Three months ago, when one of my neighbour had to set out on a two day train journey with his extended family of 12, he was faced with a peculiar problem. They are jain family and they did not eat onion, potato or garlic so having food from the train pantry or from stations was not an option.Nor was it possible to carry food for everyone for such a long journey.
He told us that they surfed the web and chanced upon YatraChef, an online food portal that delivers food from restaurants to travelers on trains. He told us that he first ordered a meal at home to see if it was a good ,The food passed the taste test of their family.
I love this idea so thought to share about this on my blog 🙂 For this you just have to order your food an hour or two before reached to station and have the dishes of your choice delivered to our coach.
Earlier there is no such option ,train travelers had to be content with whatever the pantry dished out,whether it was watery dal or Rubber like chapatis. But today we can break ou fast with hot idlis and vadas, have biryani for lunch and dine on pasta or noodles, all served hot from restaurants of your choice. What’s more, for vegetarians there are services that supply only pure vegetarians food.
There is a website called idlivada.com. for instance ,they brought food to various stations ,today the portal covers 160 stations across India and has delivered 15,000 orders.
There is one more portal “Mera Food Choice”(MFC) launched in January 2012 ,by software engineer which supplies only vegetarians food.however we can have different cuisines from indian ,chinese to italians ,They cover around 171 stations in India and has tied up with 300 restaurants.
Placing order on this portals is simple, You can either call a toll-free number or log onto their website. “You just enter the PNR or journey details such as boarding or destination stations,and the travel date. The website provides the route of the train as well as the time it reaches various stations. There is one more portal Yatrachef,which is based in Kochi and covers 120 stations in India. Passangers can click on the desired stations where they want food to be delivered.
These portals are convenient not for just for individuals but also for travel or tour operators and large groups of tourists, Even the government is now taking its cue from these startups, with the rail budget promising better fare that can be ordred online. 🙂