Bakasura thali trending on FB now in Mangaluru

MANGALURU: Want a feast, then Bakasura Thali would be the right choice! But alas, this vegetarian thali costing Rs 1,500 and served at Hotel Ocean Pearl here is a figment of somebody's fertile imagination.
The Bakasura thali photos started appearing on Facebook three months ago and got a second lease of life on WhatsApp. The footnote at the bottom of the picture said: 'Seven salads, 55 food items, over 12 items of sweets, 15 types of rotis, ice cream and butter milk.Price Rs 1,500.' The price is astounding since for that amount, you can get lunch or dinner for two at a three-star hotel here.
When the Ocean Pearl hotel received over a thousand calls during this period, the hotel management decided to cash in on the inadvertent publicity and will introduce a thali for Rs 501 around mid-April.
Hotel general manager BN Girish said: "We kept receiving three or four calls every day and that really got us thinking. We plan to introduce a thali which will have a lot of items but priced at one-third the fictitious thali."
This thali evinced interest from foodies from all over India. "If enquiries had come only from this region, maybe we wouldn't have done anything about it. We started receiving calls from Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru and when we said we didn't have such a thali, they were disappointed. No one was talking about the price -- they just wanted to experience the thali,'' said Girish.
So what will this special thali have? "The usual thali, which costs Rs 90, has 15 items including rice, rotis and sweets. For the yet-to-named thali, we'll have at least six varieties of rotis, rice, chutneys, sweets and ice cream. It's something like one bite per item. We don't know what exactly is there in the fictitious thali, but looking at it, we'll try and recreate it,'' he said.