A well-known Chandigarh restaurant unsheathes weapons of mass degustation. ♦ At a time when Indian modernism is threatened from every angle—from the demolition of the Hall of Nations at Pragati Maidan, to the final blow to Nehruvian geopolitics with Modi’s mushy embrace of Israel—WD House is an unlikely but welcome throwback to the robust, idealistic …
With the Hyatt Regency opening a nightspot after a decade, Sonal Shah reflects on Djinns, the hotel’s erstwhile party-starting genie. ♦ At any popular nightclub, the most delicate dance is usually the one at the door. Delhi, with its deep class divides and social snobbery is no different: the city’s earliest dance clubs (Tabela at …
Khel Gaon gets a new tapas bar. ♦ Long before “the Village”, there was the Village Restaurant Complex, a clutch of family eateries in Khel Gaon. Established as part of infrastructure for the 1982 Asian Games, the restaurants were run by Connaught Place stalwart Kwality, the Games’ official caterer. As Delhi expanded southward, Chopsticks and …
How pastoral potboilers shot to fame. ♦ The sight of early watermelons, piled up like cannonballs along the roads, had worked its way into my brain, and I found myself searching for recipes that incorporated the ingredient. One thing led to another, and there I was in Gudivada, Andhra Pradesh, watching 106-year-old granny Masthanamma cooking …
YouTube Journeys: Channel Surf ‘N’ Turfing through Rural India Read More »
After drinking vodka in Vladivostok and avoiding horsemeat in Bishkek, the German chef is scouring India for ingredients. ♦ Chef Alex Moser arrived in India on a Saturday last year, to begin cooking up a food plan for Andaz, the new hotel by Hyatt in Delhi’s Aerocity. “On Sunday,” Moser recalls, “my boss took me …
From the Goya Journal’s City Guide series. ♦ [Lucky Peach, our favourite food magazine, is putting out its last issue this month. Although the magazine had a relatively short run of six years, in that short period, it changed food media forever. It showed us that food writing need not necessarily fall under two polar …
Atta Turks! A chef from Istanbul and a Sanjay Leela Bhansali set come together in South Delhi. ♦ Turkish and Hindi have many words in common: for example, duniya, divana, badam, and bulbul. The name of Masjid Moth’s newest kid on the block, pronounced baarish, sounds familiar, however means, not “rain,” but “peaceful.” Bariş’ “Inspired …
Let’s not beat about the bush. It’s amore. ♦ Every food review has its moment of truth. Sometimes, it is a prompt lightning bolt, as blatant as the bling adorning your fellow diners. At other times, it is a tardy thunderclap, arriving along with a lengthy bill that magically transforms a pretty good meal into …
Iraqi emigrée Roaa Sardar delivers kunafa, shawarma and more around Delhi. ♦ The Back(lava) Story The first few times we call Roaa Sardar to ask her about her Arabic food delivery service, we can hear her baby daughter shrieking on the other end. “I’ll call you back!” Roaa says, sounding hassled. “Indian children are too, too, naughty,” the …
“The Trip That Changed the Way I Travel” for National Geographic Traveller India. ♦ Washington DC, USA “Welcome to the Valley of Death,” said my dance classmate grimly. We stood on the stoop of our Kuchipudi teacher’s cookie-cutter clapboard house, contemplating the uniformity of the landscape around us. Once farmland, this developed acreage in Maryland, …
How a 1.5-Generation Immigrant Came to Love the Strip Malls of America Read More »