In celebration of offbeat Delhi food
It’s true. We men don’t ask for directions.
A couple months back, having heard one too many recommendations for Sitaram Dewan Chand’s Chhole Bhature, I googled their address, found the rough location on an online map, and went down to Paharganj. I reached the street I was looking for, but despite driving as slowly as the traffic behind me allowed, couldn’t spot the shop. I could’ve stopped and asked just about anyone, but no sir, I’m a man.
Late last week, nine of us EOiD adventurers turned our noses westwards, and headed to Rajouri Garden.
I’d been looking for an excuse to go there for a while now — I kept hearing about the Giani’s ice-cream parlour there, but couldn’t enthuse myself to travel such long distances just for desserts. Then a few days ago the perfect excuse landed in my lap, when Shashank returned raving from an evening of eating out at the J-Block Community Centre at Rajouri Garden.
Shashank wasn’t impressed.
I was gushing on about Roshan di Kulfi of Karol Bagh, a place I’ve been visiting since I was that high, but it left Shashank cold. You see, Shashank runs a jewellery business of his own, with offices in both Karol Bagh and Chandni Chowk, and his appetite only exceeds his turnover. To put it mildly, he knows a thing or two about good food in both places.
So when he told me about his preference for the kulfi at Sitaram Bazaar, my interest was piqued. And when I heard the establishment called itself Duli Chand Naresh Gupta, I knew I just had to try it out.
It must be the age.
I can’t think of any other reason it took me a whole fortnight to figure out why I’d been looking at the world with such a jaundiced eye of late. Life had been toodling along quite nicely, until an EOiD plan in mid-September to visit Haji Noora’s had to be cancelled at the last moment — Ramzaan!
Most unfair, if you ask me, this whole business of fasting for a month, especially on us kafir carnivores. Rank deprivation from sun-up to sun-down for a whole month, without even the compensation of heavenly favours. Grrr.
There are few things more difficult than getting yourself to start going for morning walks in Delhi’s pitiful excuse of a monsoon season. I had been trying to get going for several weeks, on occasion even succeeding in rousing myself in the wee hours of the morning. But I would lose heart when just a step out of the house confirmed that sona inside was infinitely better than sauna outside.
I first read about The Metropolis in a rather eye-catchingly titled Rahul Verma article last year: “Manali in Paharganj”. And when the man himself recommended it as one of the best places for continental food, we wasted no time in organizing an EOiD community expedition to Paharganj.
I have taken several friends to The Metropolis since that first “field trip” in April, and my experiences, though overall positive, have not been quite as unmixed as I would have hoped.
Zero is not India’s greatest contribution to mankind, it’s the Manchurian. What, with all the jeera, dhaniya, and even garam masala it seems right from the heart of the Guangdong province, doesn’t it?
The Nepali kancha cooking chowmein in that pseudo-wok (essentially a kadhai) isn’t all that bad, I’ve realized. I’ve had the ‘real’ Chinese – and no, House of Ming isn’t the absolute Chinese-Chinese — and I’ve had the Indian-Chinese. I’m a sucker for both, but it’s the Indie-Chinese that leaves you with that strong aftertaste of dark soy, chilli and garlic — reminiscent of the yum that was.
Continue reading “Momo’s affair”