Karim's, New Delhi

Mr P had told me that on the show Highway on a Platter on NDTV Good Times, the two hulks had visited Delhi and suggested that Karim's is the place to be for sheek kababs, so Karim's was on my 'to-visit' list.

I ordered a Karim's roll (which had a sheek kabab in it), and along with it, a plate of sheek kababs. Also, I had read somewhere that they serve this sweet pancake type of dish called a sheermal, and so I also had one of those.

Since I'd never had a good sheek kabab anywhere in Bangalore, this was a godsend for me, and I really liked it. The sheek cost 22 each, and I thought was totally worth it. As for the roll, it was the the same sheek rolled into a rumali roti with some pickle and creamy, butterry thingy. The sheermal was a pleasant surprise - to be eaten just like that, it was not too sweet, and neither too bland.

The previous night, a friend of mine who lives in Delhi now, took me to a street vendor in the Chawri Bazaar area (on the Lal Kuan road). For the exact location, you can check this great site that I was told about (unfortunately after I got back from Delhi). After walking for a good ten minutes from the exit of the metro station, we came across this old guy, sitting on the corner of the street, making kababs , and selling them for 4 bucks. That's right, Rs 4 for one of those, and although I couldn't tell the difference in taste between this guy's and the Kareem's kababs, the fact that for Rs 20 I got to eat 5 made me arrive at the conclusion that this guy's was better (and plus, I didn't fall sick after eating his road side ware).

The old man worked his hands like magic, with clockwork precision, and switched skewers that were done with newer ones, all the time adding the minced meat onto the skewers. I was a bit beat in the sweltering Delhi summer heat (even at night the temperature was above 40C) , and so wasn't up to getting the DSLR out and taking better pictures. One thing is for sure, though - if you wanna skip Kareem's, do so, but don't miss this guy. Chacha, keep it up!

Addendum: I just found out that the meat used by the dear old man above is buffalo meat. Now before you throw up or something, apparently buffalo meat is cheaper than chicken and cow meat, and is used on a large scale throughout several kabab/mughlai joints all over Delhi (old Delhi in particular).

Big Chill, New Delhi

My Last night in Delhi, and Neo, his brother Morpheus(?), and a couple of other friends of the fairer sex, both daughters of army officers (Neo himself is the son of an army officer), went out to this place called Big chill, in an area called Khan Market which supposedly has one of the highest property rates in Asia or some jazz like that...basically the real estate value is super high. So after driving from his house to the Khan Market area, we got to the restaurant only to be told we'd have to wait a while to get a table. So we pranced around the place, deciding if we should go to a different restaurant, when suddenly, Neo's phone buzzed - it was the restaurant and they had seats for us. Cool.

Big Chill reminded me of TGIF and Chili's combined together - from the way the decor is inside to the options in the menu (minus the booze), and specifically the prices - boy, one thing's for certain, we can get the same food they serve there for lesser here in Bangalore. In any case, this wasn't Bangalore, it was Delhi, so no comparing. We started with a round of milk shakes and iced teas, and shortly after that, we went in for the main course.

I had a chicken in red wine, served with fetuccine.
I must say this is one of the better chicken dishes I've had, especially since you usually eat pasta with some kind of cheesy sauce (unless you're eating spaghetti with meat sauce). One of the ladies had already had her dinner, and so she settled for a smoked chicken salad which came with sun-dried tomatoes.
It was the first time I popped just sun-dried tomato into my mouth, and along with the vinaigrette, it had a pleasant tangy taste.

Neo went in for a chicken pepper stake,
and going by the speed he got done with it, it's safe to say that he liked what he ate and didn't have anything to complain about.

Morpheus decided to skip dinner (he'd just got betrothed and I guess the realisation of it was hitting home), while the other lady in the group decided to have a fish peri-peri, which was fish in a mustard sauce.
All of agreed that the fish tasted a little too tangy for what could have been a wonderful dish.

For desserts, a Bailey's tiramisu was ordered by the peri-peri girl, and just the one spoon I took was enough to make my eyes nearly pop out - I wasn't prepared for it to be as strong as it was, so driving after eating this could be dicey.
Neo had a blueberry cheesecake, and polished it off neatly.
As for dear old me, I settled for a simple chocolate mousse, which turned out to be a little too choclatey, but when you're in the zone, these minor things usually don't matter.

For the wallet factor, well, let's put it this way - the chicken in red wine with fetuccine was almost 400 bucks, and at the end of the meal, since we split, we all paid around 500-600 each, which was slightly on the higher side, since we only had 3 main courses, a salad, 3 desserts and 5 shakes (the shakes were around the 200 mark). Let's face, I can get similar and equally good if not better food at Bangalore Bistro for less, and the service wasn't all that great either, so although the food tasted good, the price wasn't entirely justifiable.


Big Chill, 68A, Khan Market, New Delhi

The All American Diner, New Delhi

I'd been to New Delhi from the 26th of June to the 1st of July to attend a friend's wedding there. I also got a chance to meet up with a couple of old school buddies whom I never met after we passed out of school. They'd moved to Delhi after graduating (they aren't engineers, so we didn't meet much during the under grad years). So I went with one of them (although I wish to call him by a name we used to call him back in school, since he was such a great host, I'll stick to his alter ego name, Neo) for breakfast to this place called the All American Diner, nestled nicely inside the India Habitat Centre on Lodhi Road. This place has an all you can eat breakfast until 10:45 AM for 395 + tax and we were preparing our stomachs for that.

Upon reaching the place, we were told there wasn't place and we had to wait, and so we waited. We waited and waited and when our names were called out, the time showed 10:50 by my watch. Dang! Missed it by a whisker. And so Neo and I set about sifting through the menu in solemn silence, disappointed at the near miss.

The place was nice, a retro look with the classical diner feel. The music kept getting stuck (I'm guessing the computer through which they were playing it was overloaded, just like the kitchen). I decided to go in for a Pierre's french toast, which came with French toast (duh!), choice of bacon or sausages and scrambled eggs,
and also a Sunset skillet comprising of a couple of pancakes, pork sausages, bacon, and eggs.
Neo decided to go in for a Santa Fe skillet, which comprised of toast, sausages and eggs,
and a pancake stack with butter.
Of course the usual suspects accompanying pancakes were there: Maple, orange and strawberry syrup.

Service was a little awry since they had their hands full on a Sunday morning - that, or our waiter was waiting too many tables as they were probably understaffed - I don't know. But he took a while to get water, to a while to get the drink for the couple seated close by - OK, lemme stop taking their case now. I was a tourist there, and I don't know what are the funda about this place. I loved the food, although the Egg Factory provides an equally sumptuous breakfast for half the cost (minus the meat and pancakes though). Maybe I should ask Yogesh to introduce pancakes and maple syrup on the menu as well.

Wallet Factor: The Sunrise skillet cost 225, while the Santa Fe skillet was 185, the Pierre's toast was 190 and the pancake stack was 110, so with taxes, it amounted to 870 (thanks to Neo for giving me the breakup)

The All American Diner, Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi