I am convinced that there are primarily two types of people in the world –– no, not believers and agnostics, but those who think that the food of Old Delhi is best eaten in Old Delhi, and those who think it should step out of the walled city. I actually belong to a tiny grey area in between: I love to go to Old Delhi to eat the food there. But I must say I also enjoy attempts to recreate the food and the ambience outside Purani Dilli.
In recent times, several such attempts have been made. Last week, I went to a festival celebrating the food of Old Delhi at The Leela Ambience Convention Hotel in Maharaja Surajmal Road in East Delhi. The festival, on till May 15, is a part of its Grand Trunk Culinary Journey. Different legs of the journey will be feted through the year, ending with a festival of Calcutta food. Right now, the halt is in Delhi.
The hotel, near the Yamuna Sports Complex, is quite a revelation. I went there some months ago for an excellent Thai meal. The Delhi festival is quite an event, too. Chefs Rohit Tokhi and Ashwani have prepared a real feast at its restaurant, called Delhi 32 (that’s the pin code of the area, I am told).
The buffet dinner, for Rs.1232 (before taxes) includes almost everything that Delhi is known for –– from chaat and papri to burrah kababs and biryani, and from bedmi aloo to butter chicken, shahi paneer and shahi tukda. The food celebrates the three dominant streams that have influenced Dilli ka khana –– Muslim, Bania and Punjabi. There is even live qawwali to go with the food.
Actually, it’s quite a nice experience. You are welcomed in with tumblers of iced drinks such as aam panna and sattu. We started with a bowl of chaat, which I thought was very good, evenly balanced between tart and sweet. I wanted small portions of the dishes and tried out a shammi kabab, burrah, fried fish, a flat piece of pasandey and chicken chengazi. The shammi was excellent, crunchy from the outside and wonderfully soft and moist within. The burrah was tender and had been spiced just right. The pasandey didn’t work for me –– it was a bit too bland, I thought. I also tried out the bedmi puri, which is my all time favourite breakfast fare. I was happy to know that it had been inspired by Chawri Bazaar’s Shyam Sweets.
For the mains, I ate some aloo gosht, which was nice, and mutton biryani. What I enjoyed were the intense flavours of the chicken ishtew. The rotis were excellent –– sheermal, khameeri, doodh cheeni roti, besan ki roti and so on. I didn’t venture into the vegetarian area much though I did try out the arbi ka salan, which was nice, and a piece of gobhi lukmi, a fried cauliflower crepe which was superb.
There is a huge vegetarian section, which dishes such as saag, qabuli (rice and channa), katthal key shammi, daal arhar kairi, daal Alamgiri, tadka daal, stuffed potatoes, palak paneer and so on.
The dessert table, again, doffs a cap to all the streams of cuisine. There is shahi tukda, khurchan, rabri falooda, gulab jamun, pistey ki launj and so on. After a long time I had some gosht ka halwa –– yes, you read that right –– and that was superb. Alas, this exotic sweet dish prepared with meat is becoming rarer in Delhi.
As you can see, it was a veritable banquet. I ended with a paan –– the ambience demanded that I did so. And I went back home singing, Yeh hai Dilli, meri jaan.
The writer is a seasoned street food connoisseur
