The Well-Fed Bong

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? One of the votes was mine. My first kakori ever was in Delhi, appropriately attached to one of my earliest uses of an expense account. This was the Dum Pukht , ensconced suitably expensively in the Maurya Sheraton. Kakori is not traditionally Delhi food; old Delhi and the Jama Masjid area, chock-a-blok with the smell of cooking meat, will nevertheless leave you completely kakori-less. Hence, a decade later and many non-kakori trips to the capital later, I’m in Delhi and Sunanda gushes at me about how she had a great kakori experience on a midnight forage with her crew. It does not take much for her to convince me to repeat it; that very mi...

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, Kakori enjoys a different kind of name recognition – as the somewhat unexpected flag bearer for Lucknow’s Nawabi cuisine. I say unexpected because till fairly recently, the Kakori was a niche product –  Tunde’s famous galouti or the more ubiquitous shammi kabab usually led Lucknow’s charge against the tandoori invasion. There are traditional galouti vendors everywhere - Delhi, Kolkata in addition to Lucknow - but kakori till recently had never stepped beyond the mango orchards of its namesake hamlet. However, in the last few years, I’ve notice that the not-so-humble Kakori has stolen the march. The Galouti has melted away and even hole-in-the-walls now advertise the ...

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 the royal court. Mulla (who was a scholar and administrator, not a cook) was so famous for this recipe that it became his royal title – he was officially called Mulla Do Piaza . He was said to have invented the recipe in question as a cost-saving measure; apparently the royal kitchen prepared both grated onions and fried onions for use in different dishes, much of which was wasted at the end of the day. I must also mention that though do piaza features in both Lucknawi and Hyderabadi food, Bengali men are particularly fond of claiming culinary excellence at it. The humble onion is omnipresent in food but usually as a sidekick - it is unusual to find the onion as the star, and a double role like thi...

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 and Lucknow-style mutton biriyani (complete with burhani raita and kewra essence). Though its name screams Punjab, it is Lucknow's Kakori Kabab that is given top billling on the menu. The man behind the counter is from Lucknow, and was very enthusiastic when we ordered the Kakori. He even made us sample the biriyani, complete with burhani raita, and showed us the (real, not synthetic) kewra extract that went into it (apparently he puts a little less than normal, because Mumbaikars are not entirely used to the taste). Aroma's (their misspelling, not mine) pretends to be a roadside stall but is actually a counter of the rather aspi...

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 weightless saffron-flavoured foam. We used to have it with pooris, and it was the airiest, most fantastic dessert ever. Its also a dessert of romance; morning dew and moonlight are supposed to play important parts. I've tried a few times over to find Makhan elsewhere, but only UP and Delhi have even heard of it. I stumbled upon this article in the Hindu that talks about the Delhi version, Daulat Ka Chaat , and a few more references, including blog posts in Cooking with Simi and EOiD (who even had a map of where it is available in Delhi). Lucknow apparently calls it Nimish. Pushpesh Pant, the ever-obliging chronicler of all foods Avadhi, has published a recipe for it. Simple, but tedio...

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 of the kabab by itself too) and the mutton biriyani. The first thing to notice is that the menu is a lot smaller than Dhuan, no arabic pretensions here but some Punjabi has nevertheless crept in. A single laminated tablemat-size sheet with dogeared edges suffices for the menu. Seating is pleasant, and there's even an AC section for those who can climb the short but steep stairs that characterize Versova's mezanines. Enough of the ambience - here's my view of the food. They don't have kakori. Gilawatis were great, and in particular the paratha (ulta-tawa lucknow style, the menu insisted) that made up the roll was very nice; thin, beautifully non-greasy and quite edible all on its ow...

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. The one I found through google was Dhuan - where a single blog post by the owner promised the best kakori in Mumbai. Who can ignore such a promise, so there I was, braving the rain a few days ago on my bicycle headed towards Yari Road. It turned out to be a lounge, very hard to find because the name (written in huge three-foot-high letters) is so fancily written that it is difficult to read. However, its conveniently next door to Rice Boat. Dhuan is actually an Arabic sheesha lounge, but it also has a long and substantial food menu. I focused only on the Kabab list - in particular kakori and 'tundey' (named, obviously, after Lucknow-famous Tundey gilawati kabab) and here's th...

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, is hardly in the awesome league it once was. Apparently he's still the consultant there but while it has the recipes and techniques, the place lacks the magic. Ishtiyaque Qureshi hasn't quite disappeared from Mumbai, though. He was always around for catering to celebrity weddings and the hallowed environs of CCI, but for the common man he was nearly invisible. Nearly, but not quite - he's been discovered hiding out in the bylanes of Bandra, running a catering and takeaway service called Kakori Hut on tiny Waroda Road. Luckily the food is as great as ever - oh those kakoris, ah that biriyani... You wont find it unless I help yo...

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 few times over the years, but this time I went to the second-greatest rezala place in Kolkata - New Aaliya on Bentick street, very close to Statesman House - and came out licking my fingers for the next month. Rizala originates from Lucknow (and is even listed in Dastarkhan-e-Avadh by RK Saxena) but seems to have survived in Kolkata in a unique variant (and its not just the spelling that changed); I've never seen quite the same thing in any other city. Though RK Saxena's authoritative Avadhi recipe describes it as a thick white gravy, Rezala - its Kolkata variety - is spicy, thin and just a little sweet. Awadhi Rezala is made with mutton but in Kolkata, the chicken variety i...