Remember the times you’ve spent waiting for trains on platforms, sitting perhaps on suitcases or (if you’re lucky) rusty half broken chairs, sipping cheap tasteless ‘chai’ with equally cheap snacks praying for time to pass more quickly. This is an adaptation of same scenario. But in the prettiest and most creative style plausible.

Tea Junction falls on the 100 ft road nearer to the University road end. The sign board is enough to get you curious from a distance. I bet you if you see it, you wouldn’t be able ignore it.

The stairs seem dilapidated and the building looks like a ghetto from that side of the complex, but once you start ascending there’s no end to the series of interesting surprises you are enrolled to receive.

The interior is designed to give picture to your sweetest memories.

The seats, the ceiling fans, the doors to the Kitchen and the Bathroom, the girders clinging innocently to pillars and the reception counter; everything falls in the Railway system emulation category. And this is just about the ambience.

Their specialty isn’t just in copying Railways. No! They acclaim to have mastered the art of presenting 240 different types of tea in their restaurant!

To give you an idea about the restaurant, I have included some pictures of the same. To give you idea about the food, here goes the review.

We were two of us. We were given two totally different Menus: one contained only tea, and the other contained only snacks to go along with the tea. Because the weather had been particularly hot, we didn’t feel like ordering a hot tea, so I apologize for the inconvenience.

Oh and while we were ordering, an announcer’s voice was ringing in the hall, bolting the seated into silent giggles of reminiscence.

Red Bull Tea

In my circle, we love fantasizing about Red Bull. I don’t love it totally, but seeing it featured with tea was an invitation I couldn’t walk away from. I ordered it almost instantly.

Red Bull and tea were distinguishable, and if you can get past the Red Bull’s taste, the tea will kick in real fast. I absolutely loved it and as the Menu said, it did wake me up from the eternal sleep!

If you love Red Bull, this one’s for you.

Naughty Chocolate Chai

Yes, chocolate with tea. This was served with whipped cream on top to sweeten it for the greedy. This rocked me up more than Red Bull tea. There is something about Chocolate that makes me go weak in my knees. I don’t like tea generally, but this was a treat.

I highly recommend this tea to everyone. Oh and beware, don’t you order hot chocolate tea instead!

Chai is never done without pakodas, they had it on the Menu, and we ordered it on the plate!

Pakodas

This was the first time I’ve ever had pakodas in a restaurant. I wasn’t disappointed at all. They served five types of pakodas: Onion, capsicum, chilly, potato and cauliflower. The pudina chutney as a chaperone did well.

The pakodas were coated with masala, and weren’t oily like the ones we usually get outdoors. And because we’ve had pakodas innumerable times before and because our sweet mothers make them better than anyone else, this dish shouldn’t be reviewed. They were good though.

Penne Pasta with White Cheese Sauce

Maybe because by now we were impressed by the quality of service we were getting, the pasta seemed wonderful as well. I can’t find a flaw. The cheese strings bothering us every time we tried helping ourselves was part of the charm. The white cheese sauce was delicious and the pasta was perfectly boiled. I would recommend having this once.

Cookies

This is another speciality of the shack. Cookies prepared with tea leaves are my new favourite. They served us Chocolate cookies, Coconut cookies and Cookies with tea leaves. I loved them all!

I highly recommend this to the readers, apart from the tea do try their cookies as well. Ask for the tea leaves cookies though!

Meri Desi Maggi

I would have loved to write about this with the same enthusiasm but every restaurant isn’t perfect right?

Maggi is again something that can’t ever be good enough. Perfect for any occasion, this maggi wasn’t as fantastic. The noodles were undercooked. Though the veggies were complete, something felt lacking there.

I would have wanted it to be more delectable, but it totally went with the theme. It’s up to you to order it when you visit them yourself.

Mango Tea

I couldn’t just leave with one tea, could I?

Mango tea was again an iced tea. There wasn’t any mango pulp, like I had imagined and the tea itself wasn’t as fierce as the previous two. It was mild, pleasant and joyous.

Though I know this is also a new preparation for us, this tea wasn’t as exciting. It can be skipped.

After being done with the most unusual experience of tea making us have a good time, we were read for the Bill. It came out to be a moderate Re 539. The teas were Re 90 on average and the pakodas were Re 50. Pasta was relatively expensive at Re 145. Merimaggi stood at Re 55 and the assorted cookies at Re 40.

If you like tea, please visit them once. You won’t be disappointed.

If you have kids, take them there. All kids love rails!

And if you are on a date with a special person or on a family outing, this place will still suit your needs.

Oh and do meet with the head of operations, Naveen Vaishnav. He’ll love to help you out.

As we said before, please mail us if you have a restaurant which you would like to be reviewed.  And stay tuned with Lifestyle section. Have a happy weekend.