Home - Marryam H Reshii

About Me...

I have been writing about food and travel for longer than I care to remember. I have written for magazines and newspapers about my twin passions: food and travel. My ‘best’ meals have been the ones in palatial surroundings cooked by Michelin starred chefs, but also those of bajra rotis and ground chillies under the stars in a village in Banni, Kutch. I hope this site fully captures the sheer sweep of life from 1987 to the present times. All published articles that date before 2000 are in Vintage. All reviews of existing restaurants as well as those that have closed, are in Reviews.
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About this site

Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.
― Ruth Reichl

I first started writing as a profession in 1987. For the last 15 years, I have written exclusively about food. It is a vast subject, and my weekly column in Times of India is just one aspect of food. Ingredients, spices, utensils, regional cuisines, grandma’s secret recipes, five star hotels and their chefs, the chaat-walas in the bylanes of Delhi’s Chandni Chowk and Lucknow’s Hazratganj – all are equal contributors to this impossibly rich medley. I hope this site does justice to all of them.

Recent Articles

Good Food at Urban Nomads
October 14, 2020

Restaurants in the Time of Covid
August 19, 2020

King Kebab
August 15, 2020

The Kongunadu Chronicles
March 30, 2020

Burma Burma

Cuisine: Burmese vegetarian Blurb: a real temple, where the god is gastronomy Atmospherics: Myanmar is on the cultural, trade and culinary crossroads of Asia, so there are influences of India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia and all of these are observable in Burma Burma. It is not a rich country, however, so the vegetarian cuisine of…

The Mystery Spice, Kalpasi

The first time I heard about the mystery spice must have been around 1998. I had just started writing about food, when a youthful chef from Taj Coromandel, Chennai, came visiting Delhi for a Chettinad food festival. He showed me the spices necessary to make the iconic Chettinad chicken, and there it was, nestled amidst…

Cooking with Wild Almonds

When I walked into Zest, Delhi’s newest restaurant that has fuelled a feeding frenzy among the chattering classes, I had made up my mind that I would only sample dishes from the Middle East, Chinese and Thai sections. Well, maybe I’d give the modern European and Italian sections a try, but I’d definitely steer clear…

Sushi: At the Junction between Japan and India

It is not every day that a Japanese national moves to India to work in a Japanese company, falls in love with the country, leaves his job and decides to plunge headlong into a venture so novel that it seems almost foolhardy. Tomonaga Tejima’s big idea was to serve sushi to the local market in…

Recommendations for Srinagar, Kashmir

Most trips to Kashmir are three or four days long: much too short to sift through a jumble of poor choices. This list is a recommendation of various possibilities in Srinagar, all in the realm of eating and drinking. Do bear in mind that meals in most restaurants are likely to be tailored to tourists…

The Hong Kong Club

A cross between dining and nightclub Serves Cantonese, with a twist Atmospherics: One would not have thought that the great civilization that China is, would be up for a bit of tweaking of its food, but that is exactly what is happening in Delhi. The good news is that it is barely 5% of this…

Ten commandments for restaurateurs

Though shalt decide on a cuisine and concept before opening. Then, tempting as the idea might be, thou shalt not attempt to beef up sales by calling your Japanese hot pot restaurant a lounge bar. Thou shalt set up a restaurant serving a cuisine thou believest in. Resist the temptation to open a pub just…

Dining with the Jalalis

“Our food has influences from Delhi and Lucknow, Rampur being equidistant from both cities,” Osama Jalali greets us at the door of the restaurant where his festival is in full swing. The Jalalis are from the principality of Rampur; in fact, Osama’s wife Nazia Khan is a Rohilla Pathan, a community well represented in the…

Spice Art, Greater Noida

Serves: North Indian One of the finest Indian restaurants in the NCR Atmospherics: Rare is the Indian restaurant with two master chefs, one from Punjab and the other from the fabled Qureshi family of Lucknow. Hardev Singh is more or less the sole repository of all the most famous dhabas in Amritsar, as he has…

