Fear and other emotions are alien to a generation of Kashmiri youth who grew up under the shadow of militancy.. In 1991, when militancy was at its peak, Omar Jan was three years old. It was the year I got married and travelled to Kashmir as a bride. Before that, my visits to Kashmir had…
When Chef Dharamvir of Taj Palace went to Istanbul on a study course, the last thing he expected to find there were pizzas. Yet, scarcely any street corner was free of a pizza joint. Called lahmacun locally, totally unlike the Italian version, Turkish pizzas are much thicker and the fillings were much more India-friendly. The…
Kings in the medieval period had a fool-proof method of checking out public opinion against them: they would go in disguise to the markets and strike up conversations with the man on the street. ITPO would do well to take a leaf out of the royal book, because every time FHRAI magazine went to a…
Food personality, wedding caterer, TV show host and restaurateur – Marut Sikka’s larger-than-life personality dominates the garden restaurant in the slightly out of the way Garden of Five Senses. It is supposed to be a de-stressing zone with soft music, heaters in winter and mist fans in summers to take the edge of Delhi’s infamously…
If life in Sarita Vihar has one problem, it is the scarcity of restaurants in the vicinity. There are dhabas and tiny take-away restaurants in each market, but restaurants? Dear me, no! Which is why Capital Curry next door in Jasola is a welcome addition to the landscape. Small but fairly well-appointed, it is about…
Sometimes, projects that are outside South Delhi hit the jackpot faster: you don’t have to cut through layers of pretence for one. Melting Pot is a new-look food-court atop a mall in Shalimar Bagh that includes a coffee lounge at one end, bar at another and a kids’ play area in a third. I visited…
Ignore the decidedly non-serious name. This stylishly appointed restaurant in the heart of New Friends Colony Market has a first to it: the cuisine is Singaporean Chinese, one of the few types of Chinese food that is consonant with our palate, yet one that frequently gets overlooked in favour of classical Cantonese. One of the…
It is the largest hospitality industry trade show in North India, and it is a perfect mirror of the trends in the market. A couple of years ago, Ahaar was full of ice cream machines that had been made in India, inspired by Italian gelati machines. Every second stall showcased imported commercial gelati mixes. This…
The tiny, narrow staircase in the Outer Circle of Connaught Place, opposite Super Bazar, does not do justice to an interesting new restaurant cum club with a surprisingly high focus on food. The menu is a fresh look at the cuisines of the Mediterranean world, in which there’s conventional restaurant seating in one area, a…
Young, trendy and though it’s not pretending to be authentic, the flavours are all spot on, albeit in surprising combinations. Atmospherics: in a mall (whether that is a plus or a minus is your perception largely) with indoor casual seating and a charming ‘outside’ area that replicates the outdoorsy feeling of a terrace without actually…
