The complete thaal, Pics/Ashish Rane

An endless iftar at Tha'l Company,
Bandra West
At the Thal Co in Bandra, the iftar meal is as extensive as it can get. "Ramzan is an auspicious month, specially because everyone fasts through the day. Each course of the thal, therefore, must complement the one before and after," says restaurateur Avinash Bhatia. The menu plays to the gallery with crowd favourites like paya, meaty leg bones — typically goat, beef or lamb — slow-cooked with spices until the marrow marries with the meat, and saat handi, made with seven items comprising pre cooked stews of paya (goat or lamb trotters), pitchhota (goat or lamb tail bones), chotta part (tenderloins), adla (shoulder, lamb), nalla (bone marrow, goat or lamb) and bheja (brain, goat or lamb) cooked on a flatbed tandoor in different pots over long hours. "I believe it's the age-old recipes passed down generation and our secretly ground spices that give the food an edge,"he says.