and head out to have fun with friends. One of my pals from IIM Lucknow, Rajesh who is currently into his last week of summer training at Rohtak, my pals in TCS - Chetak and ishan, my pal from Sandvik Sanam, and my pal from Lexorbis, Sunil (Dipsy) and of course myself had a get together at Hotel Saravana Bhawan, Connaught Place (CP).
Saravana Bhawan (SB) is a well known brand name down south in Tamil Nadu.(at least thats what i have heard, having lived in bangalore/surathkal for nearly 20 years, i know of only udupi hotels).
With such a solid reputation inscribed in its name, we decided to give the 'neo-rich' establishments of gurgaon a skip and try out some classic south indian menu. The initial entry into SB was mouth watering indeed. Having been used to mess food/self cooked food/company canteen food for days together, we were dying to have a bite at the temple of S Indian food. Our first shock was the way he rava idlis turned out to be. they were pretty bad, lacking the 'zing' that a steaming hot idli should ideally give you. The next shocker was the bland tasting masala dosa which had a very very poor masala content (in fact i should say none). Down south this guy would have been skinned alive for even daring to think of such a preparation. Then what followed was South Indian paranthas, the size of marie biscuits. all that i can say at this moment is:
all i want is english marie
oh! so english! the real marie!
crispy, crunchy ooooh!!!
This ladies and gentlemen was 'twilight' robbery. It felt as if I was naked in the Chambal valley having been robbed off all my belongings. The conclusions that I could draw from this was that SB is making a fool out of people in Delhi taking advantage of either their ignorance of south indian food (ppl who fall into this category: N Indians) or their desperation for S Indian food (the case with expatriate S Indians). Whatever it is, SB is one place that will never be patronised by me.