Somewhere over the Eastern Express Highway

Au00a0meal at Rainbow Thane's first luxury hotel's exclusively vegetarian restaurant promises cuisine from around the world, but perhaps they should have paid more attention to the serviceWe're not the sort to hanker after the spotlight. Really. Which is why we had a deer-caught-in-the-headlight moment as soon as we staggered into the too-bright interiors of Rainbow: Fortune Park Lake City's vegetarian restaurant.As soon as our eyes got accustomed to the light we almost wished they hadn't, given the restaurant's presumably wallpapered interiors that looked like giant Chimanlal's letter paper with their trellised patterns.u00a0Don't get us wrong though, we love handwritten notes and Chimanlal's even more, but not on the walls of a restaurant. Please.The bad taste doesn't stop with the walls. It percolates through them into the bottle green and red rexine-like upholstery on the chairs to the mosaic tiles on the floor. We said a silent prayer, hoping that the food would be better. Gobi Adraki Tandoori Butter NaanFood, glorious foodNot keen on too many choices? No problem. You have even fewer than the ones listed on the menu, considering every third item we asked for was unavailable.We ordered packaged cranberry juice (Rs 55) and a Sweet Lassi (Rs 125), which gets full marks for its Rooh Afza streaks and chopped pistachio-nuts as garnish. It tastes good too.Next, we ordered the Badam Palak Tikki (Rs 175) described as spinach flavoured roasted gram flour cakes. We still don't know what a roasted gram flour cake is though, since what we were served looked and tasted very much like spinach with a toasted almond as garnish. The tikkis are delicately spiced and cooked with very little oil, just what the dietitian recommended. The Cheesy Herbed Mushrooms (Rs 175) were not as nice. Batter-fried, squelchy mushrooms with not enough cheese can't be anyone's idea of great food.For the main course, you have the option of traipsing across the world and tucking into a baked dish or two along the way.u00a0We preferred to stay home and sample the Indian food, instead. The Gobi Adraki (Rs 225) was delicious: flavourful and oily, we had little reason to complain as we determinedly tucked in with pieces of Tandoori Butter Naan (Rs 25 for two baby naans). The Dal Makhani (Rs 225) is faintly reminiscent of a hot meal on a cold, winter's night spent sitting cross-legged on a charpoy.What problem?The food at Rainbow is good. But when you're promised a luxury dining experience, and treated instead as part of the poorly chosen furniture, it doesn't matter if you're being served food from Gordon Ramsay's kitchen.u00a0To have to flail your arms about wildly to request for a quarter plate with your starter to staff, who act like they'd much rather follow the cricket match on the plasma screen behind you, is not what we imagine Judy Garland sang about all those years ago or, at the very least, what we paid for. At: Rainbow, Fortune Park Lake City, Jupiter Hospital Premises, Eastern Express Highway, Thane (W). Call 39884422.Rainbow didn't know we were there. The GUIDE reviews anonymously and pays for meals.