If you are weary of bad pantry food -the rubbery paranthas and watery dal -you can now order interesting fare online, and have it delivered piping hot at stations.

Three months ago, when Mumbaikar Hiten Shah had to set out on a two-day train journey with his extended family of 13, he was faced with a peculiar problem. The Jain family did not eat onion, potato or garlic so having food from the train pantry or from stations was not an option. Nor was it possible to carry food for everyone for such a long journey.

Desperate to find a solution, he surfed the web and chanced upon YatraChef, an online food portal that delivers food from restaurants to travellers on trains. "We first ordered a meal at home to see if it was good," says 51-year-old Shah. The food passed the taste test and the Shahs' journey turned out to be a breeze, as they could call in their orders an hour or two before they reached a station and have the dishes of their choice delivered to their coach.

Till a few years ago, train travellers had to be content with whatever the pantry dished out, whether it was watery dal or cardboard-like chapatis. But today you can break your fast with hot idlis and vadas, have biryani for lunch and dine on pasta or noodles, all served hot from restaurants of your choice. What's more, for finicky vegetarians there are services that supply only pure vegetarian or Jain food. Take idlyvada.com, for instance, which was launched by Chennai-based Dinesh Kumar in August 2013. He got the idea in 2008 when his sister got married. "About 200 people were travelling from Chennai to Kolkata. I contacted friends in different parts of the country and they brought food to various stations where we stopped," says the 34-year-old. Today, the portal covers 160 stations across India and has delivered 15,000 orders.

Mera Food Choice (MFC), launched in January 2012 by software engineer Piyush Suresh Kasliwal, supplies only vegetarian food. "However, you can have different kinds of cuisine ­ from Indian to Italian or Chinese," says 31-year-old Kasliwal, whose service covers 171 stations in India and has tied up with 300 restaurants. "At each location, we have multiple restaurants so if one can't fill the order, another will," he says. MFC has served 2.5 lakh people so far.

Placing your order on these portals is simple. You can either call a toll-free number or log onto their website. "You just enter the PNR or journey details such as boarding or destination stations, and the travel date. The website pro vides the route of the train as well as the time it reaches various sta tions," says Rameez Ashraf, co founder of YatraChef, which is based in Kochi and covers 120 stations in India. Passengers can click on the desired station where they want food to be delivered. "We also have a highly intelligent ordering platform which splits and sorts up the menu according to breakfast, lunch and dinner based on the time the train passes the station," says Ashraf. This ensures that no orders placed will have to be cancelled because a customer ordered a food which isn't available at that particular time."

The minimum order usually depends on the restaurant of choice and orders have to be placed an hour or two before de livery. While you can pay on delivery, some services insists on some amount being paid in advance where large group bookings are concerned. These portals are convenient not just for individuals but also for travel or tour operators, and large groups of pilgrims or tourists. S Kumaravel, a 25-year-old businessman from Coimbatore, uses them regu larly. "When I plan tours for large groups consisting of 40 people, who are undertaking long train journeys, I book online and pay 50% in advance and the rest on delivery," he says. "It is really convenient.

Even the government is now taking its cue from these startups, with the rail budget promising better fare that can be ordered online. So while the dining car may have had its heyday, passengers no longer have to rail against the food.