I ate at Mizo Diner for the first time in March 2024 and I had it on my list of my favourite meals of the year. I’d hoped to get back there during my solo trip to Delhi last December but it didn’t end up happening. And it didn’t happen on my solo trip this March either. But in July I finally made it back again. I don’t think it will end up on my list of best meals of 2025—there’s a bit too much competition in the casual/affordable category from our Japan trip—but it was a very good meal again. Back in 2024 the missus and I had met an old friend there. This time we took the boys along with us, being more confident a year and a half later that their palates had expanded enough for them to enjoy what for them are the more unfamiliar flavours of North East Indian food. It was a good bet: they loved it too. Herewith the details.
We arrived in Humayunpur during a spot of heavy rain to find the restaurant less busy than on our previous visit. More people showed up in the next hour but weekday lunch is definitely not the busiest time at Mizo Diner. We grabbed a four-top near the door and got down quickly to business. The menu is unchanged from 2024. As much as we’d loved that meal, we wanted to try more dishes—and so we only ended up with two repeat orders.
(For more on Mizo food more generally, please see my previous review.)
What did we get? We started with two dry-fried dishes: the Pork with Chilli and the Chicken Liver and Gizzard Dry Fry. Both were sauteed with onions and both were excellent—we made them disappear before the next round of dishes arrived. In the next round were one of my favourite dishes from that 2024 meal—the Pork with Dawl Rep—and two new dishes: Chow Satui Leh with Chicken and Pork Fried Rice. The pork with dawl rep (dried taro leaves) was dynamite again. The chow satui leh is a mild noodle soup and was very tasty as well. And the pork fried rice was very good too—Chinese-style dishes are very popular in the North East as they are elsewhere in India, though in this case geography has something to do with it too.
That’s a lot of food for four people, you’re thinking, and you’re not wrong. But we had two more dishes. At our first meal we had loved the sanpiau—a rice porridge a la congee that we had gotten with buff (water buffalo meat) and a topping of crisp pork skin. On this occasion we got the other rice porridge dish, Sawchiar and got it with buff as well. The major difference is that while sanpiau is rice porridge with meat mixed in (and atop it), sawchiar sees the porridge cooked with spices as well. The important similarity is that both are very good indeed at Mizo Diner. The last dish was the second repeat from our 2024 meal: the Bawkbawn Le Hmarcha Rawt or charred and peeled eggplant pounded with chillies etc. This cousin of the Bengali begun pora (and the North Indian bharta) is both extremely hot and extremely good.
The boys had a fresh lime soda each with their meal; the missus and I stuck with water.
For a look at everything we ate, please launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next on the food front.
Service was friendly if not as helpful/explanatory as on our previous visit when one of the proprietors (I think) had been handling our table. The prices, however, are as reasonable as ever. Before tip, the total was Rs. 1764 or a hair under $20. That’s a very good price in Delhi for a meal for four; with the American conversion it’s a complete steal.
By the way, we were paying a little more attention to the decor this time around and noticed a number of hip hop-themed features; including a print of a newspaper/magazine article that declares Mizo Diner the city’s “secret hip hop hangout”. The older boy—who is these days quite into hip hop—was quite taken by this, and in particular by the Operation Doomsday poster (I am happy to say that he is a fan of MF Doom).
Alright, my next report from Delhi will be from the high and mod end of the market. That’ll be in a week. Before that I’ll have another Seoul report or two and a Twin Cities report next Wednesday.