Dawn & Al escapades to India - Day 3

We felt a bit fuzzy this morning after polishing off a couple of decent bottles of red that we had brought with us from home (not an easy place to get good wine at a reasonable price).  We decided to take a morning stroll through Connaught place in search of more good book shops and were relieved no end when we came across a coffee shop (Dawn and I are complete coffee junkies and we struggle with India’s love of Nescafe!), revitalized from our double espresso we made our way to Halidrams.Kumar our chef from Calcutta at The Chilli Pickle said this is one of the places we must visit. Haldirams was founded in 1937 by Shivkisan Agrawal, as a retail sweet and namkeen shop in Rajastan and has since gone on to be a global brand as well as having numerous outlets in India for sweets, savoury snacks, quick eats and takeaway.

Halidrams has a feeling of organised chaos. There is an ongoing counter bending around the restaurant, broken down into different sections, ranging from hot food, cold snacks to sweets and take away items. You walk around to see what options are on the board and to sneak a look at what food is being handed over the counters, go to the till with your choice, pay and then back to the counter and wave your ticket order  to make sure you get noticed and then wait for a couple of minutes for your food to be given to you on a plastic tray. As I stood there waiting for our Raj Kachuri, Pao Bhaji and Choley Bature I watched a kitchen full of chefs doing very singular tasks. There was one chef dropping puris into a large frying vessel  and another (whilst leaning on a counter) flipping them over until ready. As we experienced in Dubai there are more staff per head than there would be in Europe. So, back to the food… The Raj Kachori is a large crispy puri filled with cold potato, pieces of dhokla (savoury sponge) soaked in yoghurt, chickpeas, chopped onion and coriander and topped with spiced yoghurt, tamarind sauce, sev noodles, fresh pomegrate seeds and fine beetroot julienne and a sprinkle of chaat. Tasted as good as it looked and definitely a possibility for the menu.

The Pao Bahji was good but not as fresh and flavoursome as ours and the toasted bun was a little oily. The Choley Bature is a full flavoured chick pea curry with large oval freshly cooked puris. The plate was mopped clean!  We couldn’t leave without taking away another box of sweets from their delectable display.

We then went in search of more inspiration for the restaurant and went to the shopping district Sunder Nagar where there are many antique handicraft shops and tucked away in the middle of them all was Mittal Teas, an amazing little tea shop owned by a very gentile Old Indian Man wearing a flat cap. Mittal Teas has an amazing selection of Indian teas and teaware, the owner was really interested in what we are doing at The Chilli Pickle as regards to our tea menu and is very keen to source some different teas from more obscure tea plantations and regions in India. We had a tea tasting of some very fine teas plus a curry leaf tea that was particularly interesting. We will be staying in touch and no doubt be ordering from him to add to our Indian selection of teas.  Dawn and I left Mittal Teas feeling excited at what this chance meeting might add to the restaurant as well as having such a nice fellow as a contact for us in India.

Looking around some handicraft shops both of us were drawn to a 5 ft 30kg wooden watchmen  and new we had to get it. Much haggling, walking away, blah blah blah later we secured a price and arranged a day to pick up.

We were recommended to try the The Great Kebab Factory at the Raddisson Airport. This is where the original restaurant has been since 1998 and gone on to be a very successful franchise all over India and the Middle East. Both being meat lovers, we were really looking forward to this. The menu was a set menu and there was a constant stream of tandoor cooked meats and fish with subtle spicing and experienced in execution. This was followed by a biriyani and 2 dals silver served by our 5 star service which was excellent. Another stand out dish was the first that we were given, a Galouti Kebab.  Mutton finely minced and then pounded with papaya (a natural tenderisor) and spices served with a saffron bread. The kebab was of a soft pate consistency and was very tasty, while eating this I knew I could do something similar served maybe with a crispy Misi Roti and a punchy mint chutney. We had a look around kitchen and although we probed the chef wouldn’t give away any hints about the Galouti Kebab as it was his secret recipe and no-one else in the kitchen was allowed to attempt making the dish. This is common in Indian kitchens and is probably more down to the chef protecting his senior position within the kitchen hierarchy rather than being overly precious about passing on his guarded secrets.

We weren’t so taken with the dessert as this was a selection of saffron Kulfi, Gulab Jaman, Rabri and Jelebi. All would be lovely on their own or in small doses, but the large plate was an intense sweet overload with nothing to cut through. This was one of those meals where we finished feeling like Mr and Mrs Creosote rather than being comfortably sated.
However we are also aware we have been scoffing since arriving!

Day 4 to follow next week.