Our evening meal in Jaipur was a bit of an adventure. Most of our travel group decided to dine in a swank and very expensive palace in the more well-to-do part of the city. They had to dress appropriately for the formal occasion. 

A few of us, on the other hand, asked Perry, our CEO, if he knew of any place that was even more exclusive. He knew of just the place and led us to Ghani Motors, an old garage whose employees worked on restoring vintage cars through the day. After dark they washed up and pushed the rusted autos aside to make room for two rickety tables that they placed over a large grease spot in the floor. They then became chefs and servers for us -- their very exclusive diners -- three Brits and three Canucks. While a few of the grease monkeys prepared the kitchen in the back -- the servers placed some well-worn plastic chairs around the tables and brought out paper plates and plastic forks.

We were issued a well-used photocopied menu and after placing our food orders we had a chance to try out the vintage autos. When we were given a shout that that our food was ready, we parked the car and took our seats around the tables. The food was hot and quite good -- a variety of kabobs and wraps washed down with coca cola sipped from the bottle. 

While we ate, we noticed that we had an audience standing around us. There were more servers than diners. The servers/mechanics eyed our food hungrily -- they appeared almost as hungry as the bevy of scruffy cats that took their places under the table and beside our chairs. 

The Ghani staff were all very friendly and gave us a warm send off after the meal. They led us out to the alley where they had summoned two tuk-tuks to take us back to our hotel. During our wild ride back through the congested night traffic we discussed the feasibility of opening a similar exclusive restaurant back home :)