The Well-Fed Bong

Though burdened by a heavyweight title (which, as you will see, positively sings with relevance) this is really about a tiny but very promising burger joint. I must say though, that I walked in not knowing anything about the place except that it had a cool blue sign, Andy Warhol posters on the walls and a very cosy ambience about its twelve seats. It looked like those tiny neighbourhood hippy-owned cafes that so dotted the cool streets of New York, and seemed the perfect place for cozying up to Sunanda over coffee. The unusual blue sign hid, of all things, a burger joint called Gostana. In minutes, I was confronted by whole wheat lamb burger (which the menu cheekily informed me was their take on the keema pao). As it turns out, it was quite good - and indeed closer to the keema pao than the gourmet classics the Americans are so fond of. Of course, this is grown up keema pao – a nice, soft, crumbly wholewheat pao considerably wider than your local pao-wallah encashing a nicely fo...

Delhi NCR used to be the only place you could get your fill of the Great Kabab Factory, but its now in our very own backyard (Ok, the people at Powai get hurt of you say backyard, but well …) so of course I went. Twice. To the factory. Its official - The Great Kabab Factory is now in the back…well Powai. Right on the main promenade a sneexe away from the DMart. Unlimited kababs from a limited menu, attached to some dal, vegetables and biriyani all at one price -the concept is novel enough that the hostess has to explain it to each person who walks in, and some walk out. Here’s what my two visits yielded as a review. First, the opinion on the kababs. I must say that I’ve dined a few times at this place in Gurgaon, and I’ve always thought the place was great on ambience and merely good on food. That impression remains; this is not tunde kabab with mastercard accepted. Its good kababs, but not the world’s best. The packaging is good, and because they change their kababs every day (...

It feels to good to finally have a sequel out. In the previous post about the lanes of old Delhi and the fabled makkhan, I talked about being thrilled with the discovery of makkhan at Haus Kazi Chowk, but as it turns out, I was at the wrong place. Yes, it sported a few makkhan sellers but where the hordes were gathered was not far away. Ten minutes of walking later, as I neared the Chandni Chowk end of Nayi Sadak (which is not really new and barely recognisable as a sadak) the makkhan sellers multiplied till there was one every few feet! I counted no less than eight, all easily recognized by that characteristic white and yellow dome of foam.   The interesting part is, they all claim to have been there for at least a decade! Given all the discussion on the Internet about how hard they were to find, I think people were just looking for them at the wrong place. I tried a helping from multiple sellers, and I must say some are a little better than others. Airier, more aroma of s...

The last time I walked the entrails of Delhi’s old city, I came across raw potato chaat, beef biriyani with pickle and the fabled makkhan , but also something else that I only discovered later to be quite a find. That last time, my pocket was full of fresh, atm-expelled five hundred rupee notes which when hunting for street food is a disturbing proposition. I was therefore looking for a way to buy just below a hundred rupees worth of something, so that it would lead to oodles of change. At eight in the evening, there wasn’t that much open in Bazaar Sitaram, but one store displayed stacks of vadis and a friendly shopkeeper willing to give directions, so I bought some eighty rupees worth. Those, I discovered a week later when one of them hit my tongue, was the discovery of the journey. Forget the sheermals and raw aloochaat – this was the best vadi I’d ever had, and frankly one of the best foods I’ve ever bought by accident. A few weeks later, finding myself near the metro line in Delh...