Dal tadka / dal fry (restaurant)

One serving of Dal tadka / dal fry (restaurant) — 1 katori — comes to 181 kcal, 7 g protein, 18 g carbs and 9 g fat. Scaled to 100 g it works out to 121 kcal and 4.7 g protein, which makes it not a meaningful protein source on its own for a restaurant plate item. That single serving is about 12.1% of a 1,500 kcal day and 9.1% of a 2,000 kcal day, so it's more of a filler than a target-hitter on protein without much extra planning.

Walking off Dal tadka / dal fry (restaurant) takes roughly 4,525 steps, using the rough approximation of 0.04 kcal burned per step (a population-average estimate for a moderate walking pace, not a personalised number). At ₹120 a serving it costs about ₹342.9 for every 20 g of protein it delivers, which is a mid-to-high price for protein compared with dal, eggs or soya chunks. It fits a vegetarian or eggetarian or non-vegetarian diet. It works at lunch and dinner.

If you want variety without changing the macros much, the closest swaps in the restaurant plate category are Butter naan, Chole chawal (plate), Dal chawal (plate), Office tiffin: 3 roti + dal + sabzi — each keeps a similar role on the plate while shifting the exact protein-to-carb balance a little.