This is not a recommendation of the best in Delhi: it is just my private list, one that I have carried along from childhood/adolescence/young adulthood. So, all the places have been around at the very least since 1980! 1. Bom Bay Bhelpuri, Sundernagar (at the corner of the park). Shri Bhajan Lal and his son…
Think about Kashmiri food and the first thing that comes to mind is the justly famous wazwan. However, try eating it for two consecutive meals and you’ll be laid up in bed for a week thereafter, so heavy is it. Indeed, most visitors to Kashmir have no difficulty finding the ristas and gushtabas of a…
“You can find a diamond in a coal mine,” beams the genial Rajeev Mittal of Mittal Tea House, Lodi Colony, New Delhi”just the way you can discover white tea on a regular bush.” White tea – it’s not really white, but very pale green and its leaves are long and pointed – is, quite simply, the…
What is the spiciest dish you’ve ever eaten? I’ll bet you’re thinking only of fiery hot red chillies. Yet, other things than chillies can blast off the top of your head. Japanese wasabi paste comes to mind. Korean cuisine has a yellow mustard that’s ear-burning too. I was once invited to a Korean banquet where…
The phrase “spoilt for choice” takes on an altogether different connotation for three weeks every April in Singapore. That is when the World Gourmet Summit is on, with 73 events packed into 21 days. I was there for a modest two days and could not make up my mind whether to attend a gala lunch…
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…
I seem to be in a minority of one. My belief is that chawanmushi, hormok and dab chingri are all related to one another. Everyone else that I have spoken to about my pet theory has heaped scorn on me and told me not to be a fool. ‘Everyone’ includes chefs from the Far East,…
Salon International de l’Alimentation, better known as SIAL, just concluded in Villepinte, Paris. No matter where you looked, you couldn’t have missed the Indian contingent, and I’m not referring to exhibitors like Satnam Overseas. We were a motley bunch of executive chefs and F & B Managers, importers and food writers, looking at what France…
Am I alone in thinking of West Delhi as a gastronomic treasure trove? I’ll happily by-pass Chandni Chowk and its culinary offerings for a day of roaming the area that lies between Karol Bagh and Rajouri Garden. Here’s where you’ll find dhaba owners who are virtually unknown in all but the neighbouring localities. Take Sindhi…
What makes the Kashmiri wazwan the culinary masterpiece that it is? There are several answers. The first one is that it is only in the cool climes of the Valley that you can eat around a kilo of lamb over a dozen courses and actually enjoy it. Then too, it is fiendishly difficult to replicate…