If you want to prove the phrase ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’, take anyone to Sagar Papaji Ka Dhaba in the heart of Hyderabad, Telangana.
This nondescript building has nothing appealing from the outside, but the whiff of aromatic food will pull you in.
Step inside and you will be surprised at the sea of humanity paying undivided attention to the food. The servers have no time to stand and idle away, and the chairs here get filled almost as soon as the first person gets up.
There is also a general section, for those who don’t care much about where they eat. At some point, the rush to occupy tables will resemble a game of musical chairs.
While some may wonder if it’s the price that draws people here from far-flung places for a Punjabi meal, no matter how inexpensive a place is, unless the food is good, why would anyone bother coming here?
The aroma of chicken basting in a tandoor is the first thing that brings hunger pangs. Right from the moment I stepped in, I could barely do anything other than make notes of the food based on the aromas.
Tandoori chicken kadak , chicken sheekh kebab , mutton tandoori and a paneer starter is what we begin with. The minimal wait seemed like ages as diners wolfed their orders down without losing focus.
Tandoori hits
The aroma from already occupied tables peaked our hunger. So we made the best of whatever was available on the table: an onion paste chutney.
Tangy, a tad bit spicy with the goodness of raw onion, it was delicious. So much so that when the tandoori chicken arrived, perfectly crisp at corners, it was a delightful combination.
The tandoori chicken here is no doubt the best that one can taste, while the chicken seekh kebabs are delightfully succulent. Spice levels are low and the food here has just the right amount of salt.
Papaji gets its name from the customers. Currently run by Kuldeep Singh and son Ashmeet Dua, the reassuringly spick and span kitchen has more than 10 people working at a time.
Sagar Papaji Ka Dhaba was started by Joginder Singh, Kuldeep’s father, in the early 80s. The eatery was a hole-in-the-wall takeaway place, with Ashmeet’s grandmother Harbans Kaur cooking some basic dhaba items, which included tandoori roti , some kebabs and curries.
Financial situations forced Joginder to open this eatery, when he lost his job at the hotel he was working in before. “He was a manager there and since it was a place families frequented, being a Sardar grandfather, he was well-known to all as Papaji. The hotel shut suddenly. Along with grandmother, a small takeaway joint was started. Soon people started calling it Papaji Ka Dhaba, and that’s how it got its name,” says Dua.
Home, sweet home
Dua, unlike his dad, doesn’t just want to manage the place. As a trained chef, he plans to take it to another level, while still keeping the essence of the place and the homely cooked food. It is home-cooked food in the truest sense, because the ladies of the family wake up in the morning and still prepare the masala for the marinades.
“We might be running a business, but we still want our customers to eat really good home-made food. So we don’t rely on commercial taste,” says Kuldeep.
At this eatery, it isn’t just the taste of the food that is heart-touching; the serving and waiting staff have been with them after the place expanded a few months after Papaji started the eatery.
Some of the signature dishes here are the baigan ka bharta , kali dal , kidney keema kaleji , mutton ra ra , mixed veg and palak paneer .
To wash this all down, all one needs is their signature lassi . It is one killer package for the calorie-conscious, but once there, the tantalising aroma of the ghee hitting the coal while basting the tandoori chicken makes it hard for anyone to resist the temptation.
In this weekly column, we take a peek at the histories of some of the country’s most iconic restaurants
