Speaking to Deccan Herald, executive chef on board Deepak Chaubey said, “This is a once in a life time experience for me. Having worked in the best of the five star hotels, I realised that not even the best chef in the world will be willing to accept an assignment like this.”

There are seven persons assisting Chaubey on the train and five are called chef-de-partie with each one capable of dishing out south Indian, north India, continental and other types of cuisine. The team includes Annappa Shetty, Kumar Bhist, Pradeep Kumar, Babri, Rabindra Debnath, Rajeev Kumar and Chand Babu.

The planning has to be 100 per cent as the storage area is limited. During the trial run of the train Chaubey found that Gadag had the best fruit and vegetable market he had seen anywhere. “If the quality of raw material is good then the end product will be good. Paneer from a bakery in Hospet that we bought was so soft, it was better than the one served in a five star hotel. Hence, we need to do a lot of research,” he said.

The cooking is done in induction cooker and combination oven and boiling, poaching, baking, roasting, grilling according to the tourists’ satisfaction is done here. “These equipments are very useful as sequence wise we can finish cooking very fast. Salads, soups, dessert is all ready in no time to serve,” he said.

However, the biggest challenge is to cater to the mixed clientele of foreigners and Indians. If it is only one type of tourists, say the foreigners travelling, then the job of the chef becomes easy, said Chaubey.

There are plans to introduce low calorie food in the future and also have cooking demonstration to the guests.

Housekeeping
The toughest part is to satisfy the whims and fancies of the luxury tourists and the train is fully geared up with house keeping manager Sanjay Gaekwad in charge. Having worked in hotels, hospitals, MNCs and resorts, he feels that this again is a very different kind of challenge.  He is in charge of almost 17 coaches and the guest satisfaction is his motto. He has 10 boys under him. When guests go to visit places, all the cabins are cleaned to perfection. “This will go a long way in guests doing publicity for us,” said Gaekwad.

The toughest assignment straightaway faced on the maiden run was to deliver clean set of clothes in Goa. “Being a Sunday, everything is closed in Goa. I had to search for a washerman. Finally I found one, got the clothes cleaned and by evening it was ready. That is the level of guest satisfaction we look at,” he said.