Give us this day, our daily plate

Photograph via Kailash Parbat

We’re generally given to bouts of great happiness when we’re around good food and drink. But we remember that day like yesterday when we had been served some sausages and mash in a dish that reminded us of a bedpan. Sure, enamel ware can look funky, but this was far from it. It was a sad, sad day because we couldn’t bring ourselves to eat a meal that looked like it belonged in the bog. Some of our friends at the table were amused by the rest of the dinner ware – an aluminium plate that redefined upcycled: Did the Arthur Road jail prisoners reject these?

Why can’t the best food be served in the best dinner ware?

This trend of gimmicky, bordering-on-bizarre dinner ware continues at the newly opened Kailash Parbat in Bandra, a 64-year-old restaurant that is clearly going through some senior citizen crisis. We love Kailash Parbat for its chaat and especially for its kokis, the snacky Sindhi flatbread. Nobody wants a gourmet fusion bar (we’re scared to find out whatever that maybe) from the house of Kailash  Parbat but that’s exactly what we’re getting along with food served in planters and kids’ kitchen sets and so on. We remember Central Mumbai restaurant Spice Klub serving chilli sauce in an annoying little toy pressure cooker that wouldn’t sit right. Then came the pani puris with the flavoured water filled in a syringe that had no charm to begin with and all we could think of was: What happened to cutlery that belonged on the dining table that served its purpose well? We’re joining this global movement to bring back plates at restaurants.

Pani in a syringe if you ever needed a reminder that your annual health check up was due.

If you haven’t got the memo as yet, this is it: It’s not cute and it never was.