Shopping Delhi

Reliance Retail has opened yet another grocery chain store - Reliance Fresh - in Gaur Gravity, the shopping arcade in Gaur Green City premises in Indirapuram. It is a well-stocked store with lot of fresh veggies and their sub varities, this store seemed better (and fresher) than their outlet in Shopprix in Sector-61, Noida.

Although the chain claims to offer almost all grocery items that, say, you’d get a nearby kiryana store, there still aren’t many brands or variants available. Why, you get better deals at a food bazaar (that’s about 300 mtrs from this outlet, at Shipra Mall) on most of the products - juices, rice, flour, bisquits blah! blah! But are we willing to go all the way to Shipra Mall, park… and pay for it, walk all that much and queue for billing?

The other thing lacking is fresh rice batters and non-veg items (which perhaps may not happen at all from the staunch gujju stable… but then there are A1 plazas that offer non-vegetarian food all the time everywhere). They may also get some new trollies for kids to sit…(I KNOW I am asking for too much, besides sounding like an aunty…but customer is the king and I am only expressing my right to opinion), they apparently have these very nice and fancy trollies, in which you can put these fine, good quality red baskets, but what do you do with kids?!!

All in all, the approach to this place is excellent and at least now when there is enough place for parking, this is the most hassle-free place to buy from. The staff is extremely helpful and friendly, though they can do with more cash counters. For the resource-starved Indirapuram, Subhiksha at Amrapali was quite a farce, so Reliance Fresh - makes a lot of sense.

Happened to visit both the stores at Pacific Mall to hunt for Bargain. Result : nothing impressive. Now, the thing about monsoon / summer sales in Delhi is, that summers are always around much longer than winters, hence, the desperation to clear stocks is much lesser. More so, the summer stock requires much lesser space in the godown so why sell cheap! What I deduced after spending 2 good hours in these stores, trying to make sense out of my visit, is that winter sales score over summer sales hands down.

Most of the stock is less than 20%. Some between 15-30% and very few things which the store-owners don’t want to retain and the shoppers will definitely not want, are on 50% off.

* If you go in the day-time, go to Chunmun first. Their happy hours (10% extra discount. Only on items that are on sale!) are between 11 AM - 1 PM. Ritu wears has happy hours till 3 PM.

Do not expect much, though.

Monsoon’s arrived and is showering the customary SALES all over the town.

Do write your experiences, reviews and any great achievement you’ve made during the Sale period.

You can also check the forum : http://www.shoppingdelhi.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=6

Let’s start with questions this time:

1. who would’ve thought that Rithala, beyond Rohini in Delhi has enough land to host a mall, an adventure park and a water park?
2. that Rithala Metro Station would ever see so many visitors in one day?
3. that Rithala, at all, be a sought-after destination?
4. does ‘Metro Walk’ sound like anything more than a shoe-store?
5. is it possible to have an OPEN mall, without A.C.s? and what do people do there?

If you have scored 4 or more points (one point for every NO), you are as novice as I am!

Unitech has launched Metro Walk Mall in Rohini. It is right next to Rithala Metro Station (the last point of the Shahadra-Rithala line). It is definitely one of the bigger malls around with about 2 Lakh square feet of area. The highlight of the place is that it looks like a very very posh Dilli Haat. It is not enclosed and has a street-like feel to it. Houses most of the popular stores - E-zone (Future Group’s yet another venture), Pantaloons, Nike, Reebok, Lilliput, Swiss Army etc.

Has very nice food courts and some separate eating joints - KFC, Pizza Hut, Costa Coffee, McD, FX. The food court also has a good variety - varying from chinese to mexican to pure-punjabi-ludhianvi to continental options.

There’s a beautiful man-made lake in the middle, which you cross to get to the water park.

How to reach - If you know Rohini well, it is in Sector 10. If not, reach Madhuban Chowk and follow the metro line over your head. Stop where it ends- at Rithala Station - look towards your right hand side and there it will be!

Entry to the mall is free, parking charges are Rs. 25/-. Tickets to the Amusement park cost Rs. 220 & 170 (Adult & Children respectively) on weekdays and Rs. 350 and 270 on weekends.

Contact Numbers : +91-120-4650575

This place is a great hang-out for a whole day picnic with the family. Especially in the dry dehyderated Delhi, it’s a bliss!

One more Subhiksha and probably the first one in the mushrooming concrete jungle of Indirapuram. This one is located in the market of Amrapali Green. Amrapali is situated between Mahagun Mansion and HRC , High Res Constructions (what an interesting name) and is opposite Gaur Green City.

Like all other outlets , this one is a cramped one too and as the total visitors crosses five, it starts to get suffocating, more so in a weather like these days. Subhikhsa Amrapali stores and sells vegetables, so no groceries but they do sell Milk and Bread which is a life saver since there are very very few people around who do this.

The prices are pretty competitive in general and infact far better then road-side vendors. If you want something fresh then best times are to visit them early morning, say after 9 or so. They usually stock a decent variety and the staff is cordial. Currently the only good competition they have is Big Bazaar in Shipra Mall but the usual barriers of going to any Mall would work in their advantage, though Reliance Retail would be open anytime in Gaur Gravity.

All in all, a good news for the residents of close-by apartments.