Team-BHP - A Guide: Eating out in Delhi/NCR

Quote:

Originally Posted by eq24 (Post 3193428)

I want to try this could you please clarify on the meat used. I don't eat beef. So as long as chicken or mutton should be fine.

Haleem is made with goat meat and be assured not beef. So you can go ahead and order haleem from Pista House who made haleem popular in our country. However, their quality isnt the same as before, there are plenty of other outlets who make a much better haleem in Hyderabad but, unfortunately they arent as big as PH to deliver outside of Hyderabad

Quote:

Originally Posted by mayankk (Post 3193447)

Anyway, is there something like beef biryani? I'm genuinely unaware.

Ofcourse, Beef Biryani is popular with people who eat beef. In Hyderabad, its known as " Kalyani Biryani"

Quote:

Originally Posted by mobike008 (Post 3194045)

Haleem is made with goat meat and be assured not beef.

This year they are selling haleem made of:
1. mutton
2. beef
3. chicken
4. emu
5. fish
6. veg (have no idea what is in it)

The price is a easy way to figure out the contents.
Beef haleem is the cheapest one. Usually costs about Rs 30-40 a plate.

Most of the big names like Pista House, Sarvi, 555 etc do not serve beef haleem.

Quote:

Ofcourse, Beef Biryani is popular with people who eat beef. In Hyderabad, its known as " Kalyani Biryani"

Chennai also uses the same name: Kalyani Biryani.

'Bade ka Biryani' in nizamuddin/old delhi, seems to me to be primarily buffalo meat and not beef. But it is not my place to question, I go only to eat.

Went to Lodhi Garden Restaurant yesterday - expensive place (2k per head for the usual stuff), but definitely the prettiest place to hang around/chill out/date on this side of Qutub Minar. Nice spacious garden seating, with beautiful lights hung up on trees and average (but not bad) food. and quiet with soft music.

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Originally Posted by SILVERWOOD (Post 3193787)

...Beef Biryani...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eddy (Post 3193472)

Of course there is beef biryani, available aplenty in old delhi & batla house areas. :)
Its called "bade ki biryani"

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Originally Posted by manolin (Post 3198916)

'Bade ka Biryani' in nizamuddin/old delhi, seems to me to be primarily buffalo meat and not beef.

In Delhi, a 1994 law (http://www.scribd.com/doc/34451403/T...-Naresh-Kadyan) banned the slaughter of cows, calves, bulls and bullocks – but not buffalo. The 1994 ban appears to restrict Delhi restaurants from serving beef at all – even if the meat has been slaughtered somewhere where it is legal to do so, say Kerala or Australia, since it says that “no person shall have in his possession the flesh of agricultural cattle slaughtered outside Delhi.” That makes it kind of difficult to sell it or cook it! And taste-wise, beef and buffalo meat (sometimes referred to as "Buff" on the menu of certain restaurants) is diffuicult to distinguish either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RS_DEL (Post 3204810)

Just Biryani or other preparations as well - kebabs/stew etc? Any eateries you can recommend preferably in the Hazrat Nizamuddin area or the walled city?

The walled city I am not too familiar with - apart from Karims.

In Nizamuddin, which is a lot closer for me, and is an easy diversion on the way back from office, there are a few favourites -

1) Ap ki khatir - on the main lodhi road facing side, a unmarked shop - will have lots of people sitting in cars parked right outside it and eating away. For Kakori/Gilawati/burra kebabs. See Sab ki Khatir review as well on this thread for similar food, in a better location.

2) Nasir Iqbal - in the main dargah lane. For gravy items - standard all round restaurant, with proper spacious seating.

3) Karims - I prefer this branch to the old delhi branch. Not only does this seem neater, cleaner and spacious, the food seems to me to be better prepared here. Around the corner from Nasir Iqbal. Ask anyone in the dargah lane.

4) Moradabadi biryani - In the food lane just before Ap ki Khatir (and it really can't be classified as any thing else - its a lane with 40 restaurants packed next to each other) walk down around 50m and on the left you will see a restaurant called Moradabad ke Masoor Biryani - thats my favourite for Bade ka biryani. Ask him to get a plate of Bheja masala and nihari, and have them with the biryani - the bheja goes perfectly with it.

5) Ghalib kebab corner - For buff sheekh kebabs and mutton sheekh kebabs with Korma and rotis. This is in the lane which shoots off to the left from the food lane when you just enter it.

