Bite the Bullet

A restaurant on the Mumbai-Pune highway is giving away Royal Enfield motorbikes to customers who can polish off a huge thali

This writer had once attempted finishing what was called a Dara Singh Thali at a Powai eatery. It involved a humongous steel plate filled with over 40 dishes, which you’d get for free if you polished it off in under an hour. The effort, to put it bluntly, had been an even bigger failure than the Australian team at the Gabba Test. We’d put our hands up way before the halfway mark, our insides ready to burst if we’d had another mouthful.

Somnath Pawar, the only person to have finished the thali

That’s why we know what a feat it will be to finish the Bullet Thali that’s now available at Hotel Shivraj, a restaurant in Vadgaon on the Mumbai-Pune Highway. Here’s what it has: a half mutton handi, half chicken handi, four pieces each of chicken legs, surmai fry and pomfret fry, mutton soup, four bowls of sukat (a dry shrimp chutney), kolambi biryani, four bhakris and papad pieces, and sol kadi. Some people might get palpitations just reading that list. But owner Atul Waikar tells us that around 70 brave souls have given it a shot till date, hoping to win a Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle from his personal collection, the prize for wiping that plate clean within 60 minutes.

The Royal Enfield Bullet bikes that are up for grabs

He adds that the thali was originally created for four people, and that he decided to host this challenge to lure in customers after the lockdown affected his business. “The restaurant was shut for six months and even after reopening in November, we are still not getting the same volume of customers that we are used to,” he says. The thali has now created a buzz about the place, though Waikar hasn’t attempted finishing it himself. “Main akela kaise khaunga?” the man reasons.

Atul Waikar

But has anyone actually managed to achieve the impossible? Is there actually a real person who can eat as much as the fictional character of Obelix? Don’t fall off your seat, but the answer is yes. His name is Somnath Pawar. “He came to have the thali and finished it in 55 minutes. He’d created another record earlier where he’d had five kilos of mutton in under an hour, but that was at a different place,” Waikar tells us. It means that Pawar drove away with the Bullet bike after his meal. But still, someone please find this person and give him a medal on our behalf as well.

Till: January 26, 10 am to 10.30 pm
At: Hotel Shivraj, Vijay Nagar Colony, Vadgaon.
Call: 9561929999
Cost: Rs 2,500

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