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Comment by hiyer | Hacker News Reader

> The 23-year-old earns 8,000 rupees a month ($125) for her work. That’s what her employers can expect to pay for a single “date night” out at one of the city’s finer restaurants.

Even in 2021 (article is from 2017) this is an exaggeration. You can have dinner for 2 at a five-star hotel in Delhi for less than half that amount, unless you're splurging on the drinks.

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I was surprised by this statement as well. I think the author wanted to paint a picture how miserable things are. Things definitely are difficult for them financially. The prices stated however is bit too over exaggerated. A dinner that starts at $47 in India is something would have made me think 10 times before going for it. You can have a really good dinner for two at 10$ at a nice restaurant in India.

A dinner at an expensive hotel in Mumbai, an expensive city cost me 5k. I really couldn't imagine paying more than that. The author was exaggerating for effect, claiming 8k was typical. It's much more likely to be 1-1.5k.

I don’t think that’s accurate - I remember being in Delhi circa 2010 and dinners at the nice hotels coming to something close to this amount, albeit with (not outrageous) wine.

I actually went and pulled up the menu for one of the restaurants at the Taj Palace, a place I know well, and an app and entree picked at random came to $73, easily crossing the $125 mark for two without dessert or any beverages.

You can check the menu for Machan hotel from the Taj Palace here [0]. The most expensive item on the menu (a seafood grill, which is probably not a single-person dish) is around $30, and there are plenty of dishes in the sub-$20 range. I've eaten in several five-star hotels in India from various chains (Taj, ITC, Trident, etc) in various cities (Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata). Excluding drinks, I can't recall paying over Rs. 2500 before tax for 2. It helps that my SO and I are both vegetarian, but even non-vegetarian would only cost around 50% more. Drinks - especially hard liquor - are crazy expensive though, and will easily cost you Rs. 1000+ including tax for even a single large drink or cocktail.

0. https://www.eazydiner.com/delhi-ncr/machan-the-taj-mahal-hot...

Just to add, these are five-star restaurants we're talking about it. While I am privileged enough to be able to afford them, even I don't eat at such places more than 2-3 times an year if that. At very good non-five-star restaurants (where the food is arguably better if you ask me) you can have a meal for two for under Rs. 2000 including tax. One of my favourites in the NCR region is 21 Gun Salute in Gurgaon [0]. And at a chain like Haldiram's [1], which is where most Indians including me would go for a normal weekend outing, you can have a meal for 2 for under Rs. 500.

0. https://www.zomato.com/ncr/21-gun-salute-sector-29

1. https://www.haldiram.com/about

I mean - we're talking about different hotels. Here's the menu from orient express from Taj Palace:

https://www.tajhotels.com/content/dam/luxury/hotels/taj-pala...

Obviously, I realize you have a lot more experience with a wide variety of places, I was just making a comment that the contention from the article is at least plausible.

I don't deny that it's possible. If you're having champagne and caviar on your date you're definitely going to run a bill of over Rs. 10k. But the author claims that 8k is a typical expense for a date night out, which is absurd.

I pay half that for dining out in Amsterdam.

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