Another Delhi restaurant report, another thali-based meal. As I noted recently, I use the name “Delhi” a little loosely in my restaurant reports to refer to the NCR or National Capital Region, which includes Gurgaon and Noida, which are not just separate cities but are part of different states (Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, respectively). I bring this up because the meal I am reporting on today was eaten at a restaurant in Gurgaon: at Zambar in the Ambience Mall off of National Highway 48. Even by the gargantuan scale of modern Indian malls, Ambience is particularly massive and alienating. But there were some specific things I needed to shop for and some specific things I was interested in eating and that is how I ended up eating a thali at Zambar.

Zambar opened in 2010 in Ambience (the mall itself opened in 2007). I believe it is owned by the same group that also owns Punjab Grill, among other food businesses. I’ve passed it on numerous visits to the mall in the years since and I’m not sure why I’ve never eaten there before. I do have a memory of it being a larger place than it is now. There are a couple more locations in Gurgaon and one in Malviya Nagar in South Delhi but the Ambience location remains the mothership. They serve the food of the South Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and also that of Goa. In keeping with the newer articulation of South Indian food in Delhi, their menu is not restricted to the Udupi restaurant all-stars and indeed has a fair bit of non-vegetarian food on it. You can certainly get dosas, idlis etc. there—they offer a large selection of dosas in particular—and I’m told their iterations of those things is pretty good. I, however, was interested in their thalis.

We were a group of three adults and got a table easily at 1 pm, which is quite early for lunch by Delhi standards. It’s an attractive enough space, done up in a kitschy but not over-the-top manner. When we arrived it was not particularly busy: a few tables occupied near the front and a large kitty party group near the rear (when they finished their meal they transitioned seamlessly into a session of Tambola/Housey/Bingo). By the time we were done, a little after 2 pm, they were pretty packed.

We started with light drinks: a fresh lime soda, a masala soda and a buttermilk and got down to perusing the menu. My companions also decided to get thalis. There are three of these available. A veg thali for Rs. 799, a non-vegetarian thali (chicken and mutton) for Rs. 899 and a seafood thali at Rs. 1199. All are unlimited. Nominally you get to choose between appams and parottas (along with the rice) but in practice you can get both (on account of the unlimited thing). We got one of each thali, the non-veg being my order.

The thalis showed up with some alacrity. As you would expect there’s a fair bit of overlap among the three. All include rasam, sambar, dahi-vada, a thoran (beetroot on the day) and dessert (pineapple kesari on the day) plus appalams and chutney to start and rice and appam/parotta to accompany. The veg thali has a fried veg appetizer (mixed veg in gram flour), the non-veg thali has a chicken fry appetizer and the seafood thali has fish fry appetizer. The veg thali has two different veg curries, the non-veg has a chicken curry and a mutton curry, and the seafood thali has a fish curry and a prawn curry.

My chicken curry and mutton curry were both tasty enough as were the things I tasted from the other two thalis. I think our consensus favourite item was the beetroot thoran that was on all the thalis, and the sambar was quite nice too. None of us were fans of the pineapple kesari (I have some thoughts about the situation with South Indian desserts writ large but I will keep them to myself for fear of fomenting communal tension).

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.

Service was fine. The total with tax and included service charge came to just about Rs. 4000 or about $47 (or $16/head). That’s not a cheap meal in Delhi but seems like pretty good value for what you get, especially considering the thalis are unlimited. I didn’t find any of the food to be particularly special but I wouldn’t be opposed to trying more of the a la carte menu on future trips.

Okay, my next Delhi food report might actually feature a non-thali meal. I might have that up on Thursday or Friday but certainly no later than the weekend.