�YOU cannot visit Jaipur and not have a meal at Niros!� That�s what every citizen of this capital city will tell you. Never mind that what you want to eat is traditional Rajasthani food. And not Continental Fish-n-Chips and Chinese Shredded Chicken in Oyster Sauce. �For that you will have to go to a Marwari house,� growls 77-year-old Ved Prakash Pardal, who started Niros in 1949 after working for many years in Delhi�s Kwality Restaurant on Parliament Street. �Here, you must have Continental food. Or Chinese, our Chinese food is the best in Jaipur, and we were the first restaurant offering this cuisine in Rajasthan.�

It pays, of course, that your restaurant is mentioned in all the world�s tourist guide books. Especially Lonely Planet. And that your food is so close to authenticity, and your menu has as many as 300 dishes, that foreigners tell you the meal they�ve had was more than like what they get at home. But it was not always like that. Ved Prakash, who comes from Jhelum in Punjab (�the same district that gave us Hotelier M. S. Oberoi�), had to work hard to make Niros the No. 1 restaurant in Jaipur.

In the 1950s, people didn�t go to restaurants. I had to cultivate customers. But the response was good. Our chefs have always been terrific. And the service, personalised. Plus, we advertised separate kitc- hens and a separate team of chefs for all the cuisines, Continental, Chinese, Indian, in that, Rajasthani, North Indian and Tandoori. People who had been eating so-so food in Jaipur, were happy to be here. Word spread by mouth. We�ve got four generations of customers now. All the prominent Marwari families, the ruling families of Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, they are all regulars,� he says.

Indeed, they are. On his website (nirosindia.com), Ved Prakash Pardal has put up a page of all the celebrity diners who come regularly to Niros, and what they have to say about the food, ambience and service here. �Five decades of customers,� he says, �people from all nationalities, with varying taste buds, and not a single dissatisfied person!�

The comments are from American governors, senators, international airline managers, bankers, television show hosts, Michelin chefs, restaurateurs, cricketers, film stars. �They come to Jaipur and stay at Raj Vilas, at the Taj�s Rambagh Palace, but the guide books bring them here. So many come for spicy Indian food! Tourists� taste buds are changing. Indian food is popular in Europe, in USA, and we get foreigners who come and ask straightaway for the �Spicy Lal Maas�.�

He is still hands-on about most things in Niros but runs the restaurant with his son, Rajneesh, a B.Com graduate who started working there in the kitchen at Rs. 350 a month. Rajneesh is a whiz at cooking and has introduced most of the items on the menu. �Dad knows best,� he swears, �he can tell by just looking at a dish, by noting its colour, whether some ingredient�s missing. And by tasting it, he guides the chefs.� Are they happy with being the No. 1 restaurant in Jaipur? �Yes,� says old Ved Prakash Pardal, �but the Loney Planet... it described us as an �upbracket restaurant�. That we are, but we are not expensive.