Here I am with my fourth restaurant report of the week and my second from my brief sojourn in Delhi in March this year. I didn’t eat out very much on that visit and have already reported on both of those meals: at Bhansaghar in Humayunpur and at the newest location of Carnatic Cafe in Gurgaon. This report too comes to you from Gurgaon, and also features South Indian food. Though, unlike at Carnatic Cafe, the menu at Mustard Madras features a lot of meat and also has sections that feature North Indian and Indian Chinese favourites. I’d not heard of Mustard Madras before I looked for a place where I might find a South Indian thali in Gurgaon with meat on it. It turns out they are a mini-chain with one location in Noida and three in Gurgaon (none in Delhi so far and none anywhere else). Of the three Gurgaon locations, the one in the Cyber Hub complex was closest to me on the day and so it was there I went for an early lunch.
There are roughly 5000 restaurants in Cyber Hub and not being a habitué of this hellhole, it took me a while to find Mustard Madras (Google Maps is not very useful here). But find it I did. I went up and in to find a quite large and quite attractive restaurant. I hope for their sake that weekday lunch picks up dramatically closer to the peak Delhi lunch hour of 2 pm and at dinner and weekends for there were only two other tables occupied when I arrived at 12.30. I had my pick of tables and quickly got down to perusing the menu.
The menu says that they specialize in Andhra and Chettinad dishes but you can find nods to other parts of South India on it as well (and also the aforementioned Indian Chinese and North Indian sections). There was much on it that looked attractive but, dining alone, it was to be a thali for me. There are a number of thali options on the menu and I picked the one most matched to my gluttonous desires: the Murugan Non-Veg Thali. This features a large number of dishes (see the slideshow below for details) and makes an arresting presentation. I’m also happy to say that all of it was quite tasty even if none of it sent me into raptures. But, you know, quite tasty is very nice to experience as well (on my more recent trip to Delhi in July I had a very “not tasty” encounter at an Andhra restaurant elsewhere in Gurgaon, which I may or may not write up later). Oh yes, the thali normally ends with filter coffee but they were happy to swap that out for masala chai for me (I don’t drink coffee).
Non-veg South Indian is clearly an expanding niche in the Delhi NCR and a number of these places have been opening up in Gurgaon in particular in recent years. The best comparison for a place like Mustard Madras is probably a place like Zambar in the Ambience Mall (not a million miles away). Mustard Madras’ Murugan Thali was priced the same as the non-veg thali at my lunch at Zambar in December 2024 but featured a quite lot more dishes. It’s true that at Zambar the thalis come with unlimited refills on everything but it’s not like I would have been able to eat a morsel more after demolishing the Murugan Thali.
For a look at the restaurant, the menu and everything on my thali, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.
Service was very solicitous without being overbearing. Cost? The thali was Rs. 899. A bottle of mineral water, a 5% service charge and tax brought the total up to Rs. 1027 or just below $11 at the current exchange rate. (I added a little more cash to the tip.) Not bad at all for a meal this large and varied in this location. I don’t know that I’d be in a huge hurry to go back soon but would happily eat here again if necessary. I guess that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement but you can do much worse in Gurgaon—and, as I noted above, in July, I did.
Alright, I’m going to try to get one more Seoul report out tomorrow. Let’s see how it goes.