From Kari To Curry

Sadanand Dhume, Washington-based journalist and author once tweeted to a few of us food writers based across India. “Can you tell me how many different preparations of dal there are in India?” There was a flurry of activity that lasted two or three days, when all his interlocutors did some energetic back-of-the-envelope calculations. Each of…

Haakh or Collard Greens

No two more dissimilar cuisines could be found than Portuguese and Kashmiri, yet they have a common link: haakh. Known as collard greens, this member of the vast brassica family has a distinct personality and an even more pronounced taste, with its trademark crinkly blue-green leaves along a central stem. Collard greens, along with its close…

Chapli Kebabs

Will the real Pakistani cuisine please stand up? I have been to no fewer than four hotel food festivals featuring the cuisine of our neighbouring country, and every time the food has been so different that it has not formed a pattern. Deluxe hotels – and it is only they who have the means to…

Top Restaurants: Amaranta

Amaranth or Ram dana, is the most ancient of all Indian cereals. By calling their restaurant Amaranta, The Oberoi Gurgaon pays obeisance to the age-old grain and gives Amaranta a contemporary spin in one fell swoop. Taken in conjuction with the interiors, you would not guess that it is an Indian coastal restaurant that serves…

Cinnamon Hotels

I am always asked what my first impressions are in any destination that I visit. My most recent visit to Sri Lanka was my third visit, so I can only say what my “third impression” is: the teardrop shaped island in the Indian Ocean is poised on the brink of a huge tidal wave. It…

Taiwan

About as large as Sri Lanka, this island is one of Asia’s easternmost outposts, wedged in between China to the west, Japan in the north and the Philippines in the south. Taiwan may be best known for its computer peripherals industry, but it’s a largely undiscovered gem for those who are looking for somewhere off…

Indonesia

“Hardly any of us visit the islands of Indonesia, and that’s the only reason why the cuisine is relatively unknown in India. What other explanation can there be?” This is Suddha Kukreja’s take on Indonesian food, which has a resonance with Indian food. Both cuisines depend on long cooking times, plenty of spices and relatively…

Valley of Flavours

Leela Palace Udaipur

My first glimpse of Leela Palace Udaipur was not of the building itself, majestic as it is, but of the way the management looks after its guests. Shortly after a date for my visit was set, I received an email. Would I please list out my preferences for music, beverage and reading material. And while…

Zanotta

Serves: Italian Cuisine The most glamorous Italian restaurant in Gurugram Atmospherics: Zanotta is open only for dinner, except on the weekends when there is a famous buffet-at-the-table on Sunday lunch (Saturday has a truncated version). If you are planning to visit on Sunday afternoon, a booking is necessary: the cost to benefit ratio makes it…

Salim Kababs Khan Market Wale

After the sealing drive in Khan Market’s infamous middle lane (all you needed was three feet of vertical space and you could start a shop) quite a few little stalls found themselves out of business. The administration, in their wisdom, has decided not to sort out the manic parking, the potholed lanes or the interior…

Music & Mountains

You’ll lose yourself in the mountains Serves: western casual Atmospherics: After a day spent tramping about the city, retreat into the mountains, right in the middle of Greater Kailash Market. The (mostly retro) music is played at a low volume, the lights – that replicate candlelight – are low (you’ll have to use your cellphone…

Burmese Kitchen

It is surprising that out of all the cuisines that exist in Delhi, most come from far away geographically. Italy is hardly a close neighbour; even Thailand is a 5 hour plane ride away. We have never tried to explore the cuisines of our immediate neighbours, so although Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Myanmar have cuisines…

Alive – for the archives

VLCC is not a company that you associate with food and beverage. However, Alive is not about either health food or diet food, or even organic food. Alive is about healthy eating. Thus, all the sauces that are based on roux (butter and flour: in other words, the basic white sauce) are made with wholewheat…

Café Shunya

Blurb: The café that is going to start a healthy eating trend Cuisine: vegan, healthy, locally grown, gluten-free options Atmospherics: as small as all the single units in Cross Point Mall, this one is run by an architect couple, which explains the abundance of natural light and the optimization of space. Plus, there is an…

