My obsession with these ultra-soft kababs that have martian craters named after them have been documented repeatedly in this blog, but luckily more places continue to appear at regular intervals to add my my supply of stories. The droolworthy picture above is from Sanjiv Khamgaonkar’s article in CNNGO about Mumbai’s best Kabab. Guess who won?... Continue Reading →
Kakori has always enjoyed name recognition. It was once a prosperous hamlet known for poets, civil servants, kababs and mangoes; then a train robbery made the place worthy of an Amir Khan movie. Kakori even went interplanetary in 1976 – for some unknown reason a crater on Mars is named after it. Of late, however,... Continue Reading →
This Saturday, I was faced with two small onions and a kilo of frozen chicken. Onion always bring do piaza to mind. The dish has a nice historic tale of its own – it is traceable to Mulla, one of Akbar’s Navratnas, a commoner who had worked his way through the imperial poultry farm to... Continue Reading →
Lucknow's famous kabab's are not easy to get in Mumbai. I've already talked about some restaurants in Lucknow in Mumbai, Lucknow and Smoke and Lucknow Again but a new entrant has now made the list. Of all places, a roadside eatery outside my office catering mainly to Mindspace's call-centre hordes has started selling Kakori kababs... Continue Reading →
Ferran Adria made foams famous, but Indians may have beaten him to it by a few hundred years. Many years ago, my cousin was posted in Agra, and she used to buy something called Makhan from a sweet shop nearby. It was one of the most wonderful things I'd ever had - essentially an almost... Continue Reading →
I finally went to the other place - Lazzat-e-Lucknow. It is now no longer on my list of must-tries. I have - it may be officially stated - tried it. I tried, in particular the gilawati (in both kabab and roll versions), the seekh (in the roll version, though I did extract and eat some... Continue Reading →
I must post an update on Avadhi food. Versova, that new mecca of eating options in Mumbai, has not one but two restaurants boasting of Lucknow connections. My cycle trips to one (that I discovered through an unexpected google search) led me to go past the other so two birds, one stone and all that.... Continue Reading →
Everyone raves about food from Lucknow, but in Mumbai its really difficult to find any competent version of it outside the fivestar hotels. The Bandra Copper Chimney and Sun-N-Sand's Kabab Hut were both influenced by Ishtiyaque Qureshi into churning out impeccable nawabi khana, but one has closed and the other, though still serving good stuff,... Continue Reading →
When hunting for great food in the bylanes of Kolkata in my teenage years, one thing that we would often go looking for was the famed mutton rezala. Aminia, Nizam and many other places did good rezalas, but the most famous one was Shabir in Kolkata's Chandi Chowk area. I've been back to Shabir a... Continue Reading →
The Well Fed Bong 