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…
A couple that I once met in Ladakh – we were staying at the same hotel – claimed that the best hotel they had ever stayed at in their lives was Shervani Hilltop, Naini Tal. I was rather taken aback, because this couple seemed to have visited every hotspot in the world. Then I met…
The Commonwealth Games are sure to flood Delhi’s restaurants with foreign patrons. Why not take a cue from South East Asian restaurants and treat them to spot of Indian culture while they’re tucking in? Now that the Commonwealth Games are round the corner, I wonder how many hoteliers and restaurateurs have given much thought to…
The Lalit Grand Palace makes you feel like royalty in this romantic city with picturesque lakes and historic gardens. God has given a gift to romantics and it is called The Lalit Grand Palace Srinagar. The first time I caught sight of it, it was hardly visible, wrapped as it was in mist that hung…
You don’t want to visit an Indian restaurant in London?” My friend, chef Vivek Singh of Cinnamon Club, was incredulous. “That’s plain bizarre! Everyone knows that the best Indian food on the planet is in London.” It was my turn to be shocked. The whole point of visiting a new city in another country is…
For a food that is believed to have started when hungry soldiers skewered chunks of meat on their swords and held them over wood fires, the kebab has spread to countries as far afield as Greece with its gyros and Japan with its yakitori. Here are a few pointers: Whether they are made from chunk…
I have a blind spot, as everyone who knows me will readily attest: I love the homeland of my husband: Kashmir and am completely unable to separate the strands of what is Muslim and what is Pandit. To me, they are interwoven with the silken fibres of a cobweb. You have to view the cobweb…
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…
Flip through Facebook, and you’ll see that the rules of the boasting game appear to have altered slightly. Instead of your friends crowing about the Sacher Torte they enjoyed in Vienna, now it is about a Sambalpuri Thali from Orissa or an incendiary meal from Rayalseema. 2016 must go down in history as the year…
