Ahmed Ashfaq is a dentist with a sweet tooth. Known as Dr Foodie, he makes videos that leave people in splits by breaking down stylish foods with complicated names, in Dakhani. When presented with the opportunity to quit his full-time profession as a dentist, he didn’t think twice he would finally have the time to explore his favourite food hangouts. He was not blogging his food back then, in 2019. He says, “I only had an Instagram account, where I was posting things whenever I could. My sister introduced me to food blogging. She suggested that I should at least post food pictures on Instagram consistently.” He still practises dentistry as a consultant..
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Three years later, Dr Foodie has 170kfollowers on Instagram. With no regrets for taking that long to reach that number, “Slow and steady wins the race,” he quips.
He reveals, “It was mostly friends and family who liked my Ig posts in the beginning. I wasn’t looking at anything beyond checking out food places more often. One thing led to the other. Before reels, I would post videos in the IGTV format. For one such video, my audio subscription got over. That was about the fancy presentation of everyday food at a fancy Indian restaurant in a star hotel. With no audio subscription, I decided to try a voice over. Surprisingly, the video went up and I had comments with people appreciating the description. I followed this up with a post of a friend’s wedding video.”
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Ashfaq posts mostly about lesser-known food joints that cater to non-vegetarians as well as dessert places. “Which is why I need to focus on some physical activity to stay fit and enjoy my love for food,” he adds.
Seeing the popularity of the Dakhani VO, Ashfaq started doing more on those lines for his followers. The speed of his speech, description of the food, its presentation and taste make it all ‘like’ worthy.
The biggest challenge of his new parallel profession is eating out with family, Ashfaq says with a laugh. “I am asked not only to decide the place but also the choice of food, with the others saying, ‘we are good with anything you order’. Deciding food for a group of people, especially family, is not an easy task.”
Ashfaq says when choosing which restaurant to post about, he picks those that suit his profile. “I don’t want to completely go off the flow, so picking and choosing becomes a huge task.”