Indians – good, bad and ugly

On the whole, we’re a warm and hospitable bunch of people. Whether it’s a Sardar taxi driver in New York or a village woman living in a mud hut in Kutch, no stranger need fear that he’ll be dealing with an inscrutable oriental. There is, however, the flip side of the coin. We are loud…

Family Feasting and Fasting

DELHI’S FIRST FAMILY OF MUGHLAI CUISINE, THE OWNERS OF KARIM’S, HAVE TRADITIONAL TASTES AT HOME AND AT WORK The building in a narrow, sunless alley just off he imposing bulk of the Jama Masjid is just like any other in the neighbourhood. There’s nothing — absolutely nothing — to mark it as one of the…

Top of the Pops

Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor of The Telegraph, has been given the boot. “He was no good,” chortled his wife, Pamela Timms. “He just couldn’t concentrate, so we had to sack him.” On the other hand, Timms had nothing but praise for the Deputy Ambassador of Netherlands, Jeroen Roodenburg. “He could make the perfect cup…

Rohit Aggarwal: The Trekking Caterer

“I am a failed trekking caterer”, Rohit Aggarwal of Lite Bite Foods tells me, with a woebegone look on his face. I assume he is joking, and guffaw appreciatively. After all, he and Lite Bite partner Amit Burman are among the three largest players in the restaurant industry currently in India, with no private equity…

Rathin Mathur and his Hmmmutton

Rathin Mathur has been a corporate honcho with two decades of experience behind him, but, as the saying goes, there’s no tie quite as strong as that of blood. So when he comes home after a tiring day in the office, he likes to relax by exchanging his blazer for an apron and getting into…

Tikka Shatrujit Singh goes on holiday

I caught up with Tikka Shatrujit Singh of Kapurthala just as he was about to set off for yet another trip to his favourite destination, Paris. In his choice of destination, Singh is merely following in the footsteps of his illustrious grandfather, Maharaja Jagatjit Singh (1877-1949), a well-known Francophile, whose palace in Kapurthala is modeled…

What’s Cooking in Kerala

With 360 miles of coastline and over a thousand miles of backwaters, Kerala is something of a paradise for seafood aficionados. There are reminders everywhere: Rows of giant Chinese fishing nets are poised at the edge of the water near the port of Kochi and fishing boats with foamy piles of drying nets idle at…

Burbee’s

Cuisine: Café Intro: A cheery little home away from home Atmospherics: Today is the day of the impersonal restaurant, run by a bevy of hired staff. The owner is usually a business tycoon who wants a restaurant to complete his ‘bouquet’ of businesses! Well, young Lakshman and Kirti Singh are the complete opposite of that,…

Singapore Fling

Budget travellers to Singapore head happily to the thousands of hawkers centres in that city-state. Two people can have a filling meal of noodles, soup, Hainanese chicken rice or something called roti pratha, and still have change left over from Singapore $ 5. Hawkers’ centres provide variety. In the interests of fairplay, owners of a…

Malaysian on wheels

I’ve always wanted some enterprising soul to open a Malaysian restaurant in Delhi. The cuisine has more affinity with the Indian palate than, say, Thai, with its many spectacular vegetarian dishes and plenty of spice. So when I was told about Kayalan, a takeaway place started by a Malaysian citizen of Indian origin, my joy…

The Ancient Art of Kebabs

Most people read the Mahabharata for ancient wisdom. When Salma Hussain reads the age-old text, she uncovers recipes for kebabs. Kunduazizi, according to her research, is a kebab which predates the Mughal period by millennia. Its recipe? The meat of a fowl, citrus fruit for marinade, crushed black pepper for seasoning, and spit grilling as…

Drift

Drift at Gurgaon’s Epicenter is several notches up from Habitat Centre. Both are run by the same person, yet Drift has an evolved modern European menu featuring duck, sea bass and salmon, all of which are notable by their absence at IHC’s outlets. What remains the same is the cultured, arty crowd; before long, Drift…