Khan chacha ko salaam

 I got bored of sitting at home yesterday so I got my beautiful wife to take me around Delhi today. The plan was to see Humayun’s tomb and Safdarjung tomb followed by lunch, the venue for which wasn’t decided in the morning.

So we went to see the Mughal emperors resting place and we came out very much impressed. Not only about the scale of things but also for the way it’s maintained by whichever government organization is doing it. Such places are a very rare exception to the rule so it’s always a pleasant surprise.

Worth a trip, most definitely. Enough said, this isn’t a travel blog.

We left the place for Khan market. As told to me by my navigator/ Delhi historian/ guide (also called wife) Khan market was the posh area of Delhi. The kind of place that was visited by the moneyed in Delhi. Frankly the place looks like Manish market in Mumbai (maybe not that bad) and I wasn’t impressed but there were a lot of international brands. Enough said, this isn’t a travel blog.

For lunch we went to a restaurant called Khan chacha which is in the Khan market itself.

You walk in and are greeted by a wall full of reports in the newspapers about the restaurant. Then by another wall full of photos of famous people who have visited them. There were also a lot of certificates from different websites which give such certificates. Good beginning.

The menu is a simple two page affair, not too much to confuse you. We started with Chicken Seekh kabab, Chicken tikka and Tropicana juice.

Both the starters were awesome, the chicken tikka was cooked just right with the edges of the flesh charred just enough to give you that additional texture when chomping on it. The seekh kabab meanwhile was marinated to perfection and then cooked brilliantly to create rolls of flesh that melt in the mouth and leave you wanting for more when the plate is licked clean.

This was followed by chicked seekh roll and chicken biryani. 

The roll wasn’t great. It’s like when Mallika Sherawat wears too many clothes, it just doesn’t feel right. So we did the best thing possible : got rid of the roti and cleaned up the seekh kabab. The chicken biryani was good too, we both loved the fragrant rice and the mellow spicing which made the biryani just perfect but I believe the chicken pieces themselves could have been better (nit-picking here) By this time, my stomach was nearly full so I could be a snob and find such small problems.

All in all, a satisfying meal. It was a tad too expensive by normal Delhi standard but it was a meal fit for Delhi and was better than expected.  I will be going there again whenever I get a chance.

In the night, I lose control

Today was a lazy morning spent talking, reading, sleeping and we left the house in the evening to go to DilliHaat. It’s a place of culture and food, a central location in South Delhi. It’s like all places promoted by the government, artificial and jaded, but then it’s about as close that you can get to re-creating something.

They had a handloom exhibition, where as usual everything was over-priced. We did some window-shopping and then met some friends and spent an evening chatting over momos, sev-puri, kutchi-dabeli, chai and pineapple (organically grown in North-east India)

The food was ok, nothing great, but the conversation was badhiya and it was an evening well spent.

Back home and we needed to go to the chemist nearby for picking up some dispirin. As chance would have it, we saw an aaloo tikki waala on the way. When an opportunity like this comes up it’s difficult to pass it up,  especially when food is main agenda for the trip.

And as I mentioned in my last post, the taste definitely comes from the person who makes it. One look at the guy and my brain did a somersault before I convinced myself that I need to be more adventurous if I am to go ahead with my plan.

So we ordered one, and the guy started at it with gusto. The tikki which was created with love and fried till kingdom come was mashed with utter ferociousness, some papdi added on top, before it was topped with a little bit of imli chutney (bhaiyya meetha kam daalna) and generous amount of dahi and green chutney (bhaiyaa teekha jyaada daalna).

it wasn’t the best aaloo tikki that I have had but there was that mix of sweet and sour which gave an indication of what is to be expected in the days ahead. For that I am glad. And I liked it that I didn’t miss eating the street food on the first day itself…

P.S.:It isn’t street food but I loved the beef that my mum-in-law made for us. Long time since I had it and even longer since I had one that was so tasty.

It starts on Mabelle’s birthday

We started for Delhi on the day my younger niece turned 2. Time flies, I still remember driving down to Hyd from Pune (550kms in 9 hours J) to see her the first time. And now she is two year old with a mind of her own. Oh yeah, she already knows the first 4 days of the week, apart from all the title songs of the soaps on TV. Kids these days!

Anyways since this was a planned trip, we got our tickets well in time and got it cheap so no problems there either. What ticked me off was the packing, and what got my blood fuming was a bag full of sweaters/jackets/warm clothes. Oh the price to pay for mutton seekh kabab from Jawahar!

The travel to the airport and other procedure was nothing to talk about. Since I am writing about food, lets start with what I had at the airport.

We had about two hours to kill and didn’t want to eat the cold food that is served on the flight, so we decide to have some food at the airport. This is the terminal on the first floor, with the gates A1-A8. It’s got a food court with most of the usual suspects that you find at other airports. Idli.com, Dominos, KFC, Cafechino. Curry kitchen. Brightly lit area for seating, clean tables and chairs complete the setting.

We started with the dahi bhalla from Curry Kitchen, it’s absolutely nothing to talk about. I believe that no street food should be consumed when it’s not done on the street. This one just proved my point. It was a sterile version of the ones we have at our paani-puri waala uncle. I wonder if you can really blame them, I find any chaat served in stores to not be any good. It’s as if the pollution from the road adds another dimension to the flavour which can never be matched by these stores. And you can’t under-estimate the taste added by the person mixing every thing with his bare hands: Hands which are used for other purposes when it’s not putting together a tasty sev-puri. So can’t really blame them for this.

But 70Rs for two bhallas and whatever else was on the plate was a bit too much. Air travel ain’t cheap

At the same time I tried some chicken pop-corns from KFC. It’s been a long time since I had anything from KFC and just wanted to try this since I haven’t had this earlier. These are like little sad pieces of bone-less chicken coated with the usual kfc secret mix. The chicken pieces were small, they were chewy and too salty.

Another sad story, didn’t like it at all.

This was followed by pavbhaji from curry kitchen. Again a disappointment and again too expensive at 120Rs.  Let me not go into much more detail there.

So, all in all a good start to the trip. If you are wondering how it’s a good start, here is my argument - Airport food is never good so it was up to expectation.

Let’s hope the rest of the trip is the same J.

searching for khana treasures

It’s been a long time since I spent time writing about anything that I like, I have been more busy creating documents at work (something that increased ten-fold after I moved out of development and into support) I have missed writing for pleasure, except the shorter-than-twitter-limit posts on facebook mainly about movies that I have watched.

After reading one of these posts, one of my friends asked me to write longer prose and suddenly I missed the long blogs that I used to write earlier, about my bike trips.

So on this trip to Delhi I decided to try and take up writing again, just for the fun of it. There are three things that I think I can write about: Riding( I already have one), electronics and food. So the short term plan is to enjoy the food in Delhi (Am I glad my wife is from the capital!!) and post a not-too-short update about that. Lets see how it goes….