My Bombay food reports are done—see here for last week’s street/casual food round-up—but I still have quite a few to go from the subsequent five weeks we spent in Seoul. From Seoul we then went to Delhi for 12 days before returning to Minnesota this Wednesday. We didn’t eat out so very much in Delhi but I’m going to intersperse reports of those meals among the Seoul ones. First up, is a report on a lunch we ate at Mizo Diner in Humayunpur. In the unlikely event that you’ve been tracking my Delhi reports over the years, you’ll know that the North Eastern restaurant hub in Humayunpur in South Delhi has become one of my absolute favourite places to eat at in Delhi. Indeed, I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the city with such concentrated quality, regardless of cuisine. Our lunch at Mizo Diner only confirmed this view. I would go so far as to say that it might be the best of the meals we’ve eaten in Humayunpur, which is to say, it was very good indeed. It was also my favourite of our meals out on this Delhi trip, and the other places we ate at included some of our very favourite restaurants in the city. Here are the details.

As I am the furthest thing from an expert in any of the cuisines of North East India, leave alone Mizo cuisine, I am not going to pretend to greater knowledge or authority than I have. There is not a whole lot of writing available on the cuisine; at least not that I am aware of. Hoihnu Hauzel’s The Essential North-East Cookbook [affiliate link] is a good place to start for a primer on the foodways of the broader North East, but it doesn’t really go into much depth into any of the individual cuisines. Though I do recommend the book highly to anyone interested in a wider understanding of Indian cuisines, you may find this academic overview  to be a better introduction to Mizo cuisine in particular. It’s quite readable and places Mizo food practices in historical and socio-political context.

A few salient features of Mizo food mentioned in that article that will be amply illustrated by a visit to Mizo Diner: an emphasis on fresh vegetables and herbs; the strong presence of meat, especially pork (in Mizoram beef is a staple; in Delhi buffalo meat/buff is substituted for it); an emphasis on offal; a lack of spices such as cumin, coriander etc. that are staples of Indian cuisines outside the North East; the strong presence of hot chillies; the use of smoked and femented ingredients; an emphasis on boiling rather than frying/cooking in oil; and an emphasis on rice. Most of these things were featured in the dishes we ate at Mizo Diner.

The restaurant, by the way, has been around since 2014, which makes it one of the oldest North East restaurants in Delhi. I am not sure if the ownership has remained unchanged or whether the interior and the menu have undergone much change but I can tell you that the restaurant now is a small but very attractive space (as indeed many of the North East restaurants in Delhi are). Blond wood chairs and tables contrast nicely with walls that are painted blue and adorned with striking murals. The menu is laid out without much thought to explaining things to non-Mizo diners but if you ask your server for help/advice, you will receive it. We asked for advice and put together a very good meal from the recommendations.

We were a party of three omnivorous adults and got I think a pretty representative slice of the menu. What did we eat? The first dishes to show up were the Tauh, the Bawkbawn Leh Hmarcha Rawt, the Vawk Lu Bawl, and the Pork with Dawl Rep, . Tauh is a cabbage salad with peanuts that is, I believe, a Burmese dish in orig, in—keep in mind that Mizoram shares a longer border with Myanmar than it does with any Indian state. The Tauh was very reminiscent of a number of similar salads from South East Asian cuisines and was very good indeed. So was the Bawkbawn Leh Hmarcha Rawt, which was essentially charred and peeled eggplant that had been pounded with chillies etc. It looks a lot like mashed eggplant dishes (or bhortas) from other parts of India—including Assam—but has a brighter, less muddled flavour than most of those. I really liked it as well, especially mixed in with steamed rice. There was another hot, red salsa-like dish of chopped veg that was on the table—I’m not sure what it came with.

Both pork dishes were excellent as well. The Vawk Lu Bawl features pig head that has been slow cooked till tender and then chopped and tossed with onions, chillies etc. If you like pig head, as we do, you will love this. The Pork with Dawl Rep, looks like a pork curry. It features big chunks of pork in a rich, smoky gravy that is given depth by the use of dried taro leaves. While we were working on these dishes the two others we’d ordered arrived. Momos are not really a traditional Mizo dish but have become a staple all over the North East—as indeed they’ve become all over the rest of India as well. Done with pork here, the flavour of the filling was great but, alas, the wrappers fell apart at the slightest touch. No complaints. however, about the Sanpiau. This is on the broad congee continuum and it was just excellent. It comes with a choice of shredded pork, buff or chicken. We took the recommendation to get it with buff. We also took the recommendation to get it with a small portion of fried pork skin on the side. I’m really glad we did as the crisp skin as a garnish took the dish over the top.

For a look at the restaurant and what we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it cost, for a few more thoughts on the restaurant, and to see what’s coming next on the food front.

Oh yes, I had a glass of Zu, the fermented Mizo “rice beer”. It’s not listed on the menu but if you ask for it you will get it. I’m very glad I did as it was a good antidote to the strong heat brought by a number of the dishes. Price? All of the above came to Rs. 1130 before tip. This is less than $14. You don’t need me to tell you that this is a screaming deal for the quality and quantity.

Well, as you can tell, I really loved this meal. Of course, I cannot tell you how the food here may differ from that back in Mizoram. Ingredient availability is obviously not the same in Delhi and it’s possible there are other concessions to the North Indian palate. If you can speak to this in any informed way, please do write in below. Regardless, odds are very good that on my next trip to Delhi (which might be a solo trip in early December) I will be back to try more of their menu. I’ll also hope to get to one of the other Mizo restaurants in Humayunpur, Lushai Beanery.

Next up on the blog, however, will be another report from Seoul, this one from another market visit, albeit one unlike all the others we did. That’ll go up tomorrow. Probably.