Food in the walled city seems to be overhyped.
Every dish follow this pattern
Take a forumula
Double the oil
Then put equal amount of extra dalda or desi ghee
Double the spices
Add a few armpit hairs and sweat
Few dogs peeing on the utensils adds extra favor.
Get a couple of wannabe food-blogger-photographer type of crowd, get something from slimes of India, pepper a few words about family heritage(no need to tell the original cook is long singing with the angels), and voila, you have that magic cook who creates wonders.

In my not so humble opinion, food in most of Delhi is overhyped and overwhelming. Food should be delicate. Right from the time you feel the texture to the smell, to the first delicate flavor on the lips, to the way flavor envelopes your mouth, it has to be a process.

You do not simply add 1kg chilli to overwhelm the senses.
Of course there are food where chilli to burn is important.

For example Andhra bhavan. The food is exceptionally spicy, esp some vegetables they cook. However, chilli is not the only flavor in the food. Every aroma which is important to Andhra Pradesh is there, right from the delicate flavor of herbs, to the burn of the chilli.

The art of cooking has been forgotten. In the name of Mughlai punjabi food is murdered, and so called butter chicken is almost a sweetdish.
Restaurants have forgotten what Rahra means. It means to cook on high heat with continously rapidly attacking the food in a wok. But which restaurant has the time to have cook furiously burning calories for 20 minutes at a stretch.

Even the last bastion of patience, the Nihaari means to add double the oil and cook for half the time.

Haleem has modified to become mutton chops in daal fry. Very few eateries in the Jama Masjid area know whats Haleem and their number id dwindling.

Nowadays, If I want to savor good north Indian/PB food, I have to wait till my punjab trips.
Delhi as a food destination is best left to page 7 of the various local rags, there is no place in your stomach for that contraption :)

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Originally Posted by tsk1979 (Post 3205613)

there is no place in your stomach for that contraption :)

Hahaha Tanveer, age is not on your side for that kind of stomach.

No, I agree with a lot of what you are saying. But then the key is - was it ever any better? When they say Parathewali gali has great parathas - am sure in the early 1900s the standards of hygiene there were not any better.

May be there were lesser people in the world then, but I really doubt that commercial eating spaces were ever of a better standard than we have right now. Dalda, Pamoline, burnt oil - basically you eat what you pay for. When I am being charged Rs.40 for a plate of Bade ka Biryani in the aforementioned nizamuddin, how can I expect them to have cooked it in anything else, or for that meat to be anything but the cheapest rotten leftovers. If I want something cooked well, for example decent haleem, I should be going to Golconda Bowl, in Hauz Khas village and pay Rs.300 for it, not Rs. 50 in old delhi. If at Rs. 50, something still tastes good, then I should judge it at its price level right?

But maybe you are saying something else. That Mughlai food is not mughlai when you cook it the way these guys cook. I always thought nihari is something which is cooked for hours to get that taste. Then I went to a friend's house whose mom made nihari with half an hour's notice. And then I asked - and she said - with pressure cookers, gas stoves, packed spices - it doesn't need to take that long. It may not be the most authentic recipe but surely no one can suggest that the nihari be cooked over an slow wooden fire for authenticity purposes. My belief is that cuisine (Punjabi, Mughali etc.) has adapted, in which ever way it could, and to whichever price point they serve.

[Ps: Andhra Bhawan - in the last two years that I have been in Delhi, I sense a perceptible drop in quality. They are becoming more and more aware that people come there for a cheap large meal with the option of some non-veg, and don't really care for the sambar and rasam and actual spices - and hence the focus of the food has also shifted to the dal and rice. And now there is prawn curry also. But you know what, most probably it is me who has become to used to Andhra Bhawan - and probably they are doing what they have always been doing.]

I agree, the Mughlai food in Delhi is more of Punjabi in texture and taste. Once you substitute Desi Ghee with Dalda/Oil you get a very different taste It may look the same but the taste is not. In most of the cases excess spices and oil are used to mask indifferent raw materials and indifferent cooking.

I recollect that Vir Sanghvi had commented that to get a good Hyderabadi Biryani you have to eat at a some ones home as no commercial establishment gets it right (time?).

Still there are good places in Delhi, provided you are willing to pay outrageous prices. When I make Hyderabadi Biryani at home the ingredients for a Biryani with 3kg of mutton comes to about Rs.1,800/. Add cost of fuel labour and profit and you come up to at least 5,000. Now this will make at the most 10 plates. Add the cost of running a restaurant and you end up with a sum most of us will not pay willingly.

Similarly good parathas with ghee and stuffing will cost over Rs.100 each, while you get them at RS.20-30 at road side joints. So what do you expect them to give